Productivity

The IBM 7090 computer tasked with trajectory calculations at mission control for the Apollo 11 space mission had a clock speed of about 2 MHz, but it still managed to take humans to the moon and back, a wildly ambitious and high-stakes project by any standards. Fast-forward a little over 50 years, AI project management tools running on a regular smartphone let project managers plan, manage, and execute complex projects…

In the beginning, there was ChatGPT, an AI chatbot based on the GPT-3.5 large language model (LLM) developed by OpenAI. And ChatGPT was smart. It had wit, charm, and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of language and culture. But ChatGPT was also flawed in its design — it lacked autonomy and volition to perform complex tasks without human supervision. If LLMs were to write their origin story, this would make for…

Do you find yourself drowning in a sea of half-finished notes and forgotten ideas? Linking Your Thinking (LYT) is another note-taking system trying to wedge its way into the personal knowledge management (PKM) community with a promise of a more effective and satisfying note-taking experience. A promise that sounds too good to be true? Let’s find out. In today’s article, you’ll learn what Linking Your Thinking is, how it works,…

“The Answer.” “The Answer?” said Deep Thought.“The Answer to what?”“Life!” urged Fook. ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy It took the Deep Thought supercomputer from Douglas Adams’ classic novel 7 million years to produce a rather disappointing answer to the ultimate question (in case you’re wondering, it was “42”). But you don’t have to wait that long. In today’s article, we’ll show you how you can use…

When the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau visited the White House in 2016, the French part of his speech translated by ABC TV’s speech recognition software was riddled with quirks ranging from suave “portfolio of us old guys” to cryptic “agreeing. 032. clearing.” It wasn’t the finest performance of AI translation, but hey, everybody has to start somewhere. After years of development, artificial intelligence tools seem to be finally catching…

In the 1970s, British educational consultant Tony Buzan called mind mapping “a Swiss Army Knife for the brain.” Now that large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 has gone mainstream, you can use the power of AI for creating structured mind maps faster than ever before. The concept of a mind map is brilliant in its simplicity.  All you need to get started is a central idea or problem—this could be…

In 1973, the AARON system designed by Harold Cohen created the first AI-generated piece of art. The black-and-white scribblings were far from what’s considered fine art, but they laid the foundation for some of the best AI image generators like DALLE-2 and Midjourney. Over the last 50 years, AI image generators have gotten much smarter. By analyzing and learning from large datasets of existing, original images, they can now create…

In 1966, the world met ELIZA. She wasn’t a particularly charming celebrity, a revolutionary politician, or even a groundbreaking scientist. In fact, she wasn’t a person at all.

Once an oddity in the cubicle world, the remote/hybrid work model is gaining a significant foothold in the job market. And now that the pandemic has opened the floodgates to flexible work schedules, it seems we’re ready for another twist—a 4-day workweek. Or are we? When Henry Ford doubled the pay of his employees to $5 and trimmed work time from 8 to 9 hours per week, he raised a…

Overflowing to-do lists, missed deadlines, lost documents—if you feel like you’re constantly playing catch-up with life, we have something to cheer you up. The PARA method is a simple knowledge management tool that will make your work and life more organized in a jiffy. After a well-received Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte is back with another book. This time, he goes under the surface and breaks down his signature…

Meetings are an essential part of any business or organization. They provide a forum for team members to discuss important issues, make decisions, track progress, and assign responsibilities. But with so many people involved and so many topics discussed, it can be easy to lose track of what was said and agreed upon. That’s where meeting minutes come in. Don’t know how to write meeting minutes? Don’t worry. It’s actually…

It’s time to burn your pencils and shred your notebooks because AI note-taking is taking over. Ok, we may be getting ahead of ourselves—jotting things down is still a thing (and it will be in the predictable future), but sometimes pen & paper doesn’t cut it. So, what exactly is AI note-taking, and how does it work? Here’s everything you need to know. 💡 Before we dive in… This is…