The promise of digital technologies is the ultimate kind of ‘distributed cognition’ – the ability to use different digital environments in order to help our thinking be streamlined – focused on one thing or another: on writing a report, or planning a project, or communicating with co-workers or loved ones. The fact is, though, that … More The Digital Era: Distributed vs. Fragmented Cognition
Some days I have to remind myself, ‘There’s always tomorrow.’ Those days when I’m cranky and sleepy and worn ragged and I just have to slow down and not take myself too seriously; I just have to make a list and do the essential things, enjoy the little things, chill out, give thanks, read a … More Tomorrow
I’ve been running into a mantra that emerges from the forest leaves of my everyday experience like an exotic bird, a flash of colour that then darts again out of view, only to reappear once more later on in a clearing, and again in the fronds of a bush, then again flashing across the sky … More Show, Don’t Tell
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
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
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.
Let me tell you about my son. My son who wouldn’t put his coat on outside even though it was minus 3 celsius this morning. (Eventually I managed to persuade him to be carried so that I could keep him vaguely warm with my body heat.) My son who had to be carried from the … More Don’t Rush Me
