John Cox

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Tagged productivity · everything

Interesting

Miles Burke

15 Fantastic and Free Blogging Tools When Writing Posts

A personal, curated rundown of free (or freemium) tools the writer actually uses monthly across a busy multi-blog writing schedule, grouped into editing/writing, planning, visual, and SEO categories — covering things like Hemingway and Google Docs for drafting, Capitalize My Title and a self-built US/UK spelling fixer for polish, plagiarism checkers for vetting guest posts, Trello and a self-made stale-content auditor for workflow, Canva/Photopea/unDraw for visuals, and Ubersuggest/Yoast for SEO. Worth keeping as a practical, tested toolkit list rather than a generic "best tools" roundup, since it explains why each tool earned a spot in the author's real editing workflow.

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www.milesburke.co

15 Fantastic and Free Blogging Tools When Writing Posts

A curated, personally-tested roundup of free (or free-tier) blogging tools the author actually uses weekly, organised into editing/writing, planning, visual, and SEO categories — covering things like Hemingway and Google Docs for drafting, plagiarism checkers for vetting guest posts, Trello for pipeline management, Photopea/Canva/Undraw for images, and Ubersuggest/Yoast for SEO. Worth keeping as a practical, no-fluff toolkit reference rather than a theory piece, including two of the author's own side-project tools (FixSpell for US/UK spelling conversion and AuditFresh for finding stale content). It's framed around a real multi-blog workflow, so the picks are geared toward speed and volume rather than one-off perfection.

Permalink productivitysoftwaretoolsblogging

Fast Company

Claude

Maximizing the value of your Claude Code sessions | Claude by Anthropic

Claude Code charges per token used in a session, with input tokens costing less than output tokens and cached tokens costing far less than fresh ones—meaning the same task can cost different amounts depending how you run it. The post explains that token costs multiply based on model size and effort level, then get amplified by prompt caching behavior: every turn resends the entire conversation history (cheaply, from cache) plus whatever is new, so keeping conversations focused and clearing between unrelated tasks saves money by preventing irrelevant context from accumulating. Practical tactics like @-mentioning files, using /clear and /compact strategically, and suppressing verbose command output all reduce what stays in the context window, which compounds savings across multiple turns.

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remarkable.com

reMarkable Paper Pure

Product marketing page for the reMarkable Paper Pure, a distraction-free E Ink writing tablet pitched as an antidote to notification-heavy screens: no buzzes or pop-ups, a matte glass surface mimicking real paper, up to three weeks of battery life, and repairable, partly recycled hardware. It leans on a cited internal study claiming handwriting on the device reduces stress and boosts focus versus working on a PC, and positions the optional "Connect" subscription as the bridge for syncing notes to AI-assisted tools on a laptop. Worth keeping as a reference for the device's actual feature set and claims before a purchase decision.

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www.zdnet.com

5 MacOS command line tools I swear by over their GUI counterparts

Rounds up five free command-line tools worth installing on MacOS via Homebrew, aimed at users who assume the terminal is unnecessary on a GUI-driven OS: pandoc for file format conversion, taskwarrior for a lightweight to-do list, Ollama for running local AI models privately, ag (the silver searcher) for fast multi-file text search, and yt-dlp for downloading YouTube video or audio. Each entry includes the actual install and usage commands, making it a quick reference for practical CLI utilities rather than a general appeal for terminal adoption.

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www.fastcompany.com

sixcolors.com

Rethinking RSS, newsletters, and how I read every morning

Reflecting on Terry Godier's newsreader app Current, the author explores why an app built to relieve "reading debt" and unread-count anxiety didn't work for them, despite agreeing with its premise. The piece traces this back to the author's own once-a-day, morning-newspaper-style reading ritual (via Feedbin and ReadKit), which led to a broader realization: newsletters that bundle stories into a single digest actually suit this habit better than raw RSS firehoses, prompting the idea of converting noisy feeds into newsletter-like summaries. It ends less as a review of Current and more as an open question about what the ideal reading app—something between mail client, RSS reader, and read-later service—would actually look like.

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www.makeuseof.com

6 creative ways to use NFC tags that feel like magic

NFC tags are cheap programmable stickers ($15–$20 per pack) that can be placed around your home to automate repetitive phone tasks with a single tap, eliminating friction from daily routines like bedtime sequences, work focus modes, cooking with recipes, guest Wi-Fi sharing, laundry reminders, and car music setup. The author argues that while individually small, these automations collectively reduce phone unlocking and task-switching throughout the day, and the physical tap provides psychological satisfaction that voice assistants don't match. At roughly $1 per tag, the low cost makes experimentation practical for identifying which automations would most benefit your personal habits.

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otter.ai

Otter Meeting Agent - AI Notetaker, Transcription, Insights

Otter.ai is an AI meeting transcription and summarization tool that records conversations, generates real-time transcripts in multiple languages, and automatically captures action items and key decisions for teams to reference later. The platform integrates with CRMs, calendar apps, and AI chat tools like ChatGPT, allowing users to search across meetings and automate follow-ups, with testimonials claiming time savings of 30-40% per week. It offers flexible deployment options including bot-free desktop recording, browser extensions, and mobile capture, with tiered pricing from free basic plans to enterprise solutions.

Permalink productivityaicollaborationsoftware

www.howtogeek.com

7 Handy Microsoft Excel Features You May Have Missed

Excel has seven lesser-known features that can streamline spreadsheet work: Sparklines create compact graphs within single cells, Data Validation restricts entries to specified types and can generate drop-down lists, the Status Bar displays quick calculations like sums and averages without adding formulas, Flash Fill automatically completes patterns (like splitting names into separate columns), Remove Duplicates eliminates repeated rows with one click, Watch Window monitors formula results across large workbooks without hunting through sheets, and Analyze Data provides automatic insights and visualizations. The guide explains how to access and use each feature to save time and reduce errors.

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www.forbes.com

3 High-Income Skills You Can Turn Into A Side Hustle In 2024

Rachel Wells identifies three high-income skills — project management, software development and digital marketing — that professionals can convert into profitable side hustles in 2024, advising readers to find market gaps, specialize and build a personal brand to increase demand and rates. She references demand projections and industry reports from [[U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics]] and [[Coursera]] to illustrate growth, and recommends practical routes such as consulting, creating niche services (SEO, email campaigns, branding) and freelancing via platforms like [[Toptal]] and [[Upwork]]. The piece stresses starting with smaller projects to build a portfolio, collecting client testimonials, and continuous upskilling to remain relevant as technologies reshape work, offering a pragmatic roadmap to monetize expertise alongside a day job and diversify income streams.

Permalink productivitytechnologyleadershipbusiness

atthis.link

X (formerly Twitter)

The New Yorker

Elizabeth Kolbert: Why Are We So Busy? : The New Yorker

Keynes predicted in 1928 that by 2028, technological progress would make us so wealthy that we'd work only three hours a day, forcing us to solve the "problem" of abundant leisure—but the opposite has occurred, with GDP growth sixteenfold yet working hours unchanged or increased. The article surveys competing explanations for this puzzle: some economists blame human insatiability and the hedonic treadmill of consumption, others point to cultural conditioning around work and leisure, and still others note that high earners face greater incentive to work long hours because the opportunity cost of their time is so enormous. The piece suggests we've collectively failed Keynes's challenge to reimagine a society no longer organized around accumulation.

Permalink productivityphilosophylifestyleeconomics

The New Yorker

Elizabeth Kolbert: Why Are We So Busy? : The New Yorker

Keynes predicted in 1928 that by 2028 economic growth would be so abundant that people would work only fifteen hours a week, freeing humanity to enjoy leisure and culture—yet today Americans work longer hours than ever despite vastly increased wealth, a puzzle that economists attribute variously to unlimited consumer desire, cultural conditioning toward consumption, the meaning derived from work itself, and the specific incentives facing high earners who sacrifice leisure to maintain competitive advantage. The article surveys these competing explanations while following journalist Brigid Schulte's investigation into contemporary "overwhelm," particularly how women shoulder disproportionate housework and childcare alongside paid employment, suggesting that the failure of Keynes's vision reflects both our inability to stop wanting more material goods and our unwillingness to fundamentally reorganize how we value work and leisure.

Permalink productivityworkeconomics

reallygoodemails.com

Slack

Slack: Be less busy

This appears to be marketing copy for Slack's product features and capabilities rather than a saved article to summarize. It's a promotional page highlighting Slack's AI assistant (Slackbot), CRM functionality, automation tools, and integrations with third-party apps, along with customer testimonials and statistics about time savings and user adoption.

Permalink productivityappsaicollaboration

App Store

Mac App Store - Skip Tunes - Spotify, Rdio, and iTunes Controls

Skip Tunes is a Mac menu bar utility that lets you control iTunes/Apple Music and Spotify playback, volume, and track ratings without opening the apps themselves, while also enabling quick sharing to social media and custom keyboard shortcuts. The app has been featured in major tech publications and recently updated to work with Apple Music while maintaining privacy by collecting no user data.

Permalink productivityappsmusicmac

iconsandcoffee.com

Essence | Icons & Coffee

Bear's latest update adds Siri AI features that let you create, append to, and pin notes entirely by voice, with onscreen awareness so Siri understands context without you explaining it. Gentler Streak and The Outsiders now use App Intents and onscreen awareness to surface fitness and training data through Spotlight and Siri without opening the apps. Cheatsheet Notes and DoMarks similarly integrate Siri AI and onscreen awareness to let you quickly save notes, images, and bookmarks while leveraging each app's core purpose—Cheatsheet for quick scraps of information and DoMarks for organizing links by action categories like "buy," "read," or "watch."

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