NotePlan is one more option if you’re in the market for a tool that combines tasks, notes and a built-in calendar. Using Markdown, natural language input and autocompletion of tags, mentions, and links, you can connect notes and tasks together and attach times & dates to each.

This browser-based design tool helps you create your very own fonts. Still in beta, features are added regularly, like paired kerning and contour drawing. It’s free to use and its creator, Evgeniy Agasyants, welcomes feedback and suggestions.

Heptabase is fast, cross-platform research and note-taking tool to visualise your work through whiteboards and mindmaps, bringing all your highlights, annotations, PDFs, journals, and research notes together in one handy interface.

While Daft calls itself ‘the anti-social social network for minimalists’, a more fitting description would simply be ‘microblog’. Here’s how it works: “Create a username and you’ll receive a secret email address. When you write to this secret email address, using only the subject line, you can publish notes, links or images on your profile page. You can use any email service.” This is what it looks like.

Humanise →

A maker’s guide to building our world

One of the world’s most prolific designers, Thomas Heatherwick, offers a refreshingly blunt look at the manmade world. You don’t have to be a designer or architect to enjoy this book filled with photos, sketches and ideas that make you want to remake your environment with humanity in mind. “Thomas Heatherwick shows how design has a profound effect on our mental and physical health, the climate, as well as the peace and cohesion of societies. He shows how a flawed idea of utility and ‘efficiency’ has engulfed our towns and cities and hardened into a form of bland minimalism. But it doesn’t have to be this way: there are other ways to build – with the power to lift our spirits, engage and connect us.”

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read →

Thoughtful parenting

This book is about how we have relationships with our children, what gets in the way of a good connection and what can enhance it. “Leading psychotherapist Philippa Perry reveals the vital do’s and don’ts of relationships. This is a book for us all. Whether you are interested in understanding how your upbringing has shaped you, looking to handle your child’s feelings or wishing to support your partner, you will find indispensable information and realistic tips in these pages.”

The rise of platforms like TikTok and other social media has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do, you cannot escape the tyranny of the personal brand. This sort of commodification of the self is now seen as the only route to any kind of economic security. “You’ve got to actually spend your time doing this stuff on the off chance that the algorithm picks it up and people care about what you have to say. You’ve got to spend your time doing this even though it’s corny and cringe and your friends from high school or college will probably laugh as you ‘try to become an influencer’. You’ve got to do it even when you feel like you have absolutely nothing to say, because the algorithm demands you post anyway. You have to do it even if you’re from a culture where doing any self-promotion is looked upon as inherently negative, or if you’re a woman for whom bragging carries an even greater social stigma than it already does. You’ve got to do it even though the coolest thing you can do is not have to.”

Rebecca Solnit reflects on the state of San Francisco amidst the rise of the tech industry and its impact on the city’s social fabric. High-income tech workers want to live in a lively and dense urban area while their products contribute to the loss of human contact and the closure of small independent businesses. Meanhwile, the tech elite lives a life of extremes, far removed from the realities of the rest of the population. “The desire of tech workers to live in this dense, diverse place while their products create its opposite is an ongoing conundrum. Many tech workers think of themselves as edgy, as outsiders, as countercultural, even as they’re part of immense corporations that dominate culture, politics and the economy.”

A personal reflection on Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet, writer, and educator who was killed by Israeli air strikes along with his brother, his sister, his nephew and his three nieces. Written by a student of Refaat, it’s a gut-wrenching obituary about Refaat and his commitment to using education and writing as tools of resistance and empowerment in Gaza. “In Gaza, a place beset by decades of occupation, de-development, and isolation, connecting with the outside world was a formidable challenge. Refaat understood that teaching and learning English presented a unique opportunity to break through the physical, intellectual, academic, and cultural barriers imposed by the occupation. He viewed English as an act of resistance and defiance.”