The iOS platform has been hurting for a good address book app and now with Cardhop it finally has one. I’ve posted before about the lack of usable contact management apps for iOS. To some extent you were stuck between Apple’s underwhelming Contacts app or FullContact. FullContact is a very nice contact management app with…
The orthopedist who diagnosed my osteoarthritis told me that he couldn’t recommend a physical therapy treatment because, in his experience, it was just as likely to make my condition worse. I got an opinion from a second orthopedist who didn’t have the same hesitation. This week two studies provide more evidence that vigorous exercise can…
I want to write faster. I want to write better. But I struggle with research in a way that’s more like hoarding than sense-making. The zettelkasten method of note-taking has given me a simple way to organize my research and bring a lot more clarity to the information I’ve collected. But I still get bogged…
I’ve never been very disciplined about tagging notes or documents. But as I’m working on improving my zettelkasten knowledge base I decided to give tagging another go. So I quickly came up with a list of logical keywords and added an octothorp (#) to make them into hashtags because…why not? Every major social media platform…
Photo by Pete Birkinshaw from Manchester, UK – Data Storage Device, CC BY 2.0, Link I stumbled across the zettelkasten note taking process while watching Beck Tench’s helpful Tinderbox series. Beck uses Tinderbox software to create a hyper-organized system of notes for her Ph.D. studies in contemplative practice and information science. Her method of managing these…
A recent study published by the European Society of Cardiology and cited by NBC News has people looking at toasted brie as if it might be the next fountain of youth. People are especially excited about this passage from the NBC report: “But most other dairy products, especially cheese and yogurt, were found to protect…
In my earlier post I mentioned that I recently took a personal productivity retreat, inspired by a podcast featuring Mike Schimitz. One of the things Mike talked about was organizing his time around a “12 week year.” This idea immediately clicked with me. A year is a timeframe that I use to view my accomplishments…
Last weekend I took some time away from my to-do list to contemplate a series of questions that had the potential to rock my world. I learned about the “Three Questions Spirit Quest” on a recent episode of the Free Agents podcast with David Sparks and Mike Schmitz. Mike shared how he periodically clears his…
When I think of architecture and urban design I think of people who are working together to create pleasing spaces that promote all kinds of social interaction. Tongva Park in Santa Monica is a fairly small piece of land that feels expansive because of the way its interconnected walkways hide and reveal new areas to…
I wrote this article on the 101 freeway during the morning rush hour. To be completely honest I did some light editing and added links afterwards, but the bulk of the material was drafted while I was behind the wheel. Before I go too far, there are some risks to multitasking while driving even when…
It’s easy to neglect your personal contacts on your Mac. For starters your phone is probably where you are most likely to reach out to people – make calls, write text messages, set appointments, even fire off an email. This is why I said in a previous post that it’s important to keep your iPhone’s…
I recently got into heated argument with Siri about whether or not I had entered an important contact’s phone number into my Contacts app – the native address book on the iPhone. It turned out that Siri was right (I hadn’t entered the number) but I couldn’t prove it to myself until I was off…
Search the App Store for “To Do” and you get 249 hits. Do the same search for “Address Book” and you get 43 results…and half of those are utilities for cleaning up your contacts, not apps for managing contacts. This is a little weird seeing that your “Rolodex” is supposed to be the most valuable…
Three days in the saddle, you know my body hurt.. – Me and My Uncle, The Grateful Dead My motorcycle is cooling in the garage, windscreen marbled with a smorgasbord of bug guts. The summit conference I am returning from is fading away like Interstate 40 in my rearview mirror. The three aluminum cases I…
The other morning I had a mind-blowing revelation – this breaking news that has people freaking out – it’s all bullshit. There’s a bigger problem facing us and we don’t even see it. The insight came to me while I was headed for work southbound on the 101 freeway, taking a break from the headlines…
