One of my favorite quotes comes from Gerald Early in a Ken Burns documentary: “When they study our civilization 2,000 years from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball and jazz.”

Three wonders of this world. If you were placing bets 25 years ago on whose future seemed most tenuous, most would’ve chosen jazz. As someone immersed in the creatively, if not financially, thriving jazz scene, I'm happy to report that's not the case.

The Constitution and our democracy, however, are struggling. I read these words yesterday with a heavy heart:

If you were hoping things would be stopped before it was too late, know that it is already too late. We are no longer operating by the rules we once took for granted. We no longer live in the democracy we once enjoyed.

It’s difficult to read and process. I recommend the full post. There seems to be a lot of waiting for a defining line to be crossed, one that's indisputable. Now it’s real. But things are happening extremely quickly and we’re all trying to live our lives, enjoy baseball games, and go to jazz shows. I don’t know how you can function without narrowing what news you see or choosing one cause and setting others aside.

The big picture isn’t blurry, though, it's clear. Do you remember the many articles and books explaining what might happen and how? Phrases like "the authoritarian playbook" and "how democracies die" have become part of the vernacular. If it all sounded over the top, alarmist, that's understandable. We’ve been taught that we are unique, an example to the world, the pinnacle of democracy. Freedom, the rule of law, and our constitutional rights are fixed (easier to believe if you are white and male), not fluid. They don’t have to be defended, they just are.

The steps that were outlined again and again have been methodically taken. Every few days, there's another escalation so that where the line was last drawn is never too far away. Compared to last week, it's just a small step. Compared to our history, though, it's a stunning leap. We're experiencing what other democracies have faced before us—a sharp turn toward authoritarian rule under the fig leaf of democracy. Some have turned back, others have succumbed and now cosplay as democracies. It's the story of Hungary, which sounds remarkably familiar.

If you ever wondered what you would do if something awful happened to other people in your country, how you would behave when that historical moment came, when your country needed you, stop wondering. It is happening now. What you are doing is what you are doing. You are living in that moment.

Last month, I donated to organizations working to make things better. Today, I wrote this post. And later, I’ll join my friends, neighbors, and church at a rally downtown. Millions of people across the country will do the same.

I don't think it's an adequate response to the moment. In the world of activism, I feel like an undersized freshman on the JV basketball team who was sure they wouldn't have to play. We must believe, though, that each small act makes more acts by more people more likely. Hopelessness is the surest path to defeat.

The present is bleak, but that doesn't mean the future is. I love this country and believe its roots of justice, morality, and constitutional democracy are too deep to be toppled by this storm.

The end of this story isn't written. It is ours, and ours alone, to write.

So, jazz for me was a higher ideal of music. I enjoyed it now and then, but it felt like an obligation—I should like it, but I wasn’t drawn to it. I also saw it as frozen in time—an artifact from a distant heyday.

When the pandemic began, I started working from home for the first time. I realized I could now listen to music as much as I wanted, but knew that familiar songs with lyrics would be too distracting.

I decided to try listening to my jazz albums. I didn’t know them well and set out to learn what I liked and why.

It was the perfect work companion and I started to understand it better and more importantly, fall in love with it. I would look up albums on Wikipedia, which pointed me to more great albums and artists. My interest and knowledge started to expand, but I still assumed that my jazz project was limited to digging through the archives.

One day, I came across a review of a Mike Reed album. It was A New Kind of Dance by his People, Places & Things project. I tried it and loved it. That moment made me realize that jazz is a living, breathing, evolving thing, and I was missing out.

I didn't know how to find what I was looking for, though. Thankfully, I discovered two sites that have introduced me to hundreds of fantastic albums and many favorite artists: JazzTrail and The Free Jazz Collective.

Later, I came across We Jazz. This Helsinki record label releases a lot of great music, but they also publish the Paris Review of jazz magazines. Each quarterly issue is beautifully done and includes profiles of current and past artists, deep dives into obscure corners of jazz, and numerous album reviews. Crucially, it’s only in print, but I’ve managed to track down a copy of every issue. Here’s the latest one.

The final piece in my jazz obsession was going to concerts. My first was Hunter Diamond at Chickie Wah Wah during a trip to New Orleans. The show was great. I loved the intimacy, willingness to take risks, and the singular focus on the music.

A year later, we moved to Northampton, MA and I joined Jazz Shares. Now, jazz concerts are a constant part of my life.

One of favorite things about jazz is there’s an infinite music to explore in many different forms, yet it’s also a highly interconnected world.

The drummer at that Hunter Diamond show? It was Mike Reed. I was able to tell him after the show how A New Kind of Dance was the gateway for me into something that brings me so much joy. Just as that concert turned out to be.

This year, Hunter’s group Black Diamond released an album called Furniture Of the Mind Rearranging. Mike Reed debuted The Separatist Party. Both are terrific, and both were released on We Jazz Records.

The night we arrived in Northampton, I went to my first Jazz Shares show. At the reception after, I had a great conversation with a writer.

He’s a regular contributor to We Jazz Magazine.

We’ll share Christmas with our son and his girlfriend tomorrow. Previously 2,000 miles and two flights away, they'll drive two miles to join us instead.

In April, he let us know that they felt settled in the area and if we wanted to move, we could. We sold our house of 15 years and arrived 95 days later.

There’s no denying that being close to them is the main reason we’re here. When you have one child, you don’t have to choose who to be near. We were eager to move, though, and had been exploring different options for years, especially as some of our close friends left Austin.

At one point, we thought we’d move somewhere in the general vicinity, like Portsmouth, NH, Cambridge, MA, or Hudson, NY. My friend Joel changed the way we looked at it. Being two hours away is still completely different than being in the same town. The same town is “Do you need anything from the grocery store?”, “Want to meet at the coffee shop this afternoon?”, and “See you for dinner tomorrow!” That’s what all of us wanted, not just easier travel a few times a year.

We knew that it wouldn’t work if we didn’t actually want to live in Northampton, though. Being familiar with it helped. Our son went to Hampshire College, so between college tours and trips back and forth, we had visited 10 times over the years.

The more we researched, the more we realized that Northampton was actually the perfect place for us. What we were looking for isn’t that easy to find. We wanted a small, progressive college town where we can walk to everything, plus…

• abundant nature, culture, and restaurants
• a thriving music and jazz scene
• a high percentage of creative people—writers, artists, musicians, small business owners
• easy access to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s
• an airport within 30 minutes or so
• quality healthcare
• low to moderate climate change risk

After five months, it’s been even better than we hoped. Here are my highlights so far.

Walk to everything
We found a fantastic apartment in the perfect location—a beautiful, quiet part of town where we can still walk everywhere. Restaurants, coffeeshops, and stores are around the corner, of course, but also the library, grocery, dentist, chiropractor, barbershop, YMCA, coworking space, and FedEx dropoff. It’s glorious.

Jazz Shares
For jazz aficionados of a certain kind (jazzheads, I'm told), Jazz Shares is reason enough to move here. Absurd, I know, but there’s really nothing like it. The level of artists it brings to the Pioneer Valley is remarkable.

Modeled after farm shares, you buy a membership for the season. Since there is upfront funding, the organization can guarantee artists an audience and fair wage. That model combined with expert curation results it shows you might see in a European city.

The membership model also creates community, as you run into familiar faces all the time. I’ve been to some fabulous shows including Joe McPhee, Micah Thomas Trio, and Jason Robinson. I'm often sitting just a few feet away and can thank the artists personally after. Next year brings Matthew Shipp, Darius Jones, Sylvie Courvoisier, Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio, Jenny Scheinman, and more.

Jazz Shares was such a big draw that I insisted on going to my first show on the day we arrived in town, fresh off of 3 days and 1,958 miles of driving.

Iron Horse
An iconic, recently remodeled, venue, the Iron Horse is bringing one fantastic show after another to town. It’s an ideal place to see a concert—welcoming and intimate. So far, we’ve seen Jess Cornelius and Jess Williamson, and upcoming shows include Yasmin Williams, The Bad Plus, Weather Station, and Mdou Moctar. I have always dreamed of being able to walk to a concert and it is indeed a wonderful experience.

Nature
The natural beauty in the area has far exceeded my expectations. The town stirkes a great balance between urban and rural. We’re a few blocks from Child’s Park, a lovely 40-acre park. Around the corner is the Mill River Trail and in the other direction is the Northampton Bikeway that goes to Amherst and beyond. There are also nearby mountain ranges we've yet to explore. And then there's Smith College.

Smith College
Across the street from us is Smith College, a terrific school with a gorgeous campus we walk around regularly. It brings students and faculty from everywhere, which means a constant influx of new perspectives and people who are constantly exploring and questioning. Colleges seem to beget great bookstores, coffeeshops, and concerts, too.

Out and about
We've had a lot of fun exploring places around town. Early favorites: Homestead, Tellus, Paul and Elizabeth's, Thai Garden, and The Dirty Truth.

For coffee shops: Tunic, Familiars, and The Roost.

And you have to have a great record store. Thankfully, there's Electric Eye.

Between Northampton, Easthampton, and Amherst, we have a long list of restaurants to try.

Church
We assumed that finding a church would be one of the most difficult things. Instead, we picked one to try and knew immediately that it was what we were looking for. First Churches started in 1654! The sanctuary is beautiful and peaceful, and the church is deeply involved in the community. Rev. Sarah Buteux and the congregation have been so welcoming.

Continuing the theme, walking to church is delightful.

Community
Starting a new life in a new place isn't easy. This is the fourth time we've done it since college. In one case, we didn't know anyone within 1,000 miles. It honestly went great, but it is quite the boon to have a core group to start with, including our son's best friend, whose company we've enjoyed for years. Just having people to point you in the right direction, explain how things work, and hang out eases the transition.

People have been remarkably kind and welcoming, though, and we already have a group of friends. The common recommendation to find groups that get together regularly, like the YMCA, Jazz Shares, and First Churches, and join in, works wonders.

There's a refreshing openness to people, contrary to the New England reputation, and a desire to form new connections. There are only so many people here, so everyone has a bigger part to play.

It's also an unassuming place where a surprsing number of people have something remarkable in their story. People are often leaning over and pointing out someone who once played with this person, wrote that, teach at that university, started a record label, and on and on.

One of my favorite moments happened while walking to coworking on a summer morning. Before moving here, I had connected with Joy Bagglio, the author who started Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop. I wondered if Northampton was small enough that I didn't even need to reach out once I arrived. Maybe I would simply run into her at some point. Sure enough, we crossed paths at The Roost and I got to say hello. I love that part of small town life.

This experience has given me a renewed appreciation for what remote working makes possible. In the past, I would have to choose between my job and living in a town of 20,000 people in Western Massachusetts. I'm so thankful I can have both.

I love Wes Anderson's films and over the years, Fantastic Mr. Fox has risen to the very top of my favorites. When Thanksgiving and relatives arrived a few years ago, we decided to watch it. That's when I realized it's the perfect Thanksgiving movie.

The movie studio must of thoughts so, too, as it was released on November 13, 2009.

In The Wes Anderson Collection, Matt Seitz described Fantastic Mr. Fox as “a fable about the tension between responsibility and freedom, and a portrait of families in repose and turmoil.” That's one of the best descriptions of Thanksgiving I've read.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox live with their son, Ash, and Kristofferson, their nephew, soon joins them. He is grudgingly welcomed by Ash and their awkward dynamic and competitive friction is familiar to anyone who's found themselves suddenly living with people who are both strangers and family.

It’s a beautiful film about the hunger for more, the dream of abundance. Eventually, that pursuit fails and success becomes simply a matter of survival. That's not possible alone, though — it requires everyone in the neighborhood and their unique talents.

When the community gathers for dinner, Fox gives a toast.

I guess we do have those three ugly, cusshole farmers to thank for one thing: reminding us to be thankful and aware of each other.

That, too, is a great description of Thanksgiving.

I discovered it in January 2020. I was enjoying curating my music collection and wanted a player that was made for albums, not playlists.

I was also on a quest for a particular feature I wanted to see in the world. I hate losing my place in an album. I might start an acoustic guitar album in the morning, switch to jazz after a meeting, and want something else entirely when I get in the car. The next time I listen to that acoustic guitar album, though, I want to pick up where I left off. Imagine if every time you started a podcast episode, you lost your place in the previous one.

I found Albums and when I noticed that it was a solo project, reached out to share my idea. The developer, Adam Linder, had been thinking of something similar and we exchanged a flurry of emails about how it might work and other ideas. When you find someone as obsessed as you are making something new, it’s incredibly fun.

And then, Covid began. I went from a daily commute listening to music on my phone to working from home. My music listening went way up and I started diving deep into jazz. Trying so many albums, and always on my MacBook, I had no choice but to embrace streaming and the Albums app fell out of rotation.

Over the next three years, my jazz obsession grew to the point where I had curated a spreadsheet of my favorite 500 albums, with links to Apple Music, Spotify, and Wikipedia articles, plus when it was recorded and added to my library. Apple Music has its frustrations when it comes to organizing a library, plus I could do things like see who my top artists and decades were.

I kept a list of albums to try in a different app, Things. Thanks to the terrific writers at Jazz Trail and The Free Jazz Collective, I find out about new stuff almost every day, then use the OS share sheet to add them to Things. In the past, I'd add them to my library and then browse Recently Added, but things got jumbled. Some of those recent albums were ones I'd tried and decided to keep. And adding them to a playlist is a no-go.

At this point, you’re probably thinking: “There must be a better way. You’re managing your music library using three different apps!”

A week ago, I came to the same realization. My first thought was that my spreadsheet was the pain point. I have an iPad now and just don’t enjoy working with spreadsheets on it. I started exploring lightweight database apps (it’s okay to laugh) and after realizing that wasn't a fruitful path, finally typed “albums” in the App Store, saw Albums, and realized it was the app I used years ago.

I installed it and couldn’t believe what it had become. It’s now tightly integrated with Apple Music (thankfully I switched from Spotify a year ago), and has a fantastic iPad app, which is what I use for music at home. Albums immediately became one of my favorite apps.

Here are the many things I love about it. For most, these details don’t matter much. For the album curators among you, though, prepare to be amazed.

Pick up where you left off
The original feature is fully implemented and works great. I love not having to worry about losing my place. It’s also more accurate than Apple Music about keeping track of where you are as you switch between devices.

Tag albums
Tag your favorites, new ones to try, albums you own on vinyl, potential purchases, music perfect for weekend mornings, or whatever you like. Sort of like playlists for albums.

Tag music to try without adding to your library
Albums has a library of its own that’s separate from Apple Music. This comes in handy when you want to save albums to try, but not add them to your library. Just search for them and add a tag. Browse all of the albums with that tag, pick one to try, and when you’re done, add it to your library or remove the tag and it’s gone.

See a feed of releases
Nothing fancy, just a simple list of announced or new albums from the artists in your library. Algorithm free, it's exactly what you want and no more. And if you have an album by artist, but no interest in future work, you can exclude them.

Album credits
The app pulls in data from other services to populate detailed album credits: producers, composers, musicians, recording engineers, and even who designed the cover.

The magic, though, is that you can tap any of the people involved and see what other albums they’re on (or covers they designed, which is fascinating) in your collection. Such a great way to follow the thread from one album to the next.

See if you’ve listened to an album before
This is such a small thing, but I love it. Often, I’ll read a rave bout an album or find a list of "Top 20 Underrated Live Albums" or the like and save ideas to try later. It’s pretty common that I tried an albums before, though, and there’s no way to know that in Apple Music. But everything you listen to in Albums has a listening history, even if it’s not saved to your library.

So when the end of year lists come out, you can know whether you already tried #8 when it debuted a few months ago. Maybe it’s worth another listen, but at least you’ll know.

Add albums from a list
Speaking of end of year lists, maybe you want to try the top 20 from your favorite publication. You can create a text list with just “artist name - album name” and Albums will add them all for you at once.

You don’t have to add them to your library either. You can just tag them.

Choose what makes up an album
Another tiny thing that shows how much focus is on the details. Albums assumes you want to listen to a full album and that powers all of the listening stats. Apple Music often only offers deluxe editions of albums that have many bonus tracks, outtakes, and live editions that you might want to listen to now and then, but not every time. You can choose which tracks to include when you add the album to your library, which also determines what counts as listening to the whole thing.

Shuffle Scheduler
Pick a collection, how long you want to listen, and how many albums, and the app will take create a queue just for you. Going for a 2-hour drive? Want to focus on a single project for the afternoon? Does your next meeting start at 3:30? Albums will curate the right mix to fit the time.

Collections
As you may have gathered, collections are core to the app. They’re completely customizable groups of albums.

A collection can be based on artists, year, decade, record label, genre, and even specific musicians. A collection can also just be a tag, which means you can make one out of anything. You can listen to and shuffle collections, pin them for easy access, and see your listening stats.

Stats, insights, and history
This is arguably what defines Albums and is a huge part of the app. I’ve saved it to the end because there’s so much here and it’s one of those things that shines the most when it’s powered by your own listening history.

Think of it like a perpetual, customizable Spotify Wrapped. It’s a lot of fun.

You can see what time of day you listen most often, how many new albums you tried last week, and which days you listened the most. Plus, the obvious — top albums, artists, and genres for the time period you choose.

There’s also a listening history which I use surprisingly often. You can see the three albums you listened to last Thursday (even that you started one on the morning and finished it late at night.)

On an album, every listen is recorded in its history, reminding you that you last listened to this one during your roadtrip last summer.

A bunch of clever groupings are just a tap away — albums that were released on this date in history, your all-time favorites, and albums you’ve only listened to once. Add your birthday and it will even show you the albums from your early 20’s or when you were in high school.

Believe it or not, there’s more. Let’s switch to bullet points.

• Turn on the immersive UI and the app’s UI reflects the colors of the current album, which is really nice
• If you always want to use bluetooth or Airplay speakers, you can set it to never use the device speaker and prompt you if it’s not connected
• You can customize the layout, like how many albums per row, what metadata is shown underneath the album (duration, play count, date added, and more), and the sort order
• Somehow search is often a better experience than in Apple Music itself
• There’s Car Play and Last.fm support

There is a free version, but most of the above requires the paid version. If you’ve spent much time looking at music apps, you’ll know that there are whole apps dedicated to some of these individual features. Albums isn’t cheap, but it’s completely worth it if you’re passionate about music and love to curate your collection.

You may be a bit overwhelmed by all that this one app can do, but it’s not overwhelming to use. It’s intuitive and things you’re not interested in don’t get in your way. You don’t have to go as deep as I have 😀.

It’s hard to think of what’s missing. A Mac app would be great (listening in the Apple Music app still counts in your stats), as would being able to remove albums from Apple Music right from the app. Both are Apple limitations, though.

There are bugs here and there (no more than Apple Music, it should be said), and some things aren’t fully built out. How could it be otherwise? The app overflows with interesting ideas and clever touches and is made by a single person.

That single person is what makes Albums so great. One person can take an obsession as far as they want. You don’t doubt for a second how much the developer cares about what he’s building. Adam is also responsive, open to ideas, and eager to dive into bugs. You can follow along on his blog.

I bought a lifetime subscription. I'm just so glad this app exists.

You can try Albums for free for a week. If you do and have questions or just want to share a discovery or two, drop me a note.

I was there^{1 1} Grab a favorite beverage and hit play on Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem (Apple Music | Spotify). in 2000, when blogging started.
I published my first post in 2001.
I filled my RSS reader with blogs.
I met fascinating people from around the world.
I had conversations of all kinds—hilarious, sobering, deeply honest.
I was regularly introduced to books, albums, ideas, shows, movies, software, places, and ways of looking at the world.
I developed lifelong friendships.

Blogging worked. It really did. It was what many of us are still looking for when we talk about what we want from the internet—people sharing their lives and work and family and vacations and ideas in whatever way they want. Human connection that every now and then grows into friendship.

But how did you find new people and interesting content without algorithms?

Funny enough, there was a thing called a blogroll. When you landed on a blog, right there on the side of the homepage was a list of the blogs they followed. We’d browse through the titles, click ones that sounded interesting, and subscribe. The blogroll was your public recommendations, a reflection of you. There might be 20 or 50, but not 1,000.

Then there were trackbacks. Think of them as the backlinks of the time. Trackbacks let you know that someone wrote a post and linked to something you wrote. You’d visit their site and maybe write a post of your own in reply.

Wait, why did they write a post instead of just commenting on yours?

See, it was pretty common for blogs to not have comments. If you wanted to rave, disagree, or add missing context, you had to publish those thoughts yourself. My place on the internet was mine, your place was yours.

This all sounds very inefficient.

Exactly.

It was slow and there was friction at nearly every step. Setting up a blog wasn’t easy, RSS feeds were hard to find, blogging tools could be confusing to use. Next thing you know you’re editing HTML, modifying CSS to perfect your template, and inserting JavaScript for some widget.

And then the writing! So much writing, which let's be honest, is rarely effortless. If you wanted to link to something a person wrote, you had to write a post, and that carried with it certain expectations. It had to be more than just a link—a few sentences of commentary and a quote at least. The hoops you had to jump through!

Nothing about it was easy.
Nothing about it was fast.

I was there in 2006 when Twitter started. I was the 13,420th person to join.

It was fast and easy.
The conversation was in one place.
Reactions were instant.
You weren’t expect to write in paragraphs, in fact, it wasn’t allowed.

I grew to love Twitter. I dropped Facebook and Instagram a decade ago, but not the blue bird. As with blogging, I was introduced to new things and met new friends. It was a worldwide chatroom at one point, just people going about their day sharing observations, jokes, links, and yes, what they were having at the coffee shop.

It has since become something few expected, but then, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

In the Monty Python skit from many years ago, the Spanish Inquisition’s weapons were fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency.

Eerily similar to the goals of the social network algorithms.

It’s a tale as old as, well, the last 20 years…

• Venture capital exorbitantly funds social network
• Network requires hundreds of millions of users to sell enough ads
• To show enough ads, each user needs to spend as much time on the site as possible
• Content has to be captivating and addictive to achieve the required amount of time and clicks
• Captivating and addictive content is powered by fear, surprise, controversy, argument, quick takes, opposing sides, rumors
• Algorithms are perfected to put that content in front of people as quickly as possible so they can react to it as quickly as possible so others can react to their reactions…

Yada, yada, yada, and misinformation, hatred, and the worst of us are spread at a speed and scale never before possible in human history.

It reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s line, “Aren’t there parts of ourselves that are just better left unfed?”

There are great things about Twitter, of course, even if it’s mostly nostalgic for me. Here's my ode to the art bots. And blogging had its share of hate and abuse and spam.

But the scale of harm that social networks have unleashed is unforgivable. The trade-offs aren’t remotely reasonable. Realtime commentary on award shows is not worth division, mistrust, abuse, and addiction to our screens.

Friction can be a good thing. There’s no reason to make sharing a thought that popped in your head 10 seconds ago with millions of people effortless. A little friction between thought and expression means you think it through more, maybe sit on it for a few days or read the article a second time. Maybe you decide it’s not worth the effort. There’s a good chance it’s not.

I’m not going to pledge to delete my Twitter account or start blogging more. I’m not even going to tell you to start a blog. It's not because I think blogging is dead, but the only way forward isn't something from the past. Like Robin Sloan, I crave something new. It's what drove me to spend a few years building a different kind of online community.

What I will leave you with are three words: Susan Jean Robertson ^{2 2} If you're listening along, you hopefully just reached the Gil! Scott! Heron! part. .

I don’t know Susan, but I came across her writing earlier this year. It resonated, so I read a few more posts and then subscribed using the fabulous NetNewsWire.  

Now, every week or so, more of her writing shows up. No upsells or exclusive content, just thoughts, reflections, links. She shares recent books and articles that resonated and a little bit about them. She’s introduces me to things, ideas, and people I wouldn’t come across otherwise. And I’ve grown to appreciate the way she looks at work and life.

Over the past few months, in the rhythm of her writing, I’ve been reminded of what I love so much about blogging, about people writing just to write, in their own quiet corner of the internet.

Earlier this week, she wrote:

I’m not going to another social network now that the bird seems to be thrashing and possibly in the last throws of life. But I’m here, right on this site, and, for those so inclined, I’m really good at and like email, my contact form is always available to start a conversation.

Maybe I’ll say hello, I’m not sure. Writing an email is a lot more work than favoriting a tweet. Just like writing the last few paragraphs took a lot longer than tapping Retweet to Followers.

But if I do email her, I suspect we’ll strike up a delightful conversation. And you, reading this, well, I bet you’re at least a little curious. Maybe you’ll read a few posts, start following along, and drop her a note someday, too.

It will be worth the effort. When we take our time, it usually is.

I started using <a href="https://culturedcode.com/things/">Things from Cultured Code</a> in 2007 when the alpha version was released. For the past 15 years, I’ve used it nearly every day.<sup class="sn-number sn-toggle" role="button" tabindex="0">1</sup>

Here are just a few of the things I put in Things…

• Every book I’ve read, including all of the highlights
• Ongoing notes from conversations with people
• The concerts I’ve seen, including the set lists
• The list of books I want to read
• Vacation ideas
• A list of apps to try
• Gift ideas
• Tips and how-tos, from winter freeze tips to git commands

It’s my go-to app for many reasons including simple inertia—the more I use it, the more valuable it becomes. It also works wonderfully on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, the search is fast, the keyboard shortcuts easy to master, and I've never lost data or run into a significant bug.

Writing in Things

My to-dos in Things are often prompts to think and write, such as a post, short story, or planning for a new year. That’s when I normally switch to iA Writer. But recently, I started to wonder why. The to-do in Things usually has notes, initial bullet points, or maybe a draft intro. I often find myself switching back and forth between them.

Plus, things has changed two things that makes it better for writing: notes now support Markdown and they can hold significantly more text, up to 7K words. So, I was curious, what makes me switch when it comes time to write?

First, to-dos and notes live within a project and by default, the left sidebar shows all of your other projects, which can be distracting. Thankfully, it’s easy to hide. With it hidden, it looks likes this.

Second, to-dos are always in a list alongside other to-dos as in the above image. So when you’re working on one, the others are right there to tempt you. There’s no view that focuses on a single to-do. I decided to create one.

I added a new Area (what Things calls a collection of projects) called Focus. When I’m ready to dedicate extended time to a single thing, I just move the to-do to Focus and then switch to fullscreen mode. This only works if Focus has a single to-do, which is precisely what you want when you focus.

Checklists

At this point, I have a reasonable alternative to switching to another app to write. I can write in the same place where my notes, ideas, and to-dos are. The experience is barebones and missing some of Writer’s niceties, but I'm also less likely to be drawn into fiddling options.

There’s one delightful plus in Things favor, though. Because this note is technically a to-do, it supports checklists. Having a checklist in a separate section at the bottom while you write is kind of magical. You can collect thoughts and to-dos without switching context. I’ve used it for ideas I might want to include, reminders to expand or trim something, and to capture the steps in the process when the writing is just one of many.

Two final conveniences. First, creating another draft is as quick as ⌘-D, which  duplicates the to-do.

Second, I can create a to-do to use as a document template (such as the default sections) and the process template, capturing the typical steps in the checklist. Just duplicate the template, move it to Focus, and dive in.

I've found that there is an ebb and flow to how I use different tools. Sometimes, I want to consolidate to as few as possible, other times I love having one that specializes in each piece of the puzzle, like an outliner. For now, I'm enjoying going to Things for what's next, then staying there to actually work on it.

It was during a different crisis that I found myself sitting in an HEB parking lot. In November 2020, the pandemic was in full swing and we were months from the first vaccine. We had switched to curbside pickup to avoid entering the store and I was listening to a podcast as I waited.

It was a conversation between Rick Rubin and Bruce Springsteen on the Broken Record podcast, ostensibly about Bruce's latest album. About 12 minutes in, though, Rick brings up depression.

Rick: You’ve talked about your dad’s depression and that you have some of those seeds in you.

Bruce: Oh yeah.

Rick: What are the things that have helped you to move through those and when was your first experience of recognizing, “Oh, I have this, too.”

Bruce: I hit a wall when I was 32 years old. I wrote “Nebraska” and after “Nebraska” I travelled across the country with a friend of mine and it was on that trip that I realized something was amiss. I was always able to count on the miles, the music, to assuage whatever my demons were. But on that trip it was the first time for some reason where it felt like it’s just not doing the job. And when I got to L.A. I was completely an anxious mess and I had no idea what to do with myself next. All I knew was, I need help. I’ve hit the wall, I don’t know where to go with this. My usual remedies that worked in my 20’s—music, this, that, touring, traveling—are not working for me anymore. I’ve got to find another answer. And I began analysis when I was 32. I did it for 30 years.

Rick: It changed your life?

Bruce: Yes, absolutely. It gave me the rest of my life—you know, the fulfillment of family, of love and being able to be loved, of delving deeper into your own history and your own essence, and that affecting your creativity. The way I’d describe it is you’re standing in front of a brick wall and you think you’re seeing all that the world is, and then suddenly you start pushing and a brick drops out, and you look through into this complete other experience and existence, and you go, “Fuck. Woah, I’ve been living on such a limited level.” It expanded my vision, and it also helped rid me of my depression. That and also pharmacology has played a big part in giving me my life back and that’s been very important also.

When I heard, "It gave me the rest of my life," something shifted and I heard the voice in my head say, so clearly, "It's time." Six weeks later on New Year's Day, I had my first call with my new therapist.

It wasn’t like therapy was unknown to me. My father was a social worker. Family and friends have extolled its virtues over the years. Coworkers have added therapy appointments to team calendars, which I always admired. Stories about the rise in people seeking therapy during the pandemic were everywhere.

I had often considered it, but never taken the leap. The stress and anxiety of that time, though, was pervasive—the pandemic, recession, layoffs (including my own company), U.S. election—any one of which was more than enough. With little interaction with others and nowhere to go, work became all-consuming—it felt like one thing I could control when so much that I couldn't was swirling around me.

I was fortunate to find the perfect therapist for me on my first try. We laughed in that first call and nearly every one since. It helps to realize that the thoughts that go through our heads are, quite often, laughable, and create some emotional distance.

The pandemic turned out to be the perfect time to start. It was wonderful simply to have someone else to talk to. That doesn't mean it wasn't awkward. It felt selfish to talk so much. I kept wanting to say, "Enough about me, how are you doing?"

Everyone's experience with therapy is unique. Mine is best captured by my favorite scene in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. Sam can't resist laughing when he realizes Suzy's parents owned a book called, Coping with the Very Troubled Child. She runs off, but he finds her, apologizes, and says simply, "I'm on your side."

"I know," she replies.

I’m on your side. Direct, comforting, unwavering.

It's a gift to talk to someone who is disconnected from your day-to-day, but also on your side—eager to listen, inquisitive, and cheering your progress, no matter how small. Therapy is a safe place where I can be honest and feel cared for, not judged.

In the past 18 months, I've learned to stay in the moment longer, especially the positive ones, instead of immediately moving to what's next. I'm more apt to find pleasure in things, no matter how small, and show myself, and others, grace.

I also have a better perspective on working. The topics you gravitate toward are revealing and work dominated our conversations for a long time. The discussions were really helpful—in fact, I doubt I would've quit my job without them. But it still showed how I had let work take center stage.

The result is that my floor is slowly rising. I haven't stopped chasing perfection, productivity, and control, and there's still stress and worry, but I'm more resilient. It's easier to keep things in perspective. I see and understand myself better, and each conversation colors in the picture a little more.

Before I scheduled my first appointment, I felt like I was the last remaining person who was on the fence about therapy. If I wasn't and you find yourself wondering if it's for you, I hope you'll give it a go. Find the person that’s right for you and make the time. It’s the most valuable hour in your week—an hour that can give you the rest of your life.

Thanks, Bruce.

That's when I found the art bot project started by Andrei Taraschuk. It's grown to over 500 artist accounts posting art (primarily paintings) around the clock.

I jumped in and followed a handful of favorite artists and my feed was now filled with art. Unfortunately, a little too much art. The bots are chatty and my previously manageable Twitter feed was hard to keep up with. I started unfollowing some artists and turning off retweets for the others, but realized that was counter-productive. I wanted to expand my exposure to art, not limit myself to a few artists whose work I already enjoyed.

Twitter Lists were the perfect solution, providing a river of art that I can dip into anytime. You can't turn off retweets on Lists, which turned out to be the missing piece. The bots have been trained to retweet paintings by similar artists and are impressively accurate. They've introduced me to many artists and new favorites. The bots even retweet recent articles and exhibits tied to the artists. By favoriting art tweets, I've also created an online gallery of works I love.

I feel like I've taken an art appreciation course over the past year. I've seen thousands of paintings I never would've seen otherwise. Since paintings are often repeated, the bots are in effect training me—I'm amazed at how many artists and paintings I now know at a glance. Visiting art museums has the added thrill of seeing art in person that I first marveled at on my screen. I sought out this Bridget Riley exhibit because of the art bots.

Digital and physical are very different experiences, of course. A digital image of a painting, especially one tucked into a Twitter feed, doesn't do it justice. There's no sense of scale. The thickness of the paint and the flow of the brushstrokes are lost in translation. Digital is a lesser experience, but one made better by being multiplied a thousand times over. And an image can still make you catch your breath and shift your perspective.

I recently discovered the Literary Friction podcast. My favorite episode so far is Obligatory Note of Hope from April 2020, which includes an interview with Jenny Offill. Near the end, co-host Carrie Plitt spoke so eloquently about the power of art that I had to stop the episode just to let the words sink in.

I’ve always thought of all reading as very hopeful. That’s partly because fiction in general is about the human condition and I am an optimist when it comes to humans. I believe in humanity. I believe in people with all their shortcomings and foibles and I think that’s part of the reason why humans are so beautiful. And partly because beautiful art makes me hopeful about the world.

We talk a lot about doom scrolling. The art bots are, for me, an antidote, a counterbalance—our most timeless works intertwined with our most ephemeral. The tide of conflict, suffering, and fear washes over us throughout the day, but hour by hour, the art bots quietly remind us that we humans are capable of breathtaking work that challenges and confounds, mesmerizes and mystifies.

Beautiful art makes me hopeful about the world.

If you'd like to add some art to your day, you might enjoy my Twitter list of 101 art bots. (If you're scrolling in a coffee shop, keep in mind that with art, comes nudity.) The full list of bots can be found here and here, so you can also follow your favorites. I hear the bots are active on Facebook and Tumblr, too, if those are a better fit for you.

This 5-minute talk is a great intro to the project and you can support the Art Bots on Patreon.

The first came a year after my wife and I got married. Living in Chicago and having grown up in Michigan, we were eager for sunshine, warm weather, and a fresh start. We decided to move to Texas, a place where we didn't have jobs or know a single person. It’s been our home ever since.

The second leap was a few years later. I had one of those awful jobs—an owner who couldn’t be trusted and checks that sometimes bounced. I found my dream job, but it was only part-time. For a few weeks, I did both, but I sensed that committing to a better future was part of making it reality. I quit my full-time job, despite having a house and child, and no idea if my part-time job would ever be more than that. Within two weeks, I was offered a full-time position and my career began in earnest.

When I tell those stories, I cast them as tales from the distant past. As time passes, stability grows in importance and leaps into the unknown seem unwise. The person who took those chances feels like a character in a story.

I poured myself into my most recent job for eight years. I joined as the team was just taking shape and later became the VP of Product. I hired the first designer, data scientist, office manager, support advocate, customer success manager, and content strategist. I encouraged our inclusive, supportive culture and championed remote work, hiring the earliest remote employees. I led the adoption of Shape Up and got to work with some of my best friends.

I also grew and learned and made mistakes.

Joining the company was one of the best decisions I’ve made, and so was deciding to leave.

A few months ago, I read this post: 5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job. It’s a great prompt to look at your current job through the lens of your career.

I had long thought I couldn’t leave—the people, product, and history meant too much. Plus, I feared the uncertainty of a job search. Two realizations shifted my view.

First, I realized that the job's importance and my own were overinflated. The best job is still a job and can be replaced. The same is true for an employee. Life will go on.

Second, I asked myself, "Would I apply for my current job?" Put that way, the answer was clearly no. I was valuing the past at the expense of my present and future.

It sunk in one morning as I was watching this U2 performance of all things: it’s time to leave and take another leap. I had to make that commitment to myself and trust that what doesn't make sense right now will later, just as it had before.

Not long after, I celebrated those eight wonderful years with coworkers past and present on a beautiful Austin evening.  

I accepted an offer for my next job a week later.

I’m overjoyed, filled with gratitude, and happy to tell a new story.

Do Rachel Handler and Fiona Apple exchange texts on New Year’s Eve? Does Fiona send Kristin Iversen cute dog photos? Does Jenn Pelly call Fiona sometimes while she’s making dinner?

Fiona Apple’s music means a great deal to me, especially her latest, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.¹ (¹ Pitchfork's Album of the Year in 2020 and the rare perfect 10.) She’s an enormously successful artist who still works without a net, each album somehow more original and honest than the deeply personal one that preceded it.

But five excellent albums over 25 years doesn’t fully explain how oddly connected I feel to Fiona as a person. I haven’t even seen her perform, though my closest miss came under notorious circumstances. I had tickets for a show in Austin on September 20, 2012. The day before, her tour bus was stopped in West Texas and she was arrested for drug possession. The show was canceled.² (² She performed in Houston the next night and it seemded the concert would be rescheduled. Instead, refunds were issued and in the nine years since, she’s performed just 42 times—not once in Austin.

The source of my connection is one of music journalism’s highest art forms—the Fiona Apple profile.

Since 1997, I’ve read 65,000 words about Fiona across just 10 articles. They range from the tidy 2,900 words Kristin Iversen wrote in Elle to Emily Nussbaum’s epic 10,000-word profile in The New Yorker. Dan Lee, Jenn Pelly, Rachel Handler, John Weir, Laura Snapes, Alan Light, and Chris Heath penned the rest. Rachel Handler is the overachiever of the group—she's interviewed Fiona for three pieces so far.

The core of the articles is familiar—a profile of a musician ahead of an album’s release, typically recapping a conversation over lunch or a brief outing. If you're lucky, you'll get a peek into the artist’s life and who they are when they're not on stage.

Fiona’s profiles are the equivalent of having your journal, photos, and text messages appear in a major publication. In fact, many of the pieces include personal photos, text messages, and excerpts from her journals.

What stands out in these interviews is how much time she spends with each writer, how quickly they develop a seemingly personal connection, and, of course, how transparent Fiona is about her past and present.

In starts in 1997, when John Weir hangs out with Fiona at her mom's apartment. She shows him her high school yearbooks and dolls her mom made her, tells painful stories from her childhood, and introduces him to her friends and mom.

The next year, Chris Heath joins Fiona on the floor of her hotel room. They make word collages by cutting out headlines from newspapers and magazines. She tells him in-depth stories from 3rd grade, empties her purse and inventories everything in it, explains how she came to use psychiatric medication, and at his request, reads a random excerpt from her journal. She gives him the phone number of her ex-boyfriend and tells of her struggle with an eating disorder. The meetings span multiple cities.

Fiona and Dan Lee spend nearly 30 hours together in 2012 over multiple days and states. They enjoy wine and pot while hanging out at her house, where he meets her brother, hears about her traumatic birth, and goes for a walk with her dog.

After a long break, the profiles return in 2019. Fiona initiates this one, in fact. Rachel Handler begins by referencing the one with Dan Lee that received so much attention.

She hasn’t done a conventional interview in years; when she was profiled back in 2012, by this very magazine, she smoked hash out of a Champagne flute while musing about human compassion.

When Emily Nussbaum's profile appears in The New Yorker, the past profiles are part of the conversation again.

Today, Apple still bridles at old coverage of her. Yet she remains almost helplessly transparent about her struggles—she’s a blurter who knows that it’s a mistake to treat journalists as shrinks, but does so anyway.

The conversation and visits stretch from July to January. Fiona sends video from her day at the beach and asks for help interpreting texts from friends. They watch an episode of The Affair together at Fiona's house and Emily is there when Fiona has a panic attack. Emily meets Fiona's mother as well, perhaps at the same apartment where Dan and Fiona went through her high school yearbooks.

Rachel Handler and Fiona keep in touch and then Rachel publishes another in-depth profile in 2020. It starts with a FaceTime conversation from Fiona's house on the topic of the New Yorker article.

That New Yorker piece (Emily Nussbaum's) is so funny to me — the period of time we were talking was such a horrible group of months, because of all of the withdrawal I ended up being in from getting off of some medications.

Rachel asks, "What is it like acknowledging things about yourself in public?"

I think I’m used to it. I don’t think I know any different. I can recognize it enough to be a little bit creeped out by it — the fact that I do tend to open up way too much. But I’m okay. I feel weird, obviously.

Rachel noted that many of the profiles were by men³ (³ See Kristen Iverson's Men Explain Fiona Apple to Me. The latest profiles have been by women.) and asked:

When I was doing research on your press, it struck me that for most of your career, it was men reviewing and interviewing you. I’m wondering what that was like for you — to always be interpreted through the prism of the male perspective.

Fiona replied:

Well, I’m not as keen to talk to men as I am to women. I don’t mean that overall. But in general, if you’re going to give me a choice to talk to somebody I don’t know, I’d rather it be a woman. Just because our understanding is very different than men’s understanding.

I’m not going to put myself in a position where I’m trusting somebody I have no knowledge about to interpret me for the world. I know you, I trust you, I’ve talked to you before. I know your heart is good. I know you’re a good writer.

Kristen Iversen visits Fiona in June and October of 2020, with many FaceTime calls and texts in-between.

On that bright October day, back when it was possible to go inside someone’s home and hug them hello and hug them goodbye, Fiona Apple walked me back out through her garden, Mercy at our heels, and asked me three more questions that have stayed with me. I try and answer them anew every day. “Who are you trying to impress? Who are you trying to satisfy? Are you going to make yourself happy?”

These profiles primarily focus on Apple's music and craft, of course. She has few peers as a songwriter and singer, and her significance as an artist makes her honesty so compelling. She brings the messiness, pain, and heartbreak of life into the open, and often without immediate resolution. Public figures do share struggles regularly, but usually only after they've been overcome. Fiona's profiles are remarkably of the moment, and those moments are ones most of us hesitate to share with our friends, let alone the press.  

Fiona's unflinching honesty has brought criticism, but her bravery has given others strength and comfort, and made public and private conversations about depression, abuse, anxiety, and OCD easier. And there's so much to be celebrated in these stories, too, because the messiness of life also includes growth, overflowing joy, creativity, best friends and new friends, loyal pets, and understanding ourselves in new ways.

I’ve found many insights within those 65,000 words. One, though, stands out. In honor of naming Fetch the Bolt Cutters their Album of the Year, Jenn Pelly wrote a 9,800-word profile for Pitchfork. It's another piece that grows out of nearly 6 months of conversations about writing and recording, meditation, OCD, and more.

In it, Fiona tells the story of Bob Dylan asking her to play piano on his song, Murder Most Foul. She tells her manager that she’s underqualified for the job, but decides to show up the next day for the recording.

I told Bob I was really insecure about it, and he was really encouraging and nice. He was just like, “You’re not here to be perfect, you’re here to be you.” To have Bob Dylan say that before my record came out was a huge deal for me.

You’re not here to be perfect,
you’re here to be you.

That line has been with me throughout this year. What a kind and generous thing to say to another person. It could be said to a child, partner, friend, collaborator, parent, or even coworker. It’s the rare person who wouldn’t benefit from hearing that.

I know, because I’m one of them. And what's so perfect about Bob Dylan saying that to Fiona Apple is that she's been saying it to us for 25 years through her songs and interviews. I’m grateful to her for spending hour after hour with Jenn Pelly, and for not hesitating to tell another story of vulnerability and doubt.

Maybe one day there will be a 6-episode podcast about these profiles. The host will interview each of the writers and then bring them together in the final episode to compare notes.

The host, of course, will also reach out to Fiona to see if she wants to be part of it. She'll beg off, but offer to meet up for a chat. The conversation will span a few months, bouncing between FaceTime, texts, and photos.

The highlight of the podcast will be the transparent, funny, and unflinchingly self-aware voicemails Fiona left for the host.

10 Fiona Apple Profiles

1. Girl Trouble by John Weir (1997, 3700 words)
2. Fiona: The Caged Bird Sings by Chris Heath (1998, 6900 words)
3. Girl on a Wire by Alan Light (2000, 4500 words)
4. ‘I Just Want to Feel Everything’: Hiding Out With Fiona Apple, Musical Hermit by Dan P. Lee (2012, 7300 words)
5. Fiona Apple Is Still Calling Bullshit by Rachel Handler (2019, 5400 words)
6. Fiona Apple’s Art of Radical Sensitivity by Emily Nussbaum (2020, 10000 words)
7. Allow Fiona Apple to Reintroduce Herself by Rachel Handler (2020, 8500 words)
8. Fiona Apple Is Finally Free by Kristin Iversen (2020, 2900 words)
9. Fiona Apple on How She Broke Free and Made the Album of the Year by Jenn Pelly (2020, 9800 words)
10. Fiona Apple on the album of the year, Grammys hypocrisy and how #MeToo helped her get sober by Laura Snapes (2020, 4200 words)

It’s easy to find yourself with too many meetings in a week. Each one has a purpose, but they accumulate until all gaps in your schedule are full.¹ (¹ Apparently I think about meetings a lot because I previously wrote The Cost of Meetings, which is similar in spirit.) When gaps remain, they’re too small to get focused work done, so they end up being used for email and Slack triage.

A high number of meetings can be a sign that a team has room to grow in working asynchronously. It's easier to schedule a meeting than capture the problem and potential solutions in writing, get everyone's full attention, and arrive at a decision. Working in that way requires practice and persistence.

I'd love to see calendar tools help teams move to asynchronous work. A great place to start is with meeting limits.

Each person sets a limit on the number of meetings per day or week. They could also be set for specific days of the week, such as not allowing meetings on Tuesday and Thursday. Another option is limiting the number of hours spent in meetings per day or week.

The most common solution is to block time on your calendar, like the morning for focus work. It works fairly well, but requires keeping the schedule current and resisting requests for exceptions.

With meeting limits,² (² Calendly and CalendarHero support daily meeting limits. I think of them as primarily for scheduling with people outside of your company, but perhaps they work well internally, too.) if someone attempts to schedule a 4th meeting on a day that's limited to 3, or the 16th meeting on a week with 15, they'd see a message that the person’s meeting limit has been reached and to try another day or the next week.

Meeting limits³ (³ If you’re thinking, "This sounds like Kanban work-in-progress limits", you’re not wrong!) are great because:

• They're more definitive than blocking time. It’s a bigger ask for someone to exceed their meeting limit for the week than "I know you blocked 9:00-12:00, but can you spare 30 minutes at 11:30?"
• They make it easy to experiment. Try setting 2 days at 0 or the whole week at 10 hours.
• They make it possible to slowly break the meeting habit. If you currently average 20 meetings a week, set the limit at 19 and lower it each month until you find your sweet spot.

If the calendar supports defaults, a company could set limits to encourage the meeting culture that fits the way they work, such as specific days without meetings or the maximum anyone should have in a week.

A side effect of meeting limits is they encourage us to reflect on how much time we spend in meetings and whether it aligns with our priorities. Introducing friction increases the chances that each meeting is valuable.

Imagine that one person advocates for hiring experienced people with signicant accomplishments. They argue they'll accomplish more, faster; raise the level of the team; and require less day-to-day guidance.

Sounds great, but what are the trade-offs? Possibilities include higher salaries, a longer hiring process, and fewer growth opportunities for existing team members.

Another person makes the case for hiring people with limited experience and high potential. They will be easier to find, less expensive, and driven to grow.

Both approaches have merit, but they can't be evaluated only on their presumed benefits. Every decision has a cost.

There may still be disagreement after the trade-offs are on the table, but the conversation is now focused on a more substantive topic—the underlying priorities. One person may place the highest value on hiring quickly and often, another on small teams with fewer managers.

Turning to a product ¹ (¹ Engineering examples might include whether to use feature flags, requiring code review on each pull request, and when to use third-party libraries.) example, imagine a team has a new feature that's nearing completion, but it's unsure about how to release it. Some want to do a round of user testing, then a limited beta. Others want to skip both steps and get it into users' hands quickly.

After discussing the trade-offs of both approaches, it becomes clear that one group prioritizes confidence and quality. They believe that the additional checkpoints will validate and improve the solution, increasing the likelihood that the launch will be smooth and successful.

The other group prioritizes speed and iteration, believing that the best way to learn and improve is to ship early and often.

The conversation has moved from how to ship one feature to what are the goals for feature releases. Once the team is aligned on that, future decisions will be easier.

Clarity about trade-offs also keeps people aligned when the pain points or costs are later encountered. Imagine the team decided to do a round of user testing and a limited beta before releasing the feature. If trade-offs were vague and there wasn't alignment on the underlying priorities, there will soon be grumbling that it isn't live yet and frustration about slow progress.

As the next feature nears release, the same debate starts again, now complicated by disagreement over the last experience. When everyone understands the trade-offs, there are fewer surprises and less second-guessing.

People are usually aware of a decision's trade-offs, they just aren't discussed openly. Sometimes they're left out to make the case seem stronger. Other times people are concerned about being seen as negative or assume they're obvious and don't need be discussed. The reality is the people almost always have different take. Everyone benefits when assumptions are spelled out.

Being open about trade-offs assures that decisions aren't made with incomplete context. It pushes the conversation to the underlying priorities that are driving each person's preferences, which increases alignment. And it strengthens resolve when trade-offs surface later.

The next time you're making a decision, ask:

• What are the unspoken trade-offs of this decision?
• What are we not doing in order to do this?
• What are we optimizing for?
• What priority is driving this decision?

I believe it's important to own your words and publish them under your name and domain. In 2000, blogging had just begun and I started writing on weblogs.com.

Next came Radio Userland, followed by TypePad from Six Apart. This was during my peak blogging (and pre-Twitter) years when my goal was to post every day.

I used Svbtle for a few years and experimented with Tumblr more than once. For some reason, I never gave Wordpress a serious try, and Medium just isn't what I'm looking for. My most recent solution was the GitHub Pages and Jekyll static site combination.

I recently decided it was time for a new online home. And for the first time, I would hire someone to help! The first question was what tool to use.

Ghost

For bb.place, I chose Ghost. It’s the best blogging platform I’ve used.

I briefly considered the self-hosted, static site option again (likely using Hugo), but I wanted the simplest workflow possible. It’s not particularly hard to keep your local environment current, push commits to GitHub, and host your site on Netlify, but writing is! Additional friction makes it less likely that I’ll do it.

Ghost was the obvious answer. I’ve admired the team and how they run their business for years. Ghost is an independent non-profit and the platform is open-source. They have a sustainable business model and are focused on the long-term. Learn more about the small and mighty team.

The tool itself is phenomenal. Managing a site is simple and intuitive and the editor ¹ (¹ The editor supports HTML and Markdown. I write posts in Markdown using iA Writer, which supports publishing to Ghost.) is a joy to use. It’s clear they view speed as a feature.

Ghost offers a great collection of themes, but is powerful and flexible if you want to build your own, which is why we did.

Ghost's membership and newsletter features are also well done. Having everything in one tool is a plus. I love that they include the option to turn off email tracking and analytics.

In addition, support is quick, personal, and top-notch. They even helped import nearly 150 posts. Thanks Sarah and Paul!

A Custom Site

For the first time, I hired a designer ² (² My fabulous friend Andy. Design is just one of his many talents. Why not give his music a spin?) to build a few features and a custom design. I’ve never been able to have the exact site I wanted until now and you know, it’s a lot of fun!

Layout
Most themes today are designed for content marketing—images for every post, featured posts, read more links. It’s as if we’re all publications with six staff writers and an editorial calendar. I wanted something simpler: a calm, high-quality reading experience focused on the full content of each post with the most recent first.

Mini-site
One of my goals for the site was to celebrate Uncommon in Common, an online community I started in 2012. I wanted to create a mini-site with its own navigation, multiple pages, and even a separate archive of hundreds of posts. I’m really happy with what we came up with.

Flexibility
With Ghost, you can use tags and a little code to customize what appears on the homepage, archive, and RSS feed. That made it easy to support a variety of content.

Related posts
One of the fanciest things we built is a form of related posts. Inspired by Uncommon, I want to write about my favorite things.

But Uncommon taught me that a few paragraphs about a favorite often isn't enough. For instance, standup comedy is one of my favorite things. I plan to write an essay about that, but I’m sure there will be more. For instance, posts about specific comediens. Using internal tags, I can add favorites on the fly and publish related posts and they're automatically connected. You can see an example with The West Wing.

Sidenotes
I wanted sidenotes from the moment I saw them on iA's site and we were able to make it happen. We used Ghost snippets so I have quick access to the necessary HTML to add a sidenote. Of course, sidenotes become footnotes on smaller screens.

Font
I enjoyed trying fonts and slowly becoming opinionated about them. Thankfully, Andy is a great guide. We experimented with Wotfard, Assistant, and an early favorite, Illisarniq. I eventually came across Source Sans Pro and it fits the aesthetic I wanted perfectly.

Logo
Logos are so fun and easy when you know exactly who to ask.

I hope bb.place is a delightful experience for you! If you have questions or run into any hiccups, please share them.

On this trip, I confirmed how much I enjoy the work of Joan Miró and Wassily Kandinsky, and developed a new appreciation for Robert Delaunay and Wayne Thiebaud. I'm not sure what the common thread is between these artists, but revisiting the photos I took suggests I'm drawn to abstract images with vivid colors. An interesting art museum app would be one that records your reactions to pieces as you go, and then recommends others you should see.

Next to each painting is an informative card that tells you the title, who painted it and when, the artist's lifespan, and often the story behind it. In some cases, it's tidbits about who is in the painting or what was happening in the artist's life when it was painted. Other times, the text puts the painting in context, explaining why it's significant, how it defined or responded to a movement, or what it reveals about that period in history.

It wasn't until the second museum that I realized what I was doing. I would walk to the next painting and read the card, then take in the work itself. I wanted context before I experienced it. Is this painting significant? Is it by someone I know? What's the connection between this one and the one to the left?

That approach was partly driven by a lack of confidence. I didn't trust my first take. It's not a great feeling when you fail to give a masterwork its due.

It was also just easier. The experts put the painting in context for me and guided my experience.

But it was no longer my experience alone. I couldn't say whether a painting spoke to me without hearing the voice that told me why it should have.

It's a familiar feeling. We all have voices that frame and interpret things for us. They tell us why this news matters and a book is worth reading, the best place to stay, signature dish at a restaurant, or the right position on an issue. They tell us why we should be outraged or why we should be outraged that others are outraged.

Trusted organizations and experts, talented curators and editors, are essential. None of us can watch every movie, try every restaurant, or study every issue in-depth.

Sometimes, though, the consensus is nothing more the quick conclusions of people who think like we do.

I want to see, hear, and experience more things unfiltered, and incorporate the wisdom of others after my own thoughts have taken shape.

And appreciate the mysterious beauty in front of me.

Friend:

it's happened before, too (before being before I started working here)

Me:

Before Being Before would be a great book title

Those three mundane words together suggest something curious and hard to describe. There's a powerful sense of potential wrapped up inside them, like a recipe of ordinary ingredients that produce a delicious result when combined in just the right way. Before being before is, for me, the space between.

It's the space between an idea and its expression, between learning that you're expecting a child and the day they're born. The space between starting your senior project and presenting it. The space between deciding to change your career and your first day in a new role, sending off your manuscript and receiving replies from publishers.

Sometimes there's a lot of work to be done in the space between, but other times, there's nothing to do but wait. The seed has been planted, but what happens next is out of your hands. Perfecting the art of patience and letting go of the end result is the hardest part.

Between what something is and what it will be lies uncertainty and tension for some, while others revel in the mystery and anticipation. Each of us navigates these transitions in our own way and hopefully gains wisdom for next time.

I remember the months leading up to launching Uncommon, the conversations, excitement, and doubts. It was the before being before.

Lists are how I remember the small things and prioritize the big things. For over eight years, those lists have been kept in Things from Cultured Code.

I've used Things longer than any other app. The UI is simple and efficient, with thoughtful touches throughout. It's equally great on the Mac and iPhone. I can count the number of bugs I've encountered on one hand. Most importantly, the data syncing and integrity has been flawless. When you're storing years of ideas, notes, and tasks in one place, you have to be able to trust it. I rely on Things throughout every single day.

Flawless isn't easy, though. Cultured Code is notorious for shipping only when it's ready, which mean long breaks between major versions. The long-awaited Things 3 debuts Thursday after being announced in December.

December 2013.

Many people have stopped using Things due to the lack of major updates and they often write about it. But they rarely describe a significant bug that hasn't been fixed or essential feature that's missing. The app has never been stagnant. Improvements are delivered regularly, including support for new OS features and Apple Watch.

Mostly, people are frustrated at waiting so long for something new. We expect a steady stream of change from our apps and devices that we don't from, say, kitchen knife manufacturers. It's fun to tinker with new features and it's easy to equate change with progress. It's hard to imagine that an app could be designed with such care that it doesn't need to be revamped regularly.

I'm eager as anyone for a new version of Things, but while waiting for Things 3, I've never once opened the app and not been able to do what it's designed to do.

I'm going to focus on using Things and trust Cultured Code with building it.

You and a friend might read an article or watch a movie and take very different things from it. At dinner, a companion mentions that the couple at the next table appears to be on the verge of breaking up and you had only noticed what they ordered. Approached by a stranger on the street, one person is friendly and eager to engage, the other reticent based on past encounters.

The West Wing is a one of my favorites. I suspect many are watching (or rewatching) it now as a small anecdote to the tumult and antagonism of this moment. The show’s optimism, purity, and idealism is comforting.

In one episode, the First Lady is engulfed in a silly controversy after an innocuous remark. When Sam reads the quote that caused so much trouble, he says, “I don’t see it”.

C.J., the Press Secretary, replies, “Well, you got to want it.”

After a pause, “Oh, I see it.”

The scene speaks to our penchant for finding seeds of outrage in trivial things, but that's not what's been on my mind recently. It's that simple line, “Well, you got to want it.”

To find joy and beauty in our day-to-day, we have to want to see it. If we don’t look intently, if we don’t slow down and seek it out, the good will be lost in the clamor. There's always something ready to distract us. The path of least resistance is often downhill.

I told a friend recently that they are “delightfully observant.” With eyes wide open and unending curiosity, they see things I wish I saw.

There's good all around us. When I don’t see it for awhile, I remind myself, “Well, you got to want it.”