Jeff Huang writes about his 14 year old productivity system of simply using an ever-growing single text file to house everything.
To-dos, meeting notes, ideas. Everything.
Good reminder that you can have a high production function without 27 productivity tools.
Donella Meadows on places to intervene in systems.
Gratitude is how we maintain the fragile, critical systems of relationships that come to our rescue when things go bad. Strong institutions get that way through the effortful work of the grateful to nurture them on.
Riffing on one of my favorite quotes, from Calvin Coolidge:
Passing over the hill of complexity.
On the newsletter, we dive into Gall's Law, and the simplicity to complexity workflow.
The full archive of the Whole Earth Catalog.
How ecosystems are smarter than we are.
Applying principles and phenomena of mycelial networks to other types of systems.
Sometimes the best way to find a breakthrough on a problem is to do the simplest thing, not necessarily the cleanest, best, or most complex.
Seek out simple solutions over complex ones.
Similarities between systems for writing, pattern languages, design tools, and other networked
A brief interview with Alicia Juarrero on the properties of complex systems.
Thinking about productivity and optimization of systems with a two-dimensional model of scale-to-throughput.
A new podcast on design and systems thinking from Ryan Singer.
Florent Crivello on the differences between orderliness and efficiency.