An Interview with James Clear on Habits, How We Use Notion AI Q&A, and More

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Building Better Habits with James Clear »

James Clear is the author of the bestselling book, [Atomic Habits][book].

Here’s what you’ll hear about during in the interview conversation:

• Mindset: How long does it truly take to build a habit, and how is that mindset at odds with what most people do for their New Year’s resolutions?

• Simplicity: How do you keep from burning yourself out? How many new habits and routines should you incorporate as part of a New Year’s resolutions?

• Purpose: Why do habits even matter? Why should you pay attention to your habits and routines? Can building better habits make you a better person?

How I Use Notion AI Q&A Each Day »

Artificial intelligence. Everyone has heard about it at this point. And it’s likely AI has affected the way you work already, for better or worse.

If you use AI, you likely use it in a unique way. Some folks are using AI to build out transcripts. Others use it to create fake data for showcasing a product demonstration. Others use it to process tedious work, create meeting agendas, streamline the creation of meeting minutes, organize their day — the list of possibilities feels endless right now.

With each day that passes, I find myself using AI more and more. Or rather, I use AI more and more in Notion. Notion AI is my current go-to tool — I use it to create first drafts for new emails and letters I don’t normally write. I use Notion AI for improving my writing. I use Notion AI for summarizing transcripts, for creating standard operating procedures, and more.

At large, our office uses the heck out of Notion. We plan all our projects and engagements in Notion. We track our daily work in Notion. We store all our internal documentation in the app and build out our own internal knowledge archive — I’ve even stored all my old school notes in Notion, which I return to a number of times each week to reference something.

Omnivore is a Really Good, Completely Free Read Later App »

Omnivore is one of the newest, and probably one of the most underrated read-it-later services out there. Many of us know about Pocket, Instapaper, Matter, and Readwise Reader, but Omnivore deserves to be in the conversation as well, as it does quite a few things very well, and even better than the rest in some cases. And it does all this completely for free.

We’ve Updated Our Review of Day One »

If you’re looking for the best journaling app, or a great app for logging and recording various events and milestones of your life, then by far and away the best journaling app is Day One.

Day One has outstanding apps for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad that all sync. It has a clever and rich feature set that lets you integrate photos, videos, current location, weather data, and more into your journal entries.

Day One was acquired by Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com, Tumblr, Pocket Casts, Simplenote, and more in 2021. Though no longer owned by a small company, Day One has seen consistent development right through its time under Automattic. We don’t think there’s any reason to believe Day One has a shelf life.

In fact, some of Day One’s most recent updates are some of the app’s best features yet. Day One just introduced Shared Journals, allowing users to create a journal that can be added to or changed by anyone, even if they don’t have a Day One subscription. There are also Journaling Suggestions in the latest version of Day One, piggybacking off Apple’s own Journal API. Suggestions are the best way to track your daily doings in Day One and a far cry better than Day One’s own implementation in the past.

How to Plan Your Week »

It’s fun to nerd out about weekly plans and review, but actually doing it is a whole other thing.

It seems like such a hurdle to actually do them.

In this article, I want to show you how to get all the benefits of weekly planning and reviews with the least amount of work possible.

Mike’s Idea System 2.0 »

As amazingly powerful as our computers have become, in some ways they still don’t hold a candle to your biological hardware. For example, they’re great for repeatable tasks and automation, but your brain is far superior when it comes to ideation and brainstorming.

Which begs the question — where do ideas come from in the first place? What is the value of a single good idea, and how can you tell which ones are good and deserve more attention, and which ones aren’t worth the trouble?

I guess I’m just naturally a curious person.

That curiosity is what led me to develop what I call my “idea development system.” The goal of the idea management system is three-fold:

1. Make sure no ideas slip through the cracks.
2. Help me tell which ideas are good and which ones aren’t.
3. See how big or small an idea really is (see how deep the rabbit hole goes).

How to be Productive »

When we hear the word “Productivity,” we all picture something a little bit different. Some people simply think “getting things done,” while others immediately start thinking about the seven different apps they use to be productivity.

This article might look a little bit different than others you might find on the internet. We are not just interested in getting things done, but getting the right things done — how to be productive, for real. Productivity is about so much more than to-do lists, fancy apps, workflows, and beautiful stationery (although I do love all of those things). Let’s talk about meaningful productivity.

We define Meaningful Productivity as “… the state of consistently giving your time and attention to the things that are most important.”

Interesting Links From Our Friends and Around the Web »

• (MacStories) Simple Scan: A Scanning Solution for People Who Don’t Scan Often
• (Tools & Toys) Impending’s “Clear” List App Relaunched for iOS
• (Six Colors) To embrace gaming Apple needs to level up its game porting toolkit
• (Focused) #198: Revisiting Journaling
• (Christopher Lawley) My MUST have Shortcuts Automations: What’s on my iPad