Tech Productivity Issue #203 (Writing By Hand to Retain Information)

Issue #203 (Writing By Hand to Retain Information) 01/02/23

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With all the recent hype surrounding AI-generated content over the past couple month or so, I thought a Twitter thread by YouTuber/Podcaster Ali Abdaal would be relevant to discuss. In the thread he shares "15 actionable tips that help me do more of the things that matter to me, without burning out."

The thread provides more detail on each of the tips, but some of them include:

Set a Daily Highlight
Have an Hourglass on your Desk
Make a “To-Don’t” List
Batch Similar Tasks Together
Take Breaks Regularly
Use a Task Manager

I'm sure you've heard many of the tips before, and maybe a few are new to you or can provide some new inspiration going forward.

Now you're probably wondering: What does this have to do with AI? Well, as Ali explains in another thread, the 15 productivity tips in the original thread were all produced 100% by AI, with the exception of the first tip.

Pretty amazing stuff. In the subsequent thread he explains some of his concern about how easy it is for an AI to produce this kind of quality content. I think his concern is valid, but ultimately this just means we have to come up with more unique content that an AI can't produce. But that's a topic for another newsletter.

Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!

Tools & Apps

Reactive Resume — A free and open source resume builder that's built to make the mundane tasks of creating, updating, and sharing your resume easy, with no tracking or ads, and enables you to import data from LinkedIn.

YouTube Summary with ChatGPT — Chrome extension that lets you quickly access a summary for a YouTube video, sourced via OpenAI's ChatGPT technology.

goodlookup — A smart function for Google Sheets that uses a pre-trained model that has the intuition of GPT-3 and the join capabilities of fuzzy matching.

Wizard on Demand: A Technical Writing Agency — Building a software product for developers yet struggling to communicate its value to your audience? At Wizard on Demand, we can help through technical writing, illustration, and consulting for developer-focused marketers. sponsor

HazeOver — A Mac app that automatically highlights the currently focused window by fading out all background windows. Useful for those with many windows open on large or multiple displays.

ONES — An all-in-one team project management app that allows teams to organize work into manageable roadmaps, milestones, sprints, issues, etc. to align team objectives.

Monica — An open-source personal CRM that helps you organize social interactions with your loved ones by giving you a place to log information about your family and friends (important dates, names of children, etc).

Articles & Resources

Focus on High-leverage Activities — Addy Osmani shares some notes from the book High Output Management, which discusses the roles and responsibilities of managers and how they can boost the productivity of their teams.

Too Much Efficiency Makes Everything Worse: Overfitting and the Strong Version of Goodhart's Law — The latter part of the article provides some interesting examples of where this might occur (and has occurred), followed by how to mitigate the problems caused by this phenomenon.

Tips, Tools, Tricks for Life Unplugged — If you want to be less dependent on devices and technology in 2023, these tips from Mehret Biruk may be just the thing to get you started.

Sleep Better and Stress Less with Apollo — The Apollo wearable, created in a neuroscience lab and backed by clinical trials, helps you take control over how you want to feel. It uses touch therapy to send soothing vibrations that strengthen and rebalance the nervous system and support your circadian rhythm, actively building your resilience to stress. sponsor

Why Writing By Hand is Still the Best Way to Retain Information — Lots of studies cited in this piece, which is basically espousing something we kind of already sensed was true in the first place. But nice to see the evidence laid out.

Is the Era of Flexible Working Over? LinkedIn Data Shows It Might Be — According to LlinkedIn data, the amount of remote job postings dropped from 20% to 15% during 2022, though that's still significantly higher than the pre-pandemic average of 2%.

These Types of Tech Workers are Most Likely to Get Laid Off — The two areas in tech are: Sales and recruiting (or human resources), though I would take some of this with a grain of salt until after the recent social media-related layoffs are a little more in the rearview mirror.

Suggestions?

Have a suggestion for a productivity-related tool, article, or other resource? Send me a direct message via X (@LouisLazaris) and I’ll consider including it in a future issue.

Stay productive!

Louis
techproductivity.co
@LouisLazaris

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