Week 25: Reading Tech Stack, privacy screens and general updates
A normal week. And that's good.
I had a good week. It had its intense moments. Here we go:
On Wednesdays, Henric and I usually work from the tower to focus on fundraising.
I had a dense calendar this week, and several moments where I would have liked to take a moment of reflection rushed by so fast. Some companies were founded, the twins are preparing their summer post-school trips and left tonight for the first one, Dina is starting to walk again, and the longest day of the year rushed by. In addition, I had some great, deep, and intense conversations with founders.
I ordered a new car
This is not important, but I have enjoyed the experience quite a bit. My car goes back to Volkswagen in August. I used to have VWs for the past 14 years and enjoyed them a lot. I switched to VW from my sportscars when the twins were old enough to recognize car brands. Last Saturday, I ordered a Tesla. And so far, I can say that their customer onboarding and communication are much more engaging than I experienced before. The people at VW are all super lovely, and whenever we had touchpoints, everything was very well. What Tesla does differently is I have great interactions with the people there, and they use their App and email to stay in touch and keep me engaged and looking forward to the car. Very well done. Let’s see if the car can live up to the communication standards. ;-)
My reading tech stack
I am curious, and I am reading a lot. Taking notes and storing highlights are essential to me. And I am a massive fan of having a second brain. I have been keeping my notes for years in various databases. I rarely move my data, but sometimes, with new tools available, I switch different layers of my tech stack. Here is how it works:
I read emails, websites, RSS feeds (in Feedly), tweets, ebooks, pdf files, and sometimes print. Often, when I see something I want to read later, I use a read it later tool. Whenever I read something that I want to remember or annotate, I want to be able to make a highlight and sometimes a comment. I want all these highlights and comments in a searchable database, and I want all this to be as smooth and low threshold as possible. And my current setup gives me additional options. I have written about my reading system before in this medium post. Since then, I have switched some tools and processes:
The reading layer
I use Safari and Chrome as my main browsers. For email, I use Apple Mail (private) and Superhuman. Whenever I see something I want to read later, I add it to Matter (when I want to read it and am unsure if there is something worth remembering). When I am sure I want to remember it, I add it to my resonance calendar I built in Notion. I can do this via clicking an extension in Chrome and Safari. I use the scanning feature of Readwise to capture from paper books, newspapers, and magazines.
The aggregation layer
Every highlight or comment (including the link to the source) that I store in one of the reading tools gets synced automatically into Readwise. I started using it as a synchronization hub for all the content I wanted to remember. There are other features as well: Readwise sends me a daily email containing eight highlights, five from recently read items, and three from things I have read in the past. This way, I get a dose of inspiration before lunch every day, and I am always surprised by how well I recall the texts that I have read months or years ago.
The database layer
Readwise syncs with my second brain. In Notion, I have a database of all highlights, clippings, and comments that I can search, and in my notetaking tool Roamresearch, I can link to anything while working and taking notes.
This system allows me to read as much as I want, and it will enable me to take notes, highlights, and comments in a way that suits me very well on my computer, my cellphone, and my kindle. I don’t have to do anything to copy things around, and after setting this up, everything works super smooth. I change the system whenever I find a new tool that allows me to do something more intuitively. I have not yet figured out the perfect flow for newsletters because I cannot highlight and annotate in mail. For this, I have to use Matter. But I already have an idea of how I can fix this. Do you have a reading system?
Privacy screens
Traveling is back. And I use the train more often than the plane when traveling. I try to minimize traveling as there is so much inefficient time involved. But I had a few meetings over the past weeks where I needed to travel. Especially on trains, I like to work, and while I was going through some board meeting materials, I noticed my neighbor looking at my screen. I had forgotten about working in public environments and people looking at your screen. I had a new privacy screen the next day. This is necessary when on trains or in public settings, and it is also sad: I enjoy my laptop's display and its resolution, brightness, and colors. This was one of the reasons why I picked it. With the magnetic privacy screen, most of the brilliance is gone. But I only have to use the screen when I need it, and then I am ok with the worse visual quality. I have not yet figured out privacy screens for my cellphone and iPad. So far, the ones I have found are all “glue-on” versions. And I do not want to glue something to my phone or iPad that significantly diminishes the visual quality at all times. Any solutions out there?
What I read
What I read this week. I did not have the time to watch anything. And when I took a break, I watched Tesla onboarding videos ;-):
Central Bank Digital Currencies are not very interesting or useful Helpful thoughts on digital currencies and central banks.
Are we really addicted? An interview with Nir Eyal. A differentiated view on retention, engagement, addiction, and tech products.
VC salaries in Germany vs. the rest of Europe. Good data to work with.
The European Commission has a big new plan for Startups. Sifted summarized what they find relevant in the program that will be published in early July.
The rise of the internet’s creative middle-class. Do you remember when Kevin Kelly published his “1,000 True Fans” essay in 2008? He discussed the idea that one can make a living by having 1000 true fans online. Here is a view of how reality turned out.
As I write this, some of the startup teens’ teams are working on their pitches around me. Super cool to listen to them.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you found something meaningful. Please share with your friends if you like.
Have a great week!
Joerg