Links
🔗 Coming in November: 30 Practical Tactics to Decrease Your Anxiety — CJ Chilvers
🔗 Coming in November: 30 Practical Tactics to Decrease Your Anxiety — CJ Chilvers
I’m going to post every day to this blog for the entire month of November on one subject: anxiety. More specifically, I’m going to post 30 practical tactics to decrease your anxiety, one per day. Summaries of these posts will appear in my newsletter.
I’m a big CJ Chilvers fan and this sound like a great thing to watch. I remember Ben Brooks doing something similar (posting to his blog daily) a year or two ago and really great to read and follow. I’ve had a few creative challenge ideas for November and haven’t yet settled on which I’ll take on. At least there are a few days left.
“You see how much time you have,” Gustie Herrigel writes in Zen in The Art of Flower Arrangement, “only when you stop thinking you have none.”
From Ryan Holiday’s newsletter “Daily Dad”
🔗 The Phone Foyer Method — Cal Newport
The Phone Foyer Method
When you get home after work, you put your phone on a table in your foyer near your front door. Then — and this is the important part — you leave it there until you next leave the house.
Simple but effective idea. My wife and I do something similar to this on a table out of the way…But I don’t always stick to it.
🔗 Mu Two | Next Generation 63W Dual USB Type-C Wall Charger - Kickstarter
Mu Two | Next Generation 63W Dual USB Type-C Wall Charger - Kickstarter
Simultaneously charge your devices with the dual USB Type-C ports. Designed with a primary USB C port for the latest Type-C charged laptops, and secondary USB C port for tablets and smartphones.
This is probaby the closest I’ve come to “Shut up and take my money” in a long time. I have a Mu Traveller Duo and it’s fantastic. This seems like the same device for the next generation of devices.
New Ludavico Einaudi Album which is 6 Hours long…Well that’s my work music sorted.
🔗 "Interesting" is the Basis of Blogging - One Man and His Blog
“Interesting” is the Basis of Blogging - One Man and His Blog
One of the stock ideas I use when training journalists to blog is that the basic currency of the blog is the thought “that’s interesting”. Everything you post to a blog is something you find interesting and want to share with others, be it a link, an article, a photo or a video.
@adders shared this post of his yesterday and it speaks a lot to me. I have tried to cultivate a habit of being interested and then curious to continue asking questions. Sometimes I inhabit these traits better than others and, as you might expect, I always write and publish more when I do.
I also find that my writing is of a higher quality when I live these traits. After all, if you aren’t curious then you might stop after answering the first question. But when you are curious, you can’t help but carry on asking questions and discovering more.
Dale Carnegie said
To be interesting, be interested.
and I agree.
Stay curious.
Song link have made some iOS shortcuts! This is great! Now I just need to test them out.
🔗 Addicted to Screens? That’s Really a You Problem - New York Times (I have thoughts)
🔗 Addicted to Screens? That’s Really a You Problem - New York Times
In his original manual for building enthralling smartphone apps, Mr. Eyal laid out the tricks “to subtly encourage customer behavior” and “bring users back again and again.” He toured tech companies speaking about the Hook Model, his four-step plan to grab and keep people with enticements like variable rewards, or pleasures that come at unpredictable intervals. … “It’s disrespectful for people who have the pathology of addiction to say, ‘Oh, we all have this disease,’” he said. “No, we don’t.”
His basic premise is that even if things are addictive we have agency and can resist. That’s a good thing to point out but its the secondary part I find hard to stomach. He tells companies how to create their apps to encourage addictive behaviour and then chastises people for not realising this and doing something about it. It’s classic Silicon Valley bubble where everyone knows these things but why would someone think they should disable notifications when they register for a new app, or have someone see their screen to shame them into not using a social media site.
Imagine if there was a new chocolate bar on the market and it was tasty and so a hit. Then a consultant tells them to add addictive drugs to their chocolate bar (which they do) then they add more and more and more. Now the consultant tells people it’s their fault that they didn’t know that the chocolate bar would have drugs added, it’s not the chocolar bar companies fault and they should join narcotics anonomous like all the sensible people.
That’s what this sounds like to me.
On the topic of cool Photography stuff. Hoxton Mini Press have some excellent looking new photobooks including…
There’s a new Magnum photo course on Storytelling with Alec Soth. Probably one of my favourite photographers…I totally don’t need a new photo course…but Alec Soth.
Stoop Version 2: Subscribe to YouTube Channels
Stoop version 2: Subscribe to YouTube channels
Stoop 2 is now available in both the App Store and Google Play Store. It brings lots of little improvements over the first version and one big one: you can now subscribe to YouTube Channels and have them delivered right to your Stoop where they’ll be neatly organized, alongside your newsletters.
Part of me thinks this is a great addition…and the other part of me thinks “great, you just reinvented RSS”
🔗Opinion - To Be a Genius, Think Like a 94-Year-Old - The New York Times
Thanks to Austin Kleon for sharing this in this week’s newsletter.
How We Judge Others is How We Judge Ourselves - Mark Manson
The yardstick we use for ourselves is the yardstick we use for the world.
There’s a lot of truth in this. It’s also why hypocrisy and “not true Scotsman” situations are so common.
🔗 Sweet Potato & Black Bean Shepherds Pie Recipe · Deliciously Ella
My wife and I just tried this recipe and it was really good…plus vegan (we’re not vegans but are reducing the meat we eat).
Dynamic Wallpaper club
Looking for dynamic wallpapers for MacOS? This is the place. (Some of the firewatch ones are great)
When you discover song.link had an alpha api.
It feels like a Nick Drake kind of morning.
we’ve reached peak marketing optimisation 🔗
Marketing Effectiveness cartoon - Marketoonist - Tom Fishburne
Cheryl Calverley, CMO at UK mattress brand Eve Sleep recently observed:
“We’ve reached peak performance optimization. Everyone has piled in and done the easy stuff in digital marketing … so we come back round in a circle. The only way to stand out from the crowd is creative.”
Interesting point and one that I suspect many in the creative department (waves hand) will like more than those in performance.
A Recession Is Coming (Eventually). Here’s Where You’ll See It First. - The New York Times 🔗
A Recession Is Coming (Eventually). Here’s Where You’ll See It First. - The New York Times
…another recession will come eventually. Fortunately, economic expansions, unlike coin-flip streaks, usually provide some hints about when they are nearing their end — if you know where to look. Below is a guide to some of the indicators that have historically done the best job of sounding the alarm.
One caveat: Economists are notoriously terrible at forecasting recessions, especially more than a few months in advance. In fact, it’s possible (though unlikely) that a recession has already begun, and we just don’t know it yet.
Five pretty interesting indicators but I do enjoy the caveat at the beginning of the article.
A bit later than usual but this week’s newsletter is out and I made a change.