At awakening, I like my mind white and my coffee black. Black coffee whites my mind from sleepiness. Or maybe I’m just thinking white because a blank canvas comes to mind. However, when I wake up, my brain is a mess. Maybe dreams from the night are white. If that, black coffee empties the mind…

Today is our last day on earth before the Great Evacuation—humanity's departure to start a new elsewhere. Together like always, we’re waiting in the almost never-ending lines to onboard our assigned spaceship. Too many worries, emotions, memories, feelings, and stories, to think about, and the only thing I have in…

A fresh look at photo-taking in the digital age — How can we compare taking notes and taking photographs? How have both changed with digitalization, the internet, and smartphones? It’s difficult not noticing how much has changed the experience of taking photographs, not in a professional setup — that has also changed a lot, but that’s for another text —…

Note-takers, be aware of the tourist syndrome — There are notes born to be burned. Sometimes, taking notes is only about taking notes, without being worried about capturing the notes and keeping them in a folder, the cloud, or an app. The fact we have the technology — note-taking apps, tools for thought, or PKMs — doesn’t mean…

What about going to the end of the world to write for help? Let’s change the rules for that practice of sending messages in bottles through the sea. Let’s write some words on paper. Go to the edge — where the world ends, crumble the paper to make a ball…

3 things to learn and do about emotions at work (and at personal productivity also) — There is this new trend in leadership and management that finally talks about emotions at work. You may have heard that a good leader or executive is the one who can overcome stress, anger, and difficult social interactions in the office. The emotional resilient leader can be productive in the…

After the experience, the sharing — You have the right age to be wise. Or you think you know enough on a topic to share your wisdom about it. Perhaps, at the end of a big project, long relationship, school years, long trip, you want to keep your deepest learnings in place. Maybe, you want to…

Can you hear the music? Can you hear the muses? — The sound of paper Writing by hand on paper is the more subtle sound of writing. I love the soft sound of the pen scratching the page in my notebook as well as the sound of the cap of the pen when opening it; or the snap when pushing in, if it’s a click…

Language makes the difference — To-do lists are one of the most common power and popular uses for writing, particularly for not-taking. There are different methods, systems, apps, services… And what about levels of structure? From the simple to-do list on a post-it or a napkin, to very complex systems with hierarchies, folders, tags, colors…