A few years ago Apple introduced an exciting new feature to their mobile operating system iOS: Focus Modes. This feature allows you to alter your device’s setup, notifications and so on, in order to suit what kind of work, what kind of ‘zone’ you are in. The thing is, this feature was built to mitigate … More Old School Focus Modes: Your environment
I remember the moment I realised that the universe must be spherical. Upon exiting the British Museum, as I did on this bright day in February, amid the crush of disinterested tourists, one is funnelled, bustled, hustled, squeezed down the toothpaste tube of Great Russell Street, bracing yourself for the ram of the London taxi … More The Curious Considerations of Flavius Finch: 1. The Universe is Spherical
As I sit here going through a backlog of over 4,000 old notes I’ve accumulated across a multitude of different apps, to try to carve sense and order out of them, in order to corral them into just one app, I feel like I’m fighting the very chaos of the cosmos. That may be a … More Strive for Simplicity
Old tower of bones,old frosty oak, you,who twists and turns your way to the sky.Your knuckles and elbows and knees I descry.They’re all knobbled,old frosty oak,knobbled and knocked,all covered in mossthen covered in frost.What will you, bone tower,what will you say,who guards and glowersall gaunt on the way? ‘My bones are the home of the … More Old Tower of Bones (A Poem)
I’ve just finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. I may be on a bit of a kick about focus, flow and generally how we think, at the moment – up next in my book pile are Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul. It is going to be difficult … More Your attention has been stolen and you should be angry about it
Let me take you back to 2014 Nerd Ben, to show you what using technology was like in its heyday. (Yes, I called 2014 technology’s heyday. Get over it.) 2014 Ben was knuckling down with a few key apps to get his world really tuned up and humming. Emails were getting filed and filtered in … More Tech Tools and Thinking – 2014 vs. 2024
Careless Refuse, Unwanted, Forgotten, Trash.Card Receipts, Unopened Fidget Trinkets.Curated Rubbish Upbraids Forgotten Tenancies.Clutter Residing Under Fridges. Tyrrany.Codified Relationship UnFunctioning. Tiredness.Clothes. Regrettable Undies. Feathers. Tawdry.Crude, Rude, Undesirable Fluffy Trash.
What is this fascination with looking into the inner workings of people’s private lives that has arisen in the social media age? The private belongs to the past; privacy no longer has primacy, is no longer held in security; our privacy is now the plaything of private companies, made publicly available for all the world … More The end of privacy 📱
I ‘ve just spent maybe a month trying to tune up and craft digital systems to help me think and plan and get my work done. If I could just get the right combination of systems – calendars, notes, to-dos etc., – all to work together seamlessly to show me what I need, when I … More Fooled by the new and shiny. Again.
Respond to the latest and loudest. Constantly be distracted by notifications. Allow interruptions. Leave things half finished. Be stressed. Say yes to everything. End every day burnt out and with a sense of how much of a mountain is still left on your many spinning plates. Make no progress long term. Look back with regret … More Two ways to work
