I recently found out that a YouTube channel stole one of my videos and created an AI short form version. It's bizarre to hear an AI voiceover use my own words to warn about the dangers of becoming dependent on digital technology. One of the main themes of my work is that every technology comes with a set of tradeoffs, most of them hidden by their nature or intentionally by marketers. Given the irony of this particular thief's dependence on AI, I think it's a good moment to talk about the...
11 days ago • 3 min read
Yesterday, I reached 10k subscribers on my YouTube channel, almost exactly two years after posting my first video. I know it was two years ago to the week because I wrote about in my first diary. "Today I held up my promise and finally made a YouTube video...Sometimes you just have to say 'fuck it' and do things when you're not fully ready." - Diary entry from 4/17/24 Up to that day, I had put off starting my YouTube channel to try my hand at writing on social media because I didn't know how...
18 days ago • 2 min read
The apex predator of creative ideas is the delete key. Before a sentence can even fully form, the delete key sends thousands of ideas back to nonexistence as heartlessly as a shark eats its prey. Before writing the best-selling book on creativity Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon found his artistic spirit suffocating under the weight of the delete key. He felt a disconnection from his work, like it was all abstract and stuck in a digital ether he couldn't touch. He found the computer was...
25 days ago • 3 min read
In July of 1726, a young Benjamin Franklin set sail from London on an 11-week voyage to make a fresh start in Philadelphia. Up this point he had been living a "somewhat confused" life led more by impulse than thoughtful intention. This was a man who ran away from home at 17-years old, had been duped by the Governor of Philadelphia to travel to London on a false business venture, and made the poor decision of loaning money to a financially struggling friend before seducing that same man's...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
It's been said that writing is thinking on paper, but what does that actually mean and how does it look in practice? In this newsletter I'm going to share the time-tested practice of keeping a waste book and how it can benefit your thinking process. I'm also going to share how I use scratch paper and $1 notebooks to clarify my ideas so you can see how thinking on the page looks in practice. To see just how effective waste books can be, we can look back to one of the greatest minds that ever...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
A few weeks ago I sent out my one-year review of the Bullet Journal method where I shared my inability to make an analog calendar system work. The Future Log–the section in a bullet journal dedicated to storing future events–was largely ignored by me over the last year because I didn't trust that I would remember to look there. Instead, I continued to use Google Calendar for all of my calendar needs because I trusted the app would remind me when something important was coming up. But this was...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
As my 30-day digital declutter comes to an end I've been thinking a lot about how I want to bring back certain digital technologies into my life in a way that supports my values. As silly and harmless as it may sound, podcasts are my Achilles heel. I can listen to interesting and smart people talk for hours. Before this challenge I would listen to 2-3 hours of podcast every day while doing other activites, most of which I would find through a YouTube algorithm. While podcasts are relatively...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
One year ago I started Bullet Journaling as a 30-day experiment and I haven’t missed a day since. It’s become a daily ritual that’s drastically altered my relationship with myself and the digital tools that I use every day. Today I’m sharing my honest take on The Bullet Journal Method, what I think its greatest strengths are, and where it falls short in practice. If you've been thinking about starting a Bullet Journal then this newsletter will help you finally decide if it's right for you. If...
about 2 months ago • 11 min read
Every Monday morning my wife and I take our dog for a walk to a local coffee shop where we'll sip lattes and cold brews while writing in our notebooks. She likes to draw while I perform an important ritual: my weekly review and plan. I call it a ritual with intention; the walk, the coffee, the company of my wife, and the stimulation of the cafe all add to the joy I experience during an otherwise mundane process that can be easy to skip when I'm busy or don't feel like taking the time to...
2 months ago • 4 min read