Most elements of our digital lives (e.g. apps) only exist within themselves and seldom work together. Because workflows are more useful than point solutions that leaves users with the burden of getting things to work together, humans are the interop layer.
For example, a hypothetical product like a spatial note-taking app would require that participation across email, browsers, and even the operating system. However, this is extremely unlikely to be done well because interoperability is stunted due to lack of monetary incentives for cooperation between apps.
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Links to this note
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Steven Wolfram - Seeking the Productive Life - Literary Notes
I read about Steven Wolfram’s personal infrastructure. He develops his approach to just about everything using the tools that he built. I’m guessing this approach works great for building Wolfram as a giant feedback loop but not directly transferable to others.
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With so much of our time spent with computers and the internet, we ought to think about the quality of our digital lives. What makes for a good digital life? How do you achieve it? What should we do to improve it?
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Hyperfine Village Organizes Ideas Spatially
I came across the idea of a hyperfine village from Lisa Hardy. It’s a novel way to organize your ideas into a metaphorical “village” so you can more easily recall them in context later. Rather than search or rote memory to recall an idea later, you can go for a stroll in your village.
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Spatial Note-Taking Utilizes the Innate Relationship Between Space and Context
Leaving notes in a way that takes advantage of our innate relationship with space and context. For example: leaving a post-it note on the door for the next time you head out to remind yourself to buy something you need. This spatial context relationship can be applied to our digital lives as well. Notes that live alongside emails are a much better cue than remembering to check your note-taking app for todos related to the person you are talking to or the email thread.