Welcome! I’m excited to be sharing new finds with you this week. Please share feedback with me on what you enjoyed the most. I’m especially interested in how you find the format (i.e. sections). Comment below or reach out via Twitter: @jonnymhenderson.

Read

Article: P.A.R.A.
I’ve been using PARA for some time ow. It’s a fantastic system for organizing your digital (and physical) files across all the platforms you use (i.e. platform-agnostic). I’ve listed it on my Articles page as a must-read, and it truly has helped me always be able to find the file I’m looking for.

Watch

Video: Eva’s Cooking Show—Episode 1: Pancakes

Shameless self-promotion here, but a friend shared a video of a toddler cooking and asked that I send one of our daughter. We had a ton of fun making it, and it made for a great quarantine bonding activity 🙂You can watch it on YouTube or below:

Side note—I found the YouTube Audio Library for the background music, which is free (public domain) and creative commons licenses. Such a handy resource

Listen

Song: “Ode to the Mets” by The Strokes

Their new 2020 album, The New Abnormal, is a fun listen. I have never actively listened to them other than “Reptilia”, which I loved from Guitar Hero, but this one is sweet jam (maybe strawberry?). Listen on Spotify or YouTube.

Podcast: North Star Podcast

In my last newsletter, I shared how I’ve been really enjoying getting to know David Perell better through his work. I listened to his podcast this week, and really enjoyed several of the guests he had on. Here are some episodes to get started with:

• Andy Matuschak: Designing Education—Andy (@andy_matuschak) has worked for Khan Academy R&D and Apple building iOS. His insights into design and learning are excellent.
• Austen Allred: The Future of Education—Austen (@austen) founded Lamda School, a free coding education that then gets 17% of your salary (if you make more than $50k) for two years to earn back their costs. Many of their alumni have gone from minimum wage to six-figures. It’s a fascinating look at turning such an old system upside down.
• Jeff Morris Jr.: Building a flexible mindset—Jeff (@jmj) is someone I’ve been following for a while now, and this episode is fantastic. He previously worked at Tinder and Lamda School. I loved his story about writing letters as a kid to famous people and getting responses!

Do

Tool: Todoist

I’ve picked up Todoist again for use as a reoccurring daily checklist. I’ve never been great with checking a digital task management system (I tried it for homework in college), but the reoccurring tasks paired with badge notifications have helped. It’s still a work-in-progress, but I love the natural language where you can type “daily” or “every morning” and it will set the repeat schedule. It’s free for personal use.

Learn

History: Reinheitsgebot

There’s a very old German law, Reinheitsgebot (“purity order”), governing the ingredients and pricing of beer that dates back to 1516. “The basic law now declares that only malted grains, hops, water and yeast are permitted.” Essentially the government determined the quality of what would pass for German ber. Here’s a fun, quick overview.

There’s also a brewery in China founded by Germans in 1903 that “is China’s second largest brewery, with about 15% of domestic market share,” adheres to this law, and it’s now publically traded. Pretty rad.

Ponder

Quote: John W. Gardner

Some people may have greatness thrust upon them. Very few people have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly, by “doin’ what comes naturally”; and they don’t stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.