Tag: productivity

AI Agents Are Coming to Your Job: What That Actually Means

Discover what AI agents autonomous workplace 2026 really means for your career. Learn how they differ from old automation and whether your role gets augmente...

ReadingQ Manager: my first piece of malleable software

I did something over the summer break I thought was impossible: I created some software I needed. Except, of course, I didn't.

How to Actually Use AI Without Burning Out (Or Getting Caught Behind)

Learn how to use AI at work without overwhelm. 5 practical steps to boost productivity and skip the burnout—master one tool deeply instead of chasing every t...

Text expansion and global snippets with espanso

today iain learned: How to use espanso for text expansion and global snippets

The AI Tools Actually Winning in Your Office Right Now

Discover which best AI tools for work 2026 your team actually needs. From Notion to Claude to Cursor—see what's winning in real offices today.

I use Handbrake for converting my WAV video files to MP4

Open-source video transcoder available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Corner nest

Issue #3: Seamless File Sharing Across All Devices with LocalSend

An open-source and ad-free alternative to AirDrop that respects your privacy.

Issue #1: Retro Web Aesthetics and Deep Work with Poolsuite FM

Escape the algorithmic noise with this vintage inspired audio companion.

Why does my resume get rejected by ATS and how do I fix it

Most resumes are filtered by ATS before a human sees them — usually for missing keywords, unreadable layout, or wrong file structure, all of which are fixable.

Cat Hicks – The Psychology of Software Teams

This book gave psychological context to many things I had already observed at work: learning needs time, performance depends on the environment, and belonging matters. Software development is social, not individual. Sustainable teams need room for learning, problem-solving and helping others instead of constantly optimizing for short-term output.

Turn Screenshots into a Traceable AI Brief on iPhone

Use on-device OCR, source-linked facts, conflict review and explicit privacy choices to prepare screenshots for an AI brief.

best aesthetic to-do list app iPhone no subscription

Mochi To-Do is a free, no-ads checklist app with 100 illustrated skins — each with its own paper texture, fonts, and decorative details — so your daily task list actually looks like something you want to open.

app to block social media and YouTube before bed iPhone

LockHour's Sleep Wind Down mode runs a 60-minute pre-bed focus lock that shields Social, Video, and Entertainment apps — and it can be scheduled to activate automatically every night via iOS so you don't have to make the decision when you're already tired.

Private AI Context Preparation on iPhone: What to Check

Evaluate source traceability, on-device extraction, privacy review and deliberate export before choosing an iPhone app to prepare context for AI.

How to tailor my resume to a specific job description on my phone

Tailoring each resume to the posting is the single biggest ATS win — paste the job description, see what's missing, and adjust before you send.

How to Organize Mixed Sources into Reviewable AI Context

Turn screenshots, PDFs, files, notes and links into a source-linked brief while preserving conflicts, confidence and privacy choices.

Do I need a photo on my resume and how long should it be

Whether to include a photo and how long a resume should be depends on the country — getting it wrong can hurt you, so match the local convention.

Beeminder: Getting Back on the Horse

After deleting corporate social media, I'm returning to Beeminder, a commitment tool that charges you money for failing to complete tasks, to reclaim my productivity. I explain how Beeminder works through externalizing willpower, share my current 17 goals across personal development, learning, creative work, and productivity, and integrations that make it seamless.

Small Teams, Big Impact: Real Stories of Agents in Action

Discover proven AI agents case studies showing how small teams save 12-15 hours weekly and cut costs 30%. Real results from businesses like yours.

Apps and Tools for Research and Writing

A guided tour of free and low-cost apps for reference management, distraction-free writing, note-taking, and time management for doctoral and academic writers.

The Kanban Method for Dissertation and Journal Article Writing

How the kanban method turns a dissertation or journal article into small, visible units of work you can actually finish, one card and one column at a time.

Ticking boxes

As always, it’s the simplest productivity techniques that work the best.

What have note-taking PKMs accomplished, really?

As somebody who writes a lot, I've always been interested in personal knowledge management systems and note-taking apps. But what do these frameworks and methodologies actually give to researchers and the broader world? Has there been a meaningful increase of wisdom since these became popular? I went to look for an answer.

Measuring Real ROI: Does This AI Agent Actually Pay for Itself?

Learn the AI agent ROI calculation framework most teams miss. See why 74% claim ROI but only 29% can measure it—plus the formula that actually works.

Safety Guardrails: Keeping Your AI Agents from Causing Problems

Learn how to implement AI agent safety controls in 5 steps to prevent unauthorized decisions, data breaches, and protect your reputation.

Using a split keyboard secondary spacebar as a function key

today iain learned: How to map a split keyboard secondary spacebar as a function key when held down

Multi-Agent Systems: When Multiple Agents Work Together

Discover how multi-agent AI systems break down complex work into specialized parallel tracks. Learn when you need them and the orchestration trade-offs invol...

AI Agents for Customer Support: When Automation Actually Works

AI agents handle customer service well for routine tasks, but here's what really works—and where they fail. Learn when automation actually delivers value.

How to Set Up Your First AI Agent Workflow in 30 Minutes

Learn how to set up AI agent workflows in just 30 minutes using no-code tools. Start with email triage and see results fast.

COMPULSION: The Writers Who Wrote The Most in History

I've been writing publicly every day for seven months, and I wanted to know what that looked like for other compulsive writers. From Chesterton dictating past midnight, to Chinese web fiction authors racing through 10,000 words daily. What does their obsessive output reveal about the nature of writing itself? The volume isn't the point. The showing up is.

Jacob Beckerman - Macro

Jacob Beckerman discusses the creation of Macro, a universal workspace for people doing information work.

The Cost Of Intelligence Isn’t Going Up, Your Expectations Are

Models keep doing more with fewer tokens but our expectations have gone up — painting a messy picture about the true cost of intelligence.

Being A 1.5-10x Developer

Good code begets good results, so let's make a case for using coding agents to write better code, rather than just more code.

Reader by Readwise as my link-saving eveything app

Every week I save dozens of links - articles, funny YouTube videos, Bluesky posts, Instagram videos. The only thing there's more of than links I save is apps that promise to organize all these links. And I've tried many of them - Raindrop.io, Instapaper, Pocket, MyMind, KeepIt...just to name a few. And then I grew tired of these (and their subscriptions) and started dumping everything into a folder in Apple Notes, which was OKAYish, but made it difficult to find things when I went looking for th...

Your 30-Day AI Adoption Plan: From Zero to Productive

Follow this AI adoption plan for small business owners: audit tasks, pick a tool, build habits, and measure wins — all in 30 days.

AI Mistakes Small Businesses Make (And How to Avoid Them)

AI mistakes to avoid are costing small businesses time and money. Learn the 5 most common errors and exactly how to fix them fast.

The Real Cost of AI: What Small Businesses Actually Spend

Cost of AI tools for business adds up fast. See what small businesses actually spend—hidden fees, API overages, and how to stop wasting money.

Using AI for Social Media Without Losing Your Brand Voice

AI social media content generator tips that actually preserve your brand voice — train it on real examples and stop publishing posts that sound like everyone...

AI Customer Service: Chatbots That Don't Annoy Your Customers

AI chatbot for customer service works—when you know its limits. Learn which tasks to automate and when to hand off to humans fast.

The Teaching Computer

Many people are using AI to solve their problems when they could be leveraging AI to become better versions of who they want to be.

How to Write AI Prompts That Actually Work for Your Business

AI prompts for business actually work when you nail three things. Kira shows you exactly how to get specific, useful results every time.

5 AI Tools That Pay for Themselves in Week One

Best AI tools for small business that pay for themselves fast. See which 5 cut real costs in week one through automation.

AI for Small Business: Where to Start Without the Hype

Cut through the AI hype. Discover practical ways to implement AI for small business that actually save time and money—no tech background required.

I've been using Evernote for about 16 years as a paying customer. In a month, they're increasing my price from $83.13 last year to $250. I think it's time for me to jump ship. I mainly use it to store scans of paper things I want to keep (I did like their OCR functionality). What...

A single tick for calmer evenings

A simple tip for separating work and leisure time.

Obsidian Reader

I was excited to see make this announcement last week: I use GoodLinks for saving most things I find on the web because it does great saving most things (and parsing text from most news outlets, including Apple News), highlighting is very easy in it, and I can easily export my highlights in Markdown to Obsidian (although in my desire to cure my digital hoarding disorder, I’m trying to do that less). However, this new element to the Obsidian web clipper app is really cool and I’ll probably use it...

The simplest read-later app

And the only one that makes sure you’re gonna read what you saved.