🗞️ Your News, Your Way

The hardest part of writing is the first 10 minutes. Get past that, and momentum kicks in. Once you start scribbling a few sentences, you’re on your way. Having gotten stuck and unstuck a lot over the past 325 weeks of writing this newsletter, I’ve found a few tricks that help. Pick one to try, and leave a comment to share what you do to get unstuck. As a little experiment, I’ve made an Unstuck Studio page to accompany this post and to help you get unstuck playfully. As Daniel Pink explains, starting comes first. “Action precedes motivation, not the other way around.” When I’m stuck, I dictate rather than battle my inner critic. The critic assumes there’s a better word for whatever I’m typing. It urges my fingers to stop and wait. When I’m rambling with my voice, the critic is quiet. We call an idea freeze writer’s block, not talker’s block. When we speak informally, ideas just flow. Because spoken words disappear into air, it’s easier to avoid self-editing. In a dictated draft, clunky first words are OK because they get us closer to what we’re trying to convey. Tools I use for dictating first drafts * Google Docs voice typing works in more than 100 languages. In English you can add punctuation verbally or say things like “new paragraph.” See more of my favorite Google Docs tips and tricks. Free. * Letterly works well on mobile or desktop. In addition to transcribing, it can give you a summary, or format your text. (It’s now a free perk for paid Wonder Tools subscribers.) Free with limits, or $80/year. * Wispr Flow lets me dictate into any app or site on my laptop or phone. It works surprisingly well even if I whisper, which helps around other people. I just double-tap my Mac function key and start talking. Free to start; $12/month for pro features. * Lispr.ai is a reliable Mac option. It can also translate your dictation. Free. Simple alternatives: iOS Voice Memos and Notes transcribe your speech for free. On Android, try Google Keep. Sponsored Message Your New Teammate Set Up in 5 Minutes UFO is an AI operating system for work and code, built to help smaller teams automate daily workflows across Slack, GitHub, and Google Workspace. Automate administrative tasks across your team’s existing tools. The Most Dangerous Writing App erases your words if you stop typing before your timer ends. Choose a three or five minute sprint, or set a word target. Once you get the hang of it, your hands will keep moving. Edit later. Free Ilys is an even more challenging way to force yourself to keep writing. It shows your typing just one letter at a time. When your session is over, you can review and edit your words. Free for basic use. Sessions are capped at 808 words, which is more than enough for freewriting. A subscription is $11/month, but I don’t need the extras. Mind maps help you focus on concepts and ideas, rather than piling words onto the page. Connect your ideas to one another visually. Put one word down. Add a picture if you want. Pretty soon you have an outline to build on. When I’m writing something complex or juggling lots of ideas, mind mapping allows me to assemble the bones of a piece efficiently. Use Apple’s free Freeform app on iOS or Mac. Or try simple apps like Mindmup or Bubbl.us. Both are free for up to three maps. Miro and Mural, which offer more advanced design features, also give you three free boards. Rather than using AI to write, ask it to interview you. Or push it to provoke you. I find that helps me surface my own thoughts. Prompts to try * “Interview me about this. Ask one question at a time. Push me for depth.” * “Provoke me. Give me a controversial statement to respond to.” * “Push me to sharpen my viewpoint by pointing out potential blind spots in the ideas I’m starting to write about.” * “Ask me five intriguing questions about this. Don’t answer any of them.” * “Act as a tough mentor. Give me five unconventional writing prompts to pick from ….” * “Ask a surprising question I’ve not heard before ….

I subscribe to hundreds of newsletters. Most weeks I read only a fraction. These are the dozen free ones I turn to first, all written by humans, plus five bonus picks from two guests. Share your favorites as a comment below. 1. Dense Discovery by Kai Brach The best curated email I get. I find interesting sites, stories, and ideas in each post. It’s also gorgeously designed. It has a 63% open rate, roughly double the typical newsletter. For a sample, check out the recent “Cynicism is not a strategy” issue. 2. NextDraft by Dave Pell I abhor the frenzy of 24-hour news cycles. But it’s a pleasure reading Pell’s daily NextDraft. He summarizes the day’s most interesting stories with a warm sense of humor, avoiding the anxiety-provoking tone of nightly TV news. He always includes at least one offbeat story that’s fun to share. WTF Just Happened Today also serves up a clear, concise take on today’s top U.S. news. 3. Cool Tools by JR Raphael I always learn something from Raphael’s posts. Instead of chasing tech headlines, he tests and explains useful sites and services. His separate Android Intelligence email catches me up on new apps outside the Apple world. I also like Recomendo. The three contributors spotlight six useful things in each issue, from a fantastic site, book, or video to an unusual hardware tool or a helpful Reddit community. 4. One Useful Thing by Ethan Mollick The most insightful AI newsletter I read. Mollick, a Wharton professor, shares practical AI experiments with his 480,000 subscribers, testing what the tools can and can’t do well. Every few months he writes an opinionated guide, like this guide to which AI platforms you should try. His latest post features an elaborate music video he had Claude compose with Suno. His book Co-Intelligence, published in April 2024, remains a helpful AI primer. I’m looking forward to his next book, Co-Existence, coming out October 20. 5. Hulry by Rahul Chowdhury Chowdhury blends common sense with creativity. His recent post, 21 Productivity Hacks I’ve Picked Up Over the Years, is a good example of his straightforward, practical takes. Like Dense Discovery, his Hulry posts are full of well-chosen finds. Each issue has something handy or quirky that’s fun to read about. Sponsored Message If your customer info lives across email, spreadsheets, and sticky notes, you already know the cost: missed follow-ups, forgotten details, wasted time hunting for context. Capsule pulls it all into one place, and our AI Contact Enrichment fills in the gaps automatically, so nothing’s left half-complete. One more tool that actually earns its spot in your stack. No card required. 6. Popular Information by Judd Legum The best example of an independent investigative journalist making the Substack model work. It’s completely free to read, supported by paid subscribers, with no ads. Legum aptly describes his project as “News for people who give a damn.” His accountability scoops on corruption and injustice lead to change. They’re full of carefully reported details and regularly picked up by major news outlets. One example of his impact: in 2020, after his reporting about Olive Garden, its parent company started providing paid sick leave to about 170,000 employees across 1,779 restaurants. 7. Second Rough Draft by Richard J. Tofel Read this excellent newsletter if you’re interested in the state of contemporary journalism. Having been ProPublica’s first employee and its president from 2013 until 2021, Tofel brings experience, expertise, and evidence to his posts. He’s warned that many of the nation’s for-profit metro newspapers are “going out of business in slow motion.” His posts show how and why that’s happening, while also offering insight into the nonprofit news world. 8. Dr Phil’s Newsletter by Dr Philippa Hardman Not that Dr. Phil. Hardman, a Cambridge University scholar, shares research-backed insights about how AI affects learning and teaching. Posts feature clear charts, frameworks, and nov

Now that fall is here, my focus has been fragile. Noise, notifications, news, and email grab at my attention. To help cope with distractions, I've stitched together a focus toolkit with apps, sites, and sounds. Some are new, others old. My goal this season is to concentrate for a bit longer when my attention might otherwise drift. I hope this collection will be useful for you too. Stop email interruptions 📧 Inbox Pause This simple email add-on temporarily freezes what you see in your inbox. Any new messages will show up as soon as you un-pause. Price and platforms: Free for basic use. For extra features, like custom scheduling or hearing from select senders during pauses, get the $15/month pro account. Works with Gmail and Outlook online or on the iPhone. An alternative free option: Pause Gmail Avoid distracting sites 💻 News Feed Eradicator Get rid of the addictive endless feed on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Look instead at whatever accounts you’re actually interested in. Price and platforms: Free. Chrome only. Raycast Focus Mode Block email and distractions during short, focused, work sprints. Price and platforms: Free. It can automatically block sites for you in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox (and related browsers modeled on WebKit, Chromium, and Firefox). SelfControl ⏳ Pick a list of sites to block. Set a timer for deep work. While it’s active, you won’t be able to use Facebook, email, or whatever you’ve blacklisted, even if you restart your computer. Price and platforms: SelfControl is free for Mac. It’s open-source and not fancy. Alternative: Cold Turkey is a more polished free Windows and Mac alternative for blocking sites. The pro version costs $45 for a lifetime license ($36 for students) for advanced features like blocking applications. Forest App Rather than blocking sites or apps, Forest helps you avoid wasting time on your phone by rewarding you for not touching it. Your virtual trees grow until you pick up your phone. The approach seems to resonate: 60 million people have used this app. 🌳 Price and platforms: Free for iOS and Android. A paid subscription unlocks extra features. Apple Screen Time Set time limits on apps that tempt you to doomscroll. Count how many notifications your apps send, and see how much screen time you’re logging. The downtime feature is what I use most. It closes my apps at 11pm. I can override that when I need to. But I like that friction nudging me to stop late-night work. Price and platforms: Free for Macs and iOS devices. Android has a related “Digital Wellbeing” feature. And Windows has focus options. There’s a related Do Not Disturb mode for Mac and iPhone. Wonder Tools Quick Survey Help me understand who reads Wonder Tools and what matters to you. It takes about a minute. As a thank you, you’ll get my updated list of 100+ favorite tools in an email within days of submitting it. Your responses are confidential. Block noise 🔊 Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones The New York City subway is painfully loud. So I splurged on these over-the-ear WH-1000XM6 headphones. (My previous XM3 pair lasted for seven years until I accidentally bent them.) The battery lasts for several weeks on a single charge. Price: $460. The XM5 model, also excellent, is $300. Wirecutter’s review (which agrees that Sony’s XM6 model is the best) includes a $100 alternative. MyNoise Pick your favorite type of focus sound: a waterfall, a purring cat, white noise, rain, or a dozen others. I like the cafe, where you can adjust the ratio of chatter to kitchen noise. The creator, Stéphane, records real sounds and wrote a manifesto about avoiding AI-generated noise. The newest release: Pigeons of NYC. Price and platforms: Free, browser-based. Headspace This was designed as a meditation app, but I use the focus music without lyrics to block noise around my Times Square office. Price: $70/year or $10/year for students. Or share six accounts (family, roommates, teammat

Today I’m sharing a guest post on how to strengthen your AI skills. It’s by Frank Andrade, an AI instructor who has helped thousands of people on Substack master ChatGPT and Claude with beginner-friendly guides and in-depth tutorials. Frank: The gap between AI novices and experts is growing. * One group is saving 5 minutes on emails. * Others are running systems that work while they sleep. The good news? You can progress faster than you might think. The Five Stages: * Stage 1: AI Beginner * Stage 2: Prompt Crafter ⬅️ (where many people stall) * Stage 3: AI Literate * Stage 4: Workflow Builder * Stage 5: System Builder Regardless of which stage you’re at, the resources in each section below will help you sharpen your AI skills. Stage 1: AI Beginner This is where everyone starts. You have a ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude account. You use it like a fancier Google. You ask one-off questions. Maybe you ask it to help write a quick email or generate a few images. That’s about it. It’s useful, but it doesn’t feel like a superpower yet. Don’t worry. We’ll get there. The first move at this stage is picking your tools. AI tools fall into two categories: * General-purpose: Handle multiple tasks including text and visuals * Task-specific: Focus on a specific kind of content or media type Frank’s Recommended Toolkit Start Here Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini Worth Exploring Gemini Notebook, Claude Cowork, and Claude Code Specialized Tools Gamma (presentations), Google’s Nano Banana Pro (images), ElevenLabs (audio), HeyGen (video), and Napkin (infographics) The Big 3: Select a Starting Point For beginners, the differences between ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude aren’t significant. Still, here are some things to keep in mind: * ChatGPT: rich feature set, including voice and video modes and image generation * Gemini: works well with Google Docs, Sheets, Gmail, YouTube, etc. * Claude: strong at automation and building tools/apps; doesn’t generate photos or videos, though it does assist with design If you’re a beginner, pick one to focus on. It’s fine to select what your company provides, what’s familiar, or one you’re curious about. Stick with it for a few weeks to see when it saves you time, how well it handles technical tasks, and where it’s most useful. Frank’s current stack: Claude Cowork, and Claude Code for serious work, Gemini Notebook for learning, and ChatGPT for voice. Your stack doesn’t have to look like mine. Build your own based on what you actually do. Here are some of my resources for this exploratory stage: * The Best AI Tools for 2026 * Your Guide to ChatGPT * Claude for Beginners: Complete Guide Stage 2: Prompt Crafter When it comes to AI chatbots, how you ask is as important as what you ask. At this stage, get to know this basic prompt structure: * Instruction: what you want * Context: background the AI needs to know * Constraints: length, tone, format, things to avoid * Example: when possible, provide an example of what “good” looks like For more detail, refer to this robust prompt formula shared by Anthropic, which makes Claude: You’ll rarely need to use all the elements of the formula, but it’s good to know they exist. Think of them as a menu to pick from. At this stage, you should also know a few prompt-improvement tricks. For example, when you finally land on a great answer after a long back-and-forth, ask the AI to write the prompt that would have gotten you there on the first try. Here are some resources for this stage: * Prompt Formula * Prompt Principles Who Needs to Go Beyond Stage 2? Stage 2 was enough in 2023. In 2026, AI has evolved and can run multiple tasks at once on its own. There’s nothing wrong with being in stage 1 or 2 if you’re a casual user who proofreads emails and generates images once in a while But if you want to master AI, you need more. That’s what we’ll cover in the next stages: * Stage 3: Develop AI literacy. Use it as a thinking partner. * Stage 4: Build AI workflows for the work you do repeatedly. * Stage

Google Docs turned 20 this year, so I’m sharing 20 of my favorite GDocs features you might find useful. What are your favorites?✨ 1. Type with my voice 🎙️ Tools > Voice typing When I’m tired of typing, I dictate. I like voice typing with Google Docs to add sentences to a blank page as I think out loud. Here’s a sample of my dictated text. Read it aloud to test your voice typing. The transcription isn’t perfect, but it’s free. 2. Match a prior doc’s format 📋 File > New > Help me create > Match doc format I can base any new doc on a prior design, like my pedagogy resources handout. This gives me a quick way to create new styled drafts. Requires Gemini to be turned on. 3. Add extensions 🧩 Extensions > Add-ons Get apps for GDocs. I like Beep for attaching voice notes to docs. Word Cloud Generator is nice too. Here’s an example, drawn from this post. Docs to Slides by Alice Keeler is useful for converting a doc into a presentation. The Free icons extension from icons8 is useful for easily adding little visuals to a doc. 4. Add a quick link to any text 🔗 Type Command+K with any word or phrase selected Google Docs is the most efficient tool for adding links to text. Select a word and press Command+K to choose from several relevant links without leaving the doc. It helps me avoid opening a separate tab to hunt down links. Here’s a gif showing this. 5. Quickly create a new doc ⚡ Type doc.new into any browser to quickly create a document. This shortcut lets you jump into a new document from any browser window. It works with other Google services too: slide.new, sheet.new, form.new, site.new, cal.new, meet.new, and keep.new. It also works for notion.new, canva.new, substack.new, and playlist.new (Spotify). More examples. 6. Divide a doc into sections 🗂️ Insert > Tab Instead of creating 20 files for a project, make a single doc your headquarters. Each topic can have its own tab. Or each team can. Share everything with one link instead of maintaining a dozen separate docs. See my tips for tabs then add your own idea in a comment. (View a published GDoc version to see the difference between shared docs and published ones). 7. Add a table of contents 🧭 Insert > Table of contents For long documents, create a table of contents (TOC) so people can quickly find what they need. Choose the black text option for a cleaner look, if you’re printing.Add headings within the doc (Format > Paragraph styles) to ensure they appear in the TOC. Here’s step-by-step help on this if you need it. 8. Keep track of changes 🕰️ File > Version history Version history makes it easy to see what you’ve changed, when. Or look at what collaborators have edited. See what’s new, who made an edit, and when. 9. Copy a doc 📑 File > Make a copy Duplicate something to make a different version. Simple, easy, and fast. Sometimes I use this for version control instead of the built-in version history. 10. Download a PDF — or other formats ⬇️ File > Download > PDF Document Sometimes I need to share a PDF so anyone can easily read my doc. Nothing fancy, but it’s been useful hundreds of times. 11. Create typing shortcuts ⌨️ Tools > preferences, then select Substitutions on the top right. Use shorthand with GDocs for words or phrases you frequently type. List them in your preferences. For each one, pick a simple key combination of letters. From then on, any time you type those letters, they’ll expand into your desired phrase. It’s useful for your email or mailing address, or a word you often misspell. 12. Try new templates 🎨 File > New > From a Template Start from a design instead of a blank page. Google now has more than 100 templates, including 60 in the template gallery and 40 when you choose the “from a template option” to start a new doc. The new project roadmap and onboarding templates are well-designed. The resume, letter, and proposal templates also make your words look good. Some of the other templates are a bit visually bland. 13. Design docs for the web 🖥️ Format >