Apple Notes, Bear, Obsidian and Tot. Four different note-taking apps. And I use them all. At least once a week. Sometimes every day.

I could use just one app. That works for a lot of people. And it’s the advice that most productivity gurus and grifters seem to offer. One app for everything.

But it’s that guru-and-grifter advice that got me wondering. For a while...

For more than twenty years, since I left London for the first time back in 2003, I’ve had “start an internet radio station” on my to-do list. The shape of that to-do list – paper or digital, app or freeform – has changed many times since then. But that item has remained, carried over from year to year. An internet radio station. Focused on jazz music. Broadcasting around the ...

Months confuse me. For starters, they aren’t all the same length. And they don’t start on the same day of the week. They come at us in chaotically unpredictable ways. Commit to doing something once a month and you’re locked into a pattern that changes every few weeks.

One of my favourite regular commitments is a memoir writers’ group. At first, we agreed to meet once a...

The philosopher Martin Heidegger would often retreat to a small, three-roomed ski hut in the Black Forest, at an elevation of 1150 m, to do his work. In his essay Why Do I Stay in the Provinces?, Heidegger paints a vivid picture of what it was like to work in that remote location.

“On a deep winter’s night when a wild, pounding snowstorm rages around the cabin and veil...