Bookshelf (January 2023

1 | How Automation Left Us Feeling Empty

Even though automation may be the holy grail of white collar work, there is something there that we haven’t discovered yet: How do we fill the void left behind by replacing things that are so easily repeatable but filled our schedule with the meaning of tedium and routine?

…we’re not fired, we’re still making money. It’s just that the are robots doing our jobs now. So our mind can’t grapple with that. It thinks we’re slacking off. People like us identify ourselves by the things we’ve made. And if there’s nothing to do anymore, we start feeling empty.

Some further thoughts on work’s relationship with meaning can be found here: Quotes from Four Thousand Weeks

2 | A World Without Email by Cal Newport

By embracing email, we inadvertently crippled the systems that make us so good at working together.

Email is a permanent fixture in our workplaces, a necessary feature for communication. But can we do without it?

3 | Building Monocle, a universal personal search engine for life

Building many small fast tools has taught me that often, making something instantaneous doesn’t just make the tool more efficient – it changes how you use the tool.

Linus Lee shares personal experiences in building his universal search engine, something that is enabled by his expertise in UI and full ownership of his data and tech stack.

4 | Advanced Stupid

Advanced Stupid is when you experience sadness, loneliness, etc – and instead of taking steps to address those things, you decide that you must first Understand And Solve The Entire Human Condition.

There is a short way to doing things, and there is a roundabout way that doesn’t achieve anything.

5 | Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman

…it is the small, positive things done often that make the most difference and build that cocoon of trust and safety in our relationships.

Strong relationships in the form of strong cathedrals are built one brick at a time. The Eight Dates are proposed foundations to building a relationship on, where critical aspects of… sharing a life are explored.

6 | The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul

The smart move is not to lean ever harder on the brain but to learn to reach beyond it.

In today’s state of cognitive overwhelm, there is a need to leverage on the objects around us to manage the knowledge. Annie Murphy Paul explores the large aspects of our surroundings in helping us manage the vast swaths of information and make better decisions.