Episode 005 of the Thinking About Tools For Thought podcast is out – an interview with Chris Aldrich, talking about his use of Obsidian, memory tools, and more – check it out!

Whose list is it?

I make “to-do” lists all the time. I try to do them electronically, but the most successful ones are just written on a pad with a pen, and completed items get struck off the list.

My wife also makes lists of things to do, but when she does that, I tend to think of it as “her list”, not my list. If there was something on her list that I was going to do, I would add it to “my list”

So, it is important when making a list to consider “Am I doing the things on this list, or do I think someone else is going to do things on this list?”. It would be good to have direct communication with anyone you have an expectation of doing something on “your list”.

Recently, I saw Melody Kramer put out a call on Twitter for help with a project to document web presence of all local candidates for office in the US, and Ben Werdmuller on how a software engineer can help with climate change. The outpouring of responses was amazing to me. This is an example of how interactions on Twitter can pay off.

Turning off the trackpad

I had a problem with my new HP Spectre laptop. The arrangement of the trackpad and the keyboard is such that it is very easy to swipe on the trackpad with your hands in a regular typing position. I lost some text from a file recently as a result. Fortunately for Windows laptops, you can turn the trackpad off (since I use a mouse). Whew!

Thinking about Tools for Thought – Episode 001

I am starting a new podcast series titled “Thinking about Tools for Thought”, which will talk about tools and methods for helping people think. The following are links to different tools/resources mentioned in the podcast. I may move this to another domain, but getting started here.

Tools:

Weblogs/posts

The podcast (link to file):