Michael.team by Michael Sliwinski

✔️ 🎬 Cognitive fitness 🧠 how to make your brain fit?… by Cal Newport

2026-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

I love Cal Newport’s podcast “Deep Questions” - my Weekly Template is inspired by Cal and I’ve read all his books, including the Deep Work which is one my top 10 books of all time. In one of the recent episodes of his show he talks about 5 different components of cognitive fitness or better yet - how to avoid brain rot and stay mentally fit. Here are my notes:

1. 📖 Read every day - it rewires your brain!
2. ✍️ Write - writing is thinking!
3. 🚶‍♂️ Go on thinking walks - without a phone!
4. 🔌 Plug in your phone in the house!
5. 🔨 Learn a hard skill
📺 Watch Cal Newport explaining this!

1. 📖 Read every day - it rewires your brain!

To Cal, this is his base level 🧠 fitness. According to him, the more time you spend reading, the more you develop your brain and cognitive fitness. Reading long form content, especially books, rewires our brain to be capable of smarter thought.

Additionally, when you read a book, you’re getting practice directing your mind’s eye 👀 in a way that will help you actually take advantage of that rewiring.

Cal’s 3 steps to a consistent reading habit:

Start with things you’re excited to read - no profound books - just focus on the act of reading - even if it’s nothing ambitious. Start with 15-20 pages a day - read with your lunch and before you go to sleep in bed.
Create a reading habit - get to 30-50 pages. Create this association: when you have time, you’re going to read as your first choice (and not scroll social media).
Introduce harder books - once you get the hang of the habit, start introducing books that require more concentration from you.

2. ✍️ Write - writing is thinking!

Cal says we should NOT avoid writing and that’s one of the reasons I have this personal blog and I like to journal daily.

Cal says that writing is hard and he compares it to an intense gym workout when your muscles must really work hard. His tip is to force yourself to write for the first 10 minutes, knowing it’s tough. Once you’re over the 10 minutes hump, it’ll get easier.

It’s funny that to me writing is not that hard. I love writing. I enjoy writing. This is how I think. That’s why I’m a proponent for written task-based communication. Adding comments to tasks makes you a better communicator and writer!

To me the previous point of reading is more challenging because I read slowly and I don’t enjoy it as much. I prefer listening to audiobooks.

What I also need is to get better at taking notes from the books I read - especially when I listen to them.

3. 🚶‍♂️ Go on thinking walks - without a phone!

He’s encouraging us to go on a thinking walk several times a week. Not only for meetings. Just to be with your thoughts. If you need to have a smartphone for others to be able to contact you, put it in a backpack so that you can’t be tempted to easily reach for it. I don’t need to, as my Apple Watch Ultra has a cellular connection.

Think of something important you want to solve. You need a solitary target. Something to think about. He argues that this kind of self reflection is truly important. Start with short walks around the block and as you get better, try to go for longer ones. Remember to journal your thoughts after each walk.

Honestly, I’ve never tried that. I always walk listening to something. Challenge accepted!

4. 🔌 Plug in your phone in the house!

I’ve always been a MagSafe fan but now I’ve put even more Qi2 MagSafe chargers around the house. Not only in my home office:

As you can see, I like the “watch stand” mode of the iPhone when it shows the time and calendar. I have several more MagSafe chargers in different rooms around the house, including the kitchen:

This way the phone is not in my pocket, so it’s not tempting to pick it up and read news or messages or shop online. At least I removed social media from it, but still. When I want to listen to something, I use AirPods Pro.

Bonus is that the Phone is regularly being charged and I have set up my iPhone Air battery to charge up to maximum 90% and not more to preserve battery life. I still have 100% capacity after half a year of intensive usage.

Cal argues that people report to him that “the weight has been lifted from their brain”. I can relate to it, because the “pick up your phone” temptation is very strong!

5. 🔨 Learn a hard skill

Cal argues that we should master a skill that requires us to focus and that also helps us get a clear reward that we’re getting better. To many people this can be sports (I’m getting better at tennis).

To me also this is my Shortcut building because it’s fun, requires lots of focus and the reward is a new Shortcut that helps me get better at Journaling or take advantage of the Action button. I’ve recently also started posting my tips on managing JSON files or creating options dialogs.

I’m in the process of finishing version 5 of my Journaling Shortcut and I’ve been using for months my own Clipboard manager which I haven’t published publicly yet. And as I use these Shortcuts daily, I keep improving them.

📺 Watch Cal Newport explaining this!

In case my notes are not sufficient, listen or watch Cal Newport explain this himself:

🔗 Selecting multiple different options in Shortcuts à la “Radio button”

2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

I’m working on version 5 of my popular Journaling Shortcut App where I want to add support not only for saving journal entries to a markdown-formatted text file, but also Apple Notes, Nozbe and more… I want to give the user an option to choose from these various destinations for their journal entries to be saved. Something like a Radio button. Turns out, it’s not easy to do it in Shortcuts so here’s my solution.

How to show all options and select only few…

There are two main Actions in Shortcuts that let you show a list of items to choose from: “Choose from Menu” and “Choose from List”. When I’m using the latter one but the problem is I cannot determine easily which options should be selected when showing the list. I can only decide if I want for all the items on the list to be selected or none.

I can’t define specific items to be selected. So…

🚀 Emoji to the rescue!

That’s why I decided to use two emojis as my main determination if the option is selected or not: “👍” or “❌”.

Now I’m using a simple regular expression and simple if statements to see if an option is selected or not.

I define and save the data in a JSON file called: options.json

I’m saving the selected options in one text field separated by spaces, which lets me later use a simple “if… contains” statement to see if the one option that interests me is selected or not.

Get the “Options” Shortcut

You can download the Options Shortcut as well as the accompanying options.json file to test this in action.

Just like my previous JSON manipulation Shortcut this Shortcut doesn’t do anything useful as such. It’s just a proof of concept and a hack that I will incorporate into my latest Journaling Shortcut.

I hope you’ve found it useful, too.

✅ A letter from founder to a fellow entrepreneur?

2026-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

How about adding such letter on main Nozbe home page? Just to show the prospective buyer that the same tool we’re selling is the same tool we’re using and it’s reflecting our values and the way we want to work? What do you think? Would that convince you?

✍️ Dear fellow entrepreneur,

In 2007, I built the first version of Nozbe for one reason: to get myself organized. An audience of one — me.

Twenty years and hundreds of thousands of users from all over the world later, Nozbe is a company of almost 20 people and we still use Nozbe to run it as our real, daily, this-is-how-we-work tool. Thanks to it:

We have few very meetings. On average I have 1-3 meetings per week. Decisions happen inside tasks, in writing, where everyone can see them.

I’m not the bottleneck. My team doesn’t wait for me to unblock them. They see what’s happening across every project and move forward without asking permission.

Nothing falls through. Decisions live in tasks. Context lives in comments. My future self always finds what my past self left behind.

I sleep better. I don’t carry the company in my head anymore. I open Nozbe, see where things are, close the laptop. The stress of not knowing is gone.

My team enjoys using it. No training. Our tool is powerful yet simple to use, so we all feel productive.

This is the company I always wanted to run. Calm, clear, built on trust. With shared values of Passion, Simplicity, Freedom and Fairness.

👊 And the tool that makes it possible is the same one I’m offering you.

Try it free. Invite your team when you’re ready. See what happens when work… just works.

Yours,

Michael Sliwinski

Founder & CEO, Nozbe

✈️ ⭐️ Is Japanese better? Technology, culture, perfection…

2026-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

Recently I was on trip to Japan after 12 years. I’ve noticed many things that in Japan are different than here in Europe, and very often… better. Which reminds me of the lyrics of one of my favorite Placebo songs: “Pure Morning” where they sing that: My Japanese is better… (check out the song at the bottom of this post). So anyway, here are the things I noticed while being in Japan and what I think about them:

🌸 Cherry blossoms make everything look great
🛒 Convenience stores
🚗 Renting a car in Japan
🧭 Navigation with Apple Maps
📦 Space efficiency
🚓 Cars are small. Minivans are really mini.
🏎️ Sport cars can be also cool.
🚽 Hygiene and butt-cleaning toilets!
👞 Shoes in Japan
👟 Buying shoes in Japan is worth it now.
🛂 Tax-free shopping. Register or carry your passport.
🪪 You can set up a transit card in Apple wallet
🥋 Marie Kondo is ingrained in their DNA
💼 Japanese order in shops and restaurants
👕 Uniqlo clothes and other brands, also very zen…
✂️ Nail cutters and scissors
🇬🇧 Their English is really bad…
❤️ Japanese friends are forever!
✍️ Japanese like writing beautifully
🎸 Placebo - Pure Morning

🌸 Cherry blossoms make everything look great

Cherry blossoms are amazing in Japan. This is after all the country of blossoming cherry.

When you visit at the end of March you’ll see cherry blossom flowers everywhere. They make everything more vivid, every photo looks better with cherry blossoms in it. Yes, the accommodation and flights can be a little more expensive when you plan your trip at that time, but it’s worth it. So worth it. Especially when you visit the Ueno Park:

Even when you look at the green woods in Japan, they are not entirely green as there are blossoming cherry trees scattered everywhere…

🛒 Convenience stores

Family Mart, Seven Eleven and Lawson are the leading convenience stores in Japan. They have everything. Supermarket stuff, fresh food, great coffee, ATM, clean toilet, and they are usually open 24/7.

Japan didn’t just copy the convenience stores concept from the US — they reinvented the idea completely. So much so, that now the 7/11 brand is owned by a Japanese company, Ito-Yokado, which was initially only a franchisee of it. When you book accommodation in Japan, make sure you’re next to a convenience store and you’ll be fine.

🚗 Renting a car in Japan

Normally you’d travel in Japan using bullet trains called the Shinkansen but if for some reason you have to rent a car, make sure to get the ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) card so you can drive on all the highways and automatically pay for them.

To drive in Japan you need to get an “International Driver’s Permit” in your country which is valid only for a year. Remember that they drive on the wrong side of the road, meaning “Left hand traffic” like in the UK. My rental car which was the latest Toyota Prius, not only had the steering wheel on the wrong side, but also the indicators were moved to the right side, so in the first few days when I was switching lanes I was automatically cleaning my windshield…

The new Prius doesn’t use much gasoline. The latest model has a larger battery so on the highway as I was going 80-100 km/h I saw it just maintain this speed on cruise control with electricity. And it was aggressively charging the battery any time it could. Very efficient car.

Choosing a navigation app in Japan as a foreigner is not easy. My usual favorite Waze is shit in Japan. The app somehow doesn’t understand that just because I’m physically in Japan, doesn’t mean I know how to read Japanse characters, even though my iPhone is set up in English. Google Maps is less worse in that it shows directions sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in English and sometimes in both… you never know what you get. And don’t get me started on its inability to save recent addresses correctly. What are these talented Google engineers working on???

Apple Maps was the best as it was always showing things in English for me. In Japan on the highways all directions are written in both Japanese and English, so it baffles me why Waze chose Japanese, Google Maps chose random and only Apple Maps understood my needs.

The trick when driving on the highways in Japan is that they are very packed and sometimes they have several levels, so even if you turn to a wrong level, GPS still can think you’re on the right track when you’re really not. Also, many times you have different lanes to turn to different highways and if you choose a wrong lane, there’s very little room to maneuver and correct yourself. Once I had an ETA to my hotel of only 30 minutes and then I ended up on a wrong lane, went on a wrong highway and then suddenly my ETA increased to 50 minutes. High price for a small mistake.

📦 Space efficiency

Japanese are very efficient with space. After all it’s a big population living on a small island with lots of mountains. For the first time in my life I was using a gas station which have designated spots where you stop your car and then the fuel pump comes from the distributor mounted on the roof.

It really looks weird but works!

🚓 Cars are small. Minivans are really mini.

Because Japan is so small they also drive small cars. Not wide. Not long. But tall. Very boxy. Even the sports cars can be very tiny and cute. Companies like Daihatsu, Isuzu, Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan, Mazda, or Honda are manufacturing these small cars mostly for the Japanese market.

All this while in Europe or USA the cars are just getting bigger and nobody buys vans, everyone wants SUVs.

🏎️ Sport cars can be also cool.

Japanese are famous for their “drifting scene”. They have these aggressively tuned cars that can drive sideways while smoking rubber of their wheels. They drive both Japanese-made tuned cars like Nissan GTR or Toyota Supra, but they also drive European sports cars…

Very often they import automobiles from the western world with the steering wheel on the left side. Apparently having an inconveniently-located steering wheel in your sports car is considered cool.

🚽 Hygiene and butt-cleaning toilets!

In Japan free public toilets can clean your butt! They have an electronic bidet built-in in their toilets that can spray to clean your rear end. And not only are these available in hotel rooms but also in most public toilets. I was amazed how clean and modern the free public toilets were and when they wipe your butt it feels like it’s Christmas morning.

Inspired by this I installed two such toilets in my home. I bought the first one after my last trip to Japan 12 years ago and a year ago I decided to splurge and upgrade the toilet in my home office… and it’s glorious.

In many toilets when you flush them, the water that is being used to fill up the water tank can be used for hand washing. This is a space- and water-saving measure. You just use the water that is anyway going to be used to flush the toilet to rinse your hands. Brilliant.

👞 Shoes in Japan

When you’re in Japan you’re gonna walk a lot and you will be asked to take your shoes on and off in many places. Again, it’s about hygiene and not brining dirt to your home, or museum, or a restaurant. That’s why it’s critical to wear comfortable shoes that feel great.

I’m a fan of Callaghan Adaptation Technology shoes which have served me well here. These particular shoes have been designed to be easily slipped on and off and have no laces.

👟 Buying shoes in Japan is worth it now.

I bought new running New Balance shoes and a pair of Air Jordans. Not only the currency exchange is in your favor, but you’re also getting them tax free (so around 10% less).

Even in their outlet store they had these fancy feet measuring devices so I could get the sizes of my shoes right.

🛂 Tax-free shopping. Register or carry your passport.

Speaking of tax free, before you go to Japan you need to sign up and register on their “visit Japan” web site so that you don’t have to fill out any additional forms when you land and you can also use a special QR code to validate your passport when buying tax free stuff.

There are QR codes for everything in Japan now. And you have to have active Internet connection in Japan to use them, because they don’t let you screenshot these, you need to load a live web site with live time to make sure your QR code is authentic. This happened to me when I bought an all-day ticket for a bus and I screenshotted the ticket and the bus driver was shouting at me “no screenshot”!.

As to the Internet, I got a 25GB package for a month for $25 bucks and I just disabled online access for some apps and it worked great. I used an eSIM from Airalo.

🪪 You can set up a transit card in Apple wallet

This surprised me. Instead of getting a physical transit card, I could just go to Apple Wallet, tap to add a new card and go to “transit cards” and choose the most popular - Suica.

Later I could top it up directly with Apple Pay.

🥋 Marie Kondo is ingrained in their DNA

When you visit a museum or castle in Japan, you see that their rooms are very… zen. There’s barely any furniture there and barely any things… it’s all clean. They put stuff away after they use it and they have dedicated spaces for each of the things.

That’s why their best-selling author of “Life Changing Magic of Tyding”, Marie Kondo didn’t really invent anything. She just codified the Japanese way of cleaning things in a book that’s approachable by the western civilization.

💼 Japanese order in shops and restaurants

They have trays in all the shops and cafes. So you could put your coins, cards, bills not on a table like a Neanderthal but on a nice tray.

They very often also offer you boxes for purses and backpacks. This way you don’t put them on the floor like an animal.

👕 Uniqlo clothes and other brands, also very zen…

The clothes they have are amazing. Great quality, no logos, very zen, very practical, very good and comfortable fabric and also the process of buying is very easy - you just put them in the basket and they automatically count your total.

And again, your total is not much. Uniqlo is priced very competitively and in Japan because of the exchange rate and the tax free shopping, buying clothes becomes addictive. Half of my wardrobe is now Uniqlo!

✂️ Nail cutters and scissors

In Japan the old Japanese factories that specialized in manufacturing samurai swords are now also producing excellent nail cutters, scissors or tweezers.

I got fingernail clippers from the company called “Green Bell” and they are amazing. They cut my nails like champs. I also got smaller ones from Kai.

🇬🇧 Their English is really bad…

They use signs with English that’s really weird. It’s not even Google-Translate-bad, it’s worse. It’s like they look up each word in a dictionary and try to translate things themselves. “Sorry for the inconveniences”, or “You must out the parking” are just a few examples…

And yes, they apologize for everything. Basically when you’re in Japan you need to know two words: “Sumimasen” (“I’m sorry”) or “Arigatou” (“Thank you”) and you either apologize or thank them. They do the same for you. They are very kind. ☺️

❤️ Japanese friends are forever!

Back in 2011 when I was in Japan during the biggest earthquake I became friends with Kurazono Keizo. He is the author of the first Nozbe book in Japanese. Also, we’ve been through a lot at that time. We met again in 2014 and now after 12 years we met again. It was very emotional and very cool. I’m so happy that both of our missions are still aligned. What we do with our app and what he does writing amazing books. He showed me the manuscript of the sequel to his book “Good Vibes. Good Work”.

Meeting Zono-san again was one of my main reasons to go back to Japan this time. Together we’d like to change the attitude to work of Japanese workers…

✍️ Japanese like writing beautifully

They are big on calligraphy. They are famous for it. It was a treat for me to visit the museum of the famous author of “The Great Wave”: Hokusai.

In his museum I could see how he developed drawing and writing to perfection.

🎸 Placebo - Pure Morning

Time to end this long post with the song “Pure Morning” by Placebo where they just state that:

“My Japanese is better…”

Well, their Japanese is definitely better 🤪

🎧 The Podcast #224 - The 2-Minute Rule

2026-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

I’m a great fan of GTD - Getting Things Done methodology by David Allen and as the founder of Nozbe, I love my simple structure of projects, tasks and comments. However, there are tasks that don’t even go there, because if getting them done takes me less than 2 minutes, I just do them without even adding them to my system. Recently, I’ve been taking the 2-minute rule to a whole new level and you can read all about it in my essay at michael.team/2min or you can just listen to the AI co-hosts discussing all the examples where I’ve successfully applied this rule to improve my productivity. Enjoy!

🎙️ Listen to “The 2-Minute Rule”

📝 Show notes:

The 2-minute rule essay that inspired this episode.

🟣 Apple Podcasts
🟡 RSS
🟠 Overcast

🤖 StarWars Day with a Smart Brick

2026-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Today is 4th of May, so “May the 4th… be with you” or in Star Wars parlance: “May the force be with you”. I’m celebrating this “Star Wars day” by building the Darth Vader’s ship: Tie Fighter from Lego with a Smart Brick and it’s weird and fun:

Let’s build a Tie Fighter

It starts with the figurine of Darth Vader and a simple chassis of the Tie Fighter starship:

Smart Brick charging…

There’s a yellow charger for the “smart brick” and there’s a dedicated space for it in the starship, that’s why the back of it is kinda empty:

Finishing the starship

Each Tie Fighter has these prominent sides to it. First I’m building the to bases for these wings:

And then I’m building the proper wings that bend into the iconic shape of a starship associated with the “Dark side”.

Flying with the Smart Brick

Now that it’s done, you can put the “Smart Brick” inside and it makes noises. From my understanding it’s based on NFC and gyroscope, so depending on which kind of brick we put next to it, it responds. When the Darth Vader sits inside the ship, it plays the “Imperial March”.

When you move the starship, it makes whooshing sounds as well, but these are pretty underwhelming.

Of course I modified the starship!

In the end, I had to modify the ship so that the Smart Brick is not so firmly fixed and can be taken out easier (1) and of course there had to be a place for the light saber (2)!

🍎 💼 ⭐️ Where Tim Cook looked the other way…

2026-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Last week Tim Cook sent a letter to all of us Apple customers where he announced his transition from being a CEO of Apple and naming his successor in John Ternus. While most of the comments about this revolve around Tim Cook’s achievements of growing Apple to a $4T company… I want to focus on a different narrative and spoil the party a little by commenting on all the places where Tim Cook looked the other way and I believe he shouldn’t have. Where I believe he missed.

What does Apple mean to me?
Developer relations as seen by Epic Games drama…
European Union and lack of DMA compliance…
Cost cutting… at all costs!
Tim Cook was great for Wall Street, but not so good for Apple’s soul…

What does Apple mean to me?

Apple has always been an aspirational brand for me. When I was rocking Windows laptops, I was dreaming of a Mac. I finally bought one in 2008 and never looked back. Together with my friend Augusto I coined the term #iPadOnly and to this day M4 iPad Pro is my main computer. I’m all in on Apple ecosystem having most of their products myself and in my family with many Macs, iPads and iPhones around me, as well as Apple Watches, HomePods and AirPods and the highest-tier iCloud Family subscription. On top of that I’m a developer of a productivity app called Nozbe which is available on all Apple’s platforms and is both on the iOS and Mac App Stores.

Saying I’m deep in the Apple’s ecosystem (aka “walled garden”) is an understatement. That’s why I care about Apple and I care about what Apple does.

And while many hardware decisions over the years by Apple have made me happy - just check out my current setup: iPad Pro, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Ultra, AirPods Pro, Mac Mini… many software and other decisions have been lacking in the Tim Cook era.

Developer relations as seen by Epic Games drama…

A few years ago CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney sued Apple over the in-app purchase fees. They opposed the fact that they have to pay Apple 30% of all of the transactions on the platform.

Basically the way it works is this:

If you have an app that wants to be available on an iPhone or iPad, you have to submit it to the App Store which only Apple controls. They can accept or reject your app.
If you want to charge for things in your app you have to pay 30% of these transactions to Apple. Yes, if you buy Nozbe on an iPhone, we also pay this fee.
However, what pisses Apple off is that social networking apps don’t pay any percent. They are free to scroll, so they don’t give Apple a dime…

Tim Cook’s Apple acts like by being on the App Store, a developer must pay for the privilege.

Because there’s only one App Store and one approved form of payment, Tim’s Apple focused on forcing it on all developers. They are a monopoly and they don’t have to compete with anyone — not even improve their poorly-done in-app purchase system.

During the trial, many documents surfaced proving not only that Apple wants “all the money” but that they feel entitled to it. I lost respect not only for Tim Cook, but also for Phil Shiller and others. And while Epic’s Tim Sweeney is no role model either, he exposed Apple’s attitude towards all of us developers.

Tim Cook shouldn’t have let it drag to trial. He should have made the 30% cut and in-app purchase optional — many apps would still use it, Apple would have to compete and keep improving it, and it wouldn’t hurt their bottom line. Instead, because of his obsession with collecting rent, they now have a tough relationship with many developers including some large ones like Netflix (no official Netflix client for Vision Pro and no big rush of new apps for this new platform).

Next time you hear Apple say “Services”, think “Fees” or “Rent”.

European Union and lack of DMA compliance…

I’m from Europe so I am biased, but here goes. As I mentioned earlier, App Store is the only way to put apps on your iPhone. There are no other App Stores… but there should be.

Europe has put pressure on Apple for years to open their platforms to competition. But Tim’s Apple wants to control it all. Our iPhone, our App Store, our Lightning port, our everything…

The Lightning port story is a perfect example. When they announced the iPad Pro in 2018 with USB-C, they essentially admitted their own port was holding the iPad back. Yet they still pushed four more iPhone generations with Lightning — all the way until the iPhone 15 lineup in 2023 — and I’m convinced they’d have waited even longer if the EU hadn’t mandated USB-C for all mobile devices.

The same stubbornness plays out with the App Store. Tim’s Apple doesn’t want competing stores, even though their own is littered with scam apps — and yes, Apple collects 30% from every transaction those scam apps generate. That’s a conflict of interest Tim Cook never wanted to acknowledge. Instead of embracing competition, he invented new rent-seeking schemes like the CTF (Core Technology Fee) — essentially a punishment for developers who dare to use alternative distribution. It hinders innovation and has pushed developer sentiment to an all-time low.

What makes this especially frustrating is the double standard. When the EU says DMA, Apple says “nah”. When China says remove the Taiwanese flag, Apple says “yes, right away”. When the current US administration expressed displeasure about the “ICE Block” app, Apple removed it without a valid court order. Apple fights hardest against the regulations that would actually benefit its own users and developers, while caving to authoritarian pressure without raising any issues.

If you want to understand the China dimension more deeply, I strongly recommend Patrick McGee’s book “Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company” (Amazon / Audible). The uncomfortable truth is that Apple’s deep dependency on China wasn’t forced upon them — it was a deliberate choice to maximize profits. They built the trap themselves and now they’re caught in it.

Cost cutting… at all costs!

When you cut costs you make more profits. And Tim Cook delivered profits over the years in spades. He was obsessed with profits and profit margins to a fault. The thing is, if you cut too much, you very often don’t make the best products. Here are some of the examples of how I believe he overdid it:

5 GB of free iCloud storage announced back in 2011 when Steve Jobs was still alive, alongside an iPhone 4S which had base storage of 16GB. Today, 15 years later, the base storage for an iPhone is 256GB and the free iCloud tier is not 31% of that or 80GB like it was back then… but it’s still only 5GB! Only 2% of the iPhone’s storage! Two percent. Two.
16GB base storage for iPhones far too long… which meant that in the following years on some of these iPhones you couldn’t physically install the latest iOS operating system.
8 GB of RAM on base Macs for 8 years (and more for the MacBook Pros) from 2016 to 2024 until finally they doubled to 16GB because of the needs of AI.
60HZ refresh rate on iPhones from iPhone 13 Pro to iPhone 17… where all the other competing smartphones had it. They kept it as a differentiation not for 1, but for 4 iPhone generations.
Butterfly keyboard on all the Mac laptops even though they knew from the 12” MacBook that this keyboard was bad. The reputation for their computers went from Mac laptops being known for having the best keyboards to the ones with the most problematic one… and keeping at it for 4 more years.
Mac Pro completely neglected where now in AI era a Mac like this with support of NVidia cards would be very much needed…
Disabled blood oxygen sensor on US Apple Watches because they didn’t want to settle with the owner of a patent…
Low investment in Operating Systems for both the Mac and the iPad - I’m #iPadOnly in spite of the OS being bad, just because I love the hardware so much!

You can learn more about Tim Cook’s cost-cutting and spreadsheet-first mindset in the book I already reviewed for this blog: After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soul by Tripp Mickle (Amazon or Audible).

Tim Cook was great for Wall Street, but not so good for Apple’s soul…

Tim Cook grew Apple into a $4 trillion company. That’s an achievement nobody can take away from him. But along the way, he made a series of choices that prioritized next quarter’s results over long-term trust — with developers, with regulators, and with users like me who care deeply about this company.

The three things I described — the adversarial relationship with developers, the reluctant and often dishonest compliance with fair regulation, and the relentless cost-cutting that to this day offer us a ridiculous free tier of 5GB iCloud storage, aren’t isolated mistakes. They’re symptoms of a leadership philosophy that treated Apple’s ecosystem as a rent-collecting machine rather than a platform to nurture.

Steve Jobs was obsessed with making the best possible product. Tim Cook was obsessed with making the most possible money from it. Both can coexist — but when money wins every time, you end up with a company that disabled a health sensor on Apple Watch not because of safety concerns, but because they didn’t want to pay a patent settlement.

John Ternus inherits a company that is still the most valuable in the world, still makes products I use and love every day, and still has the potential to be truly great. But he also inherits the cultural baggage of fifteen years of rent-seeking, developer alienation and regulatory bad faith.

I want to be proven wrong. But with Tim Cook remaining as executive chairman, the man who built this culture still has his hand on the wheel.

Think different, John.

😎 🎬 Porsche - 75 years of doing everything wrong

2026-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

I’m a huge fan of Porsche cars. There’s a reason I’ve got Porsche 911 GT3RS and Porsche 911 RSR as my collector’s Lego cars and I have a few other smaller models, too. That’s why when I saw this promo video of their 75th anniversary, I smiled, it’s so good:

Is Porsche doing things wrong really?

Here’s how they start:

For over 75 years, we’ve done everything wrong.

Talking about Porsche 911:

When they said, engines go in the front, we put them in the back…
When they said, ignition’s on the right, we put them on the left…

Then about Porsche Cayenne - the SUV that saved their company:

When they said, a real sports car can’t have 4 doors, we built 4-door models faster than most 2-doors out there…

And then their all-electric Porsche Taycan:

When they thought, you couldn’t build fully-electric sports cars, we built the Taycan…

They they refer to the fact, that you don’t have to be a millionaire to drive their cars:

Luxury is for the few, they said, until we built the biggest car community out there…

And lastly…

If being us means being wrong… then it is just the right thing to do!

Maybe this video resonates with me also because I can imagine a similar video about me running a #NoOffice company… but that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, congrats to Porsche for celebrating more than 75 years of building sports cars (actually, the celebrations started 3 years ago in 2023, as their first sports car Porsche 356 was built in 1948, but this video is new). Just being a (15th?) part of their history is a privilege.

It drives like a Porsche…

Their cars are so good, that as my favorite YouTuber, Doug DeMuro points out, their “most hated by enthusiasts” 996 generation of the 911 model drives like a Porsche:

🎬 AI co-hosts trying to prove they are human?

2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

How about AI generated co-hosts trying to prove they’re real? Yesterday I posted a new episode of “The Podcast FM” where the NotebookLM-generated co-hosts were commenting on my essay about AI productivity. When they got to the bit about me using them to generate an automatic podcast episode, they were trying to prove they were real people… 🤪

NotebookLM co-hosts are trying hard…

What really gave me pause was Google’s Notebook LM. The synthetic podcast generator.

Michael takes his written text based I magazine column, drops it into NotebookLM, and it automatically generates a highly realistic, incredibly nuanced audio conversation between two virtual hosts. They banter, they take breaths, they interrupt each other, and they summarize this article perfectly.

It sounds eerily similar to what you and I are doing right now.It is a bit surreal. We are two human hosts discussing an article written by a guy who uses artificial hosts to discuss his own articles. The snake is definitely eating its own tail here.

And now the best part:

I feel the sudden urge to assure everyone listening that I am, in fact, drinking a very real, very lukewarm cup of coffee right now and waving my hands around at a very human way.

Human? Really? 🤣

Anyway, subscribe to The Podcast FM as these co-hosts are doing really a great job of conversing about my best essays in a short 20-minute conversation.

🎧 The Podcast #223 - AI productivity

2026-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Can AI - Artificial Intelligence - become a productivity booster? Oh yes. From an AI skeptic, I’ve been slowly embracing it and incorporating it into my daily work. I’ve shared my experiences in an essay and today I’ve asked the AI co-hosts to talk about them for you. I hope that inspired by this conversation you’ll also start embracing AI to boost your own productivity! Enjoy.

🎙️ Listen to “AI productivity”

📝 Show notes:

AI Productivity essay
Polish version of the essay for iMagazine

🟣 Apple Podcasts
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🟠 Overcast

🔗 Apple Frames Shortcut modified for the iPhone Air

2026-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

Update on April 13,2026: A week after I posted this, Federico posted a new version of his Frames Shortcut which supports iPhone Air, so this post is out of date. Here’s my old post: Over many years I’ve been using the great Apple Frames Shortcut from the MacStories Shortcuts Archive by Federico Viticci to post screenshots from my iPhone on this blog. He’s done a great piece of work with this free Shortcut, which I truly appreciate and I’m grateful for. However, he hasn’t updated it for the iPhone 17 series, which also means I couldn’t use it with my beloved iPhone Air. So I hacked it:

Why I need the “Apple Frames” Shortcut
3 Steps to modifying Apple Frames Shortcut for the iPhone Air
Done! Now I can generate Apple Frames on the iPhone Air!
Thank you Federico and the MacStories team!

Why I need the “Apple Frames” Shortcut

I know there are apps that could help me solve the problem of wrapping screenshots from my iPhone with an elegant frame, but I just wanted a simple way to do it without installing additional apps… so I decided to hack Federico’s Shortcut and make it work with the Air.

All copyright remains with Federico. Make sure to get the Shortcut from his official web site. All I’ve done is just a few simple modifications which don’t make it a pixel-perfect framing Shortcut for my iPhone Air, but a good-enough version.

If you’re using the latest iPhone 17 or 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max, chances are that Apple Frames 3.3 works on your machine because the 17 series of the iPhone have the exact same resolutions as the 16 series…

But not the iPhone Air. It has a 2736-by-1260-pixel resolution of its 6.5” display.

That’s why it doesn’t work out of the box. I asked Federico for help, but he never responded to me and I can totally understand it as he’s busy with running his MacStories empire and I know how much work updating a free Shortcut is. That’s why I decided to hack it and make it work with the Air.

3 Steps to modifying Apple Frames Shortcut for the iPhone Air

Here’s what I had to do (and you can see it all on the screenshots above, made with the modified Apple Frames Shortcut):

Step 1. Replace the height of the iPhone 16 Pro with Air

I decided to simply replace the iPhone 16 Pro with the Air in the Shortcut, so I searched for a place where it checked for width of the iPhone and changed the 2622 pixels to 2736.

Download Apple Frames 3.3 modified for iPhone Air

Step 2. Modify the X and Y positions in Frames.json for the iPhone 16 Pro

I don’t take my screenshots in landscape, so I just modified the “portrait” X and Y positions in the Frames.json file to 72 and 63 respectively.

Download modified Frames.json

Step 3. Modify iPhone 16 Pro frames for the Air

I couldn’t find any good iPhone frames for the Air on the Internet so I simply modified in Pixelmator on the iPad the iPhone 16 Pro Max screenshots to Air sizes based on the proportion of the screen resolution. It worked. You can download these files from here:

Done! Now I can generate Apple Frames on the iPhone Air!

It works and it’s good enough. If you have an iPhone Air and want to follow my lead, simply do these steps:

Get my “hacked” Apple Frames Shortcut 3.3
Follow the installation procedure to download all the files and resources.
Overwrite their Frames.json with mine (link above).
Overwrite their 16 Pro files with mine (links above).
Enjoy!

Thank you Federico and the MacStories team!

Again, I claim no copyright to the official Apple Frames Shortcut as I just modified a few small things to make sure it worked with the iPhone Air.

Thankfully a week after I wrote all this, Federico released Apple Frames 4.0 that works with the iPhone Air ouf of the box.

📝 On April 3 `26 I am…

2026-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

…”big” in Japan 🇯🇵 admiring cherry 🍒 blossoms 🌺 and Mt Fuji and seeing if we can promote Nozbe here better, just like I used to.

Note: this is my „now page” where I share what I’m up to now.

Working on Nozbe:

We’re wrapping up an experimental 6+6 promo for personal workspaces
We’re finishing a monumental Liquid glass update with customizable Sidebar tiles. It’s gonna be awesome!
We’re preparing a big marketing push for Nozbe classic users with a series of webinars in several languages in May/June. Stay tuned!

…and when I can, I’m also:

My Office 2026 update got published featuring my top 10 all time office accessories
While I’m travelling I’m casually working on updates to my Journal shortcut - version 5 with customizable questions coming soon!
I’m back to posting The Podcast FM episodes! Just published 220 about my top 10 books, 221 about removing social media and 222 about Core Hours. Enjoy!

…and privately:

I’m so grateful I can be here in Japan again. So good.
I’ll be meeting my long-time friends and Nozbe supporters Zono and Kiran. And hopefully more! Can’t wait to reconnect with them!

🎧 The Podcast #222 - Core Hours Framework in practice

2026-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

If you’re a busy entrepreneur, manager or team leader, I’m sure your workweek is totally slammed. Between managing, delegating and leading, you also need time for focused work. There’s simply no time to sit down and work on this brilliant new idea that’s been bugging you. I’ve been struggling with a similar problem as the CEO of Nozbe. However, as a productivity nut I’ve been digging through many time management books and systems in an effort to find a solution for this… and I think I’ve got it. I call it CORE HOURS and now you can just listen to the AI co-hosts explaining this idea to you in a short podcast, enjoy!

🎙️ Listen to “Core Hours Framework in practice”

📝 Show notes:

CORE HOURS essay
Previous discussion on this concept in the episode #204
Polish version of the essay for iMagazine

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🟡 RSS
🟠 Overcast

🎙 No Office FM #92: How to Organize Your Whole Life in Nozbe

2026-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Do you think Nozbe is just for work? Not even close. In this episode, we show how you can organize your entire life — from projects and clients to home, health, and trips — all in one place, without chaos. That’s why we launched the special offer for your personal space.

Listen to the audio:

Full episode show notes at NOOFFICE.FM/92

🟣 Apple Podcasts
🔵 Google Podcasts
🟡 RSS?c=michaelteam)
🟠 Overcast
🔴 YouTube on Nozbe channel

✅ How about taking care of your personal tasks?

2026-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Let’s give away half a year!? Well… we’ve decided to do an experiment at Nozbe and offer our Premium users and their team members a special promo for their SECOND workspace - if they upgrade it for 6 months, we’ll add another 6 months to it!

It’s personal… tasks and projects!

Our clients are usually busy professionals and business owners and they use Nozbe for work… which is great!

However…

Their personal life also needs to get organized!

They don’t know that in Nozbe they can have a second (work) space for personal tasks and projects. It’s limited to the free plan, but hey, it’s up to 3 active projects and 3 team members, so…

You can even invite your spouse, life partner or child!

And if your personal life is really messy, you will need more than 3 projects, that’s why we’ve prepared this special offer for this SECOND space of yours - so it doesn’t cost you too much to get it all in order…

You pay for 6 months, and you get additional 6 months on top of it - a full year of Nozbe to get your private life organized.

Are you in?

💌 Newsletter: Working From Home Is the Best!

2026-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Every now and then, someone publishes an article claiming that working from home is bad and you should definitely go back to a “normal” office. I’ve read them all. And every time, I find the same recycled myths — so let me bust them, one by one. Based on an essay I wrote almost a decade ago

Note: this is a transcript of the email Newsletter I sent to my 1500+ subscribers a while back. If you want to be one of them, sign up for my free Newsletter. You can unsubscribe anytime! or if you use LinkedIn, you can subscribe there, too!

Working from home myths, debunked!

At Nozbe, we’ve been working fully remotely for close to two decades and with this setup we are still able to run a successful business, offering an app people love. We know very well what the critics always get wrong:

“It kills productivity.” Actually, it destroys the single biggest killer of productivity — the open office. Deep, focused work requires uninterrupted time. You get that at home, not in a cubicle farm with someone swiveling over to ask you a question every 30 minutes.

“It creates work-family conflict.” The opposite is true. You’re closer to your family. You have flexible hours. You can attend your kid’s school event without requesting a half-day off.

“Collaboration suffers.” Does it, though? Real collaboration isn’t constant chatter — it’s focused individual work followed by feedback sessions. That rhythm works perfectly remotely. And written communication, contrary to popular belief, is often more effective than a hallway chat. It’s asynchronous, thoughtful, and documented.

“You lose spontaneous, creative interactions.” Random corridor chats are overrated. Scheduled brainstorming with people who’ve had time to prepare their ideas? That’s where the real breakthroughs happen.

“You’ll be less fit.” Laughable. I go for a run at 2pm when my energy drops. When exactly do office workers find time to exercise? During their commute?

“You’ll lose your sense of belonging.” You build culture through how you communicate, the tools you use, and the moments you do gather in person — not by sharing a floor plan.

The real reason we work remotely isn’t to save money on office rent (though that’s a nice bonus). It’s because it gives us the freedom to design a work life that actually fits our lives.

Remember:

Work is not a place you go to. It’s a thing you do.

P.S. This is based on an essay I wrote over a decade ago on my blog, and turns out these arguments hold true today still…

🎧 The Podcast #221 - Remove Social Media Apps from your Smartphone

2026-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Time for a challenge! Should you choose to accept it, you have a shot at receiving these 5 benefits: (1) improve your productivity, (2) regain clarity, (3) boost your self-esteem, (4) reduce anxiety and (5) improve your ability to focus! What’s the cost? Just remove social media apps from your smart phone! I know it sounds drastic, but hear me out - I’ve written an essay about it but today I strongly encourage you to listen to the AI co-hosts diving deeper into the subject and proving that this can be done!

📝 Show notes:

Remove Social Media - my essay
Cal Newport - author of one of my favorite books - Deep Work

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🟠 Overcast

🏠 🕹️ ⭐️ My top 10 home office gadgets in 2026

2026-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

I work from home. Just like the rest of my Nozbe team. We all work from our homes. That’s why I’ve been tweaking my home office almost every year since 2008 and documenting it on my blog. Now it’s time for the 2026 edition where I’m going to approach it differently than usual. As my home office 2025 has changed only slightly, I’m going to list the top 10 gadgets that make it a great place to work for me. Only some of them are new, but most have survived many years of service and are still great today. Here’s the list:

1. Sit / Stand Up Desk
2. Main Machine: M4 iPad Pro 1TB Cellular
3. Computer: M4 Mac Mini with 2TB SSD
4. Monitor: Asus ProArt 6K Monitor
5. Backup monitor: 15-year old Apple Thunderbolt Display
6. Microphone: Shure MV7
7. Teleprompter: Elgato Prompter
8. Lights: Elgato KeyLight
9. Input: Logitech Ergo Keyboard, MX Anywhere Mouse and Trackpad
10. Webcams: Sony ZV-E10 and Logitech Brio
PS. DVD Drive just in case?
Home Office 2026 is ready for this year’s challenges!

1. Sit / Stand Up Desk

I’ve been working standing for over a decade now and I’ve had different height-adjusting desks in my home office. I started with an IKEA desk and later I graduated to this one by the company called MaideSite Dual Motor Stand Up Desk. There are several similar desks on the market. In the US a similar desk could be FlexiSpot E6 Bamboo.

The exact make of the desk doesn’t really matter. What matters are three factors:

It has to have a memory setting so that when you want to work standing, you just hit one button and it lifts up to the previously-calibrated position. My desk has 4 memory settings, and I use them for: (1) sitting, (2) standing, (3) standing and recording a podcast and (4) max lift position so I can check my cables below the desk.
It has to have strong dual motors so that it goes up and down without a problem and can have all my computers, monitors and accessories. It should support at least 150kg or 300 lbs of weight.
Choose a great tabletop. As big as possible and as good looking as possible. Mine is the ANFALLARE model (size of 140cm x 65 cm) which is made of bamboo and it feels glorious.

I don’t work standing all the time. It’s more like 50/50 which works great for me.

2. Main Machine: M4 iPad Pro 1TB Cellular

I’m an #iPadOnly guy through and through. I’ve argued over the years that it’s the most versatile computer ever and it makes me very productive. You can listen to my arguments on the podcast.

Two years ago I bought the M4 iPad Pro and it’s still my main machine. It has a Cellular connection so with my unlimited 5G plan I can literally work from anywhere and I can be always online. Before that I’ve been working for 3 years on an M1 iPad Pro which now my 17-year old daughter is rocking and she loves it. I type these words on the Magic Keyboard attached to it.

The iPads are surprisingly long-lasting. The M1 iPad Pro I originally bought in 2021 is 5 years old and still a great machine for my daughter. My M4 iPad Pro is almost 2 years and I don’t have any reason to change it. Yes, they were both very expensive but they are a gift that keeps on giving. FYI the battery capacity on mine is at 88% after 278 cycles.

3. Computer: M4 Mac Mini with 2TB SSD

Even though I mostly work on the iPad, there needs to be a Mac that runs my home office. Last year I got the M4 Mac Mini and I upgraded its storage to 2TB.

It’s a great little computer and it’s more than enough to run my recording studio and backups. Because it’s so small and cute I kept it on top of my desk, but this year I decided to move it below for even better cable management. I’ve used my old TwelveSouth mount for MacBook and it fit perfectly.

This way I can connect stuff to all the ports of Mac Mini. In the back I have all 3 Thunderbolt ports used for main display, additional display and USB hub. In the front I connected the microphone and external 2TB SSD drive.

4. Monitor: Asus ProArt 6K Monitor

Apple announced two new 27” monitors this year - Studio Display and its XDR version. I had already been rocking a 27” monitor for years - an LG 27UK850-W - running in an upscaled 5K mode. This meant I needed to finally get a 6K 32” monitor that wouldn’t cost me $6K… and after much research I decided to get the Asus ProArt 6K display (PA32QCV) which can be had for a little over $1K. Here in Europe I bought it for 1400 EUR.

I chose this screen because it’s been praised by reviewers for its good anti-glare coating, crisp 6K resolution (6016 x 3384) and versatility of ports (including Thunderbolt 4). I don’t mind its black plastic case, especially at this price point, but to be honest, it fits perfectly at my desk connected to the VESA mount.

The only problem is the human nature. When I installed it I was blown away by its screen size. After half an hour I got simply used to it and this gorgeous screen estate is my new normal now. 🤷🏼‍♂️

5. Backup monitor: 15-year old Apple Thunderbolt Display

My good old trusty Apple Thunderbolt Display after 15 years of service doesn’t seem to want to die. Many years ago I put it on the wall and created an iPad corner where I can easily hook my iPad Pro to extend its screen. This year I’ve come up with another idea - why not hook it up to the Mac Mini as well?

All I needed was a 2m Thunderbolt 2 cable which I still had lying around in my cable stash (and Apple is no longer selling). I connected old Apple’s Thunderbolt-3-to-2 adapter to the Mac Mini, later the cable and then plugged it to the Thunderbolt 2 port on the monitor. Worked! Now I have YouTube on that other screen as well as feed from my HomeKit cameras.

I also used NFC tags to create an automation that when I touch the tag with my iPhone it toggles a smart switch that turns on or off this display and lights up one of the IKEA smart bulbs.

6. Microphone: Shure MV7

I’ve been using this microphone for more than 5 years now. Shure is now selling an upgraded MV7+ with USB-C connectivity, so I recommend you get the new one. Mine is still with a Micro-USB port so I had to get a braided Micro-USB to USB-C cable to be able to connect it directly to the front port of my Mac Mini. I have the microphone set up on the Rode PSA1 arm.

7. Teleprompter: Elgato Prompter

Over the years I’ve been using many different setups as teleprompters but this new Elgato Prompter is easily one of the best gadgets I’ve discovered over last years. It’s an amazing piece of engineering - and so useful!

It serves many purposes for me - it’s an additional screen (third monitor hooked up to my Mac mini!), it’s a video conferencing setup and it’s a great teleprompter. And it hooks up with just one USB-C cable to my Mac Mini and works great. If you’re doing lots of video conferencing or are recording videos when you talk to the camera, I can’t recommend it enough.

8. Lights: Elgato KeyLight

After tinkering with different lighting situations in my home office, around 5 years ago I bought two of the Elgato KeyLight units. I haven’t looked back. They are not perfect, as their software is garbage. However, I managed to configure them with my Homebridge setup and now I can also turn them on and off from the Apple Home app.

I’ve set them up that one is shining on me from the side and one from the front, so I can have a controlled light in my studio whenever I’m recording.

9. Input: Logitech Ergo Keyboard, MX Anywhere Mouse and Trackpad

Apart from the Magic Keyboard attached to my iPad, I also like the ergonomic keyboard from Logitech - Ergo K860. I’m a right-handed man, but back in high school, I learned to use the mouse with my left hand, so I keep my MX Anywhere 3S on my left side and Apple Trackpad on the right hand side.

A few years back I built a LEGO stand for the Trackpad so that it covers the numerical part of the Ergo keyboard and is kind of permanently attached to it.

Both the keyboard and the mouse can connect to up to 3 Bluetooth devices so at setting “2” I have both paired directly to my iPad Pro in case I want to use these accessories with my iPad exclusively.

10. Webcams: Sony ZV-E10 and Logitech Brio

Last but not least, I have two different webcams. Well, one is an actual webcam and it’s the Logitech Brio 4K which is directly attached using USB cable to the Asus display. I use it as a backup webcam, because…

My main one is the Sony ZV-E10 which has a very expensive but amazing Sigma 16mm lens on top of which the Elgato Prompter is mounted. The camera is connected with mini-HDMI to HDMI cable to the Elgato Camlink 4K connected to the Lemorele dock which is attached to the back of the Mac Mini. Yep, sounds complicated but it all works perfectly together.

PS. DVD Drive just in case?

I’ve had the Apple DVD drive since my first Macbook Air 18 years ago and I’ve kept it all these years. Recently someone gave me a DVD disk with some data on it and I needed to read it, so I decided to permanently attach the DVD drive below my desk.

The drive is attached to the desk, but not to my Mac. It has a simple USB cable with USB to USB-C dongle and when I need to use it, I simply detach the Thunderbolt Display adapter from the Mac Mini and attach the drive to the same port. It works perfectly. Even if I have to connect a disk to my computer once a year, it’s very convenient now. And gives me some additional old-school vibes.

Home Office 2026 is ready for this year’s challenges!

This year it’s just a slight improvement from the home office 2025 edition with the Mac Mini below the desk, Thunderbolt Display being used more again and the main Monitor growing to a 6K resolution and 32”.

What amazes me the most is that some of the gadgets from this list I’ve used for years and they are still as amazing as they were when I got them. I love it when the technology is not seasonal, but lasts years or even decades. Don’t you?

✅ 🗯 The habit of writing down boosts your team’s productivity!

2026-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

📝 Why writing things down matters? 💬 Why we spend time commenting on tasks? ✅ Because just a short paragraph TODAY can save you and your team MINUTES or HOURS of pointless conversations tomorrow! Yes, seriously!

💨 Conversations move fast!

Here’s the thing: conversations move fast. People remember things differently. Decisions get lost. Questions repeat themselves. Frustration builds.

Writing things down fixes all that — and it’s not extra work:

📄 Everyone’s on the same page — no more “I thought you meant…”
⏱️ Saves time later — fewer follow-ups, fewer repeated explanations
🌎 Works across time zones — async communication freely travels across the globe!
👍 Makes decisions visible — no one has to guess what was agreed and who thought what…

✅ At Nozbe, we document everything that matters. Notes, decisions, short summaries — it all adds up. We communicate through tasks and task comments where everything is registered and findable.

⏰ We dedicate the extra 2 minutes to write things down, because we know we’ll thank ourselves later!

The result? Less confusion, smoother projects, and a team that knows what’s going on without endless meetings.

❓ What’s one thing you’ve seen improve simply because it was written down?

#NoOffice #RemoteWork #AsyncWork #Leadership #Productivity #FutureOfWork

🎧 The Podcast #220 - Ten books that shaped my business life

2026-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

In a world that rewards busyness over progress, these 10 books taught me how to go fast while slowing down and create more with less. A few months back I shared my 10 favorite business books of all time - and now listen to the Google’s Notebook LM co-hosts discussing these books in more detail, enjoy!

🎙️ Listen to “Ten books that shaped my business life”

📝 Show notes:

🟣 Apple Podcasts
🟡 RSS
🟠 Overcast

Michael.team by Michael Sliwinski

✔️ 🎬 Cognitive fitness 🧠 how to make your brain fit?… by Cal Newport

1. 📖 Read every day - it rewires your brain!

2. ✍️ Write - writing is thinking!

3. 🚶‍♂️ Go on thinking walks - without a phone!

4. 🔌 Plug in your phone in the house!

5. 🔨 Learn a hard skill

📺 Watch Cal Newport explaining this!

🔗 Selecting multiple different options in Shortcuts à la “Radio button”

How to show all options and select only few…

🚀 Emoji to the rescue!

Get the “Options” Shortcut

✅ A letter from founder to a fellow entrepreneur?

✍️ Dear fellow entrepreneur,

👊 And the tool that makes it possible is the same one I’m offering you.

✈️ ⭐️ Is Japanese better? Technology, culture, perfection…

🌸 Cherry blossoms make everything look great

🛒 Convenience stores

🚗 Renting a car in Japan

🧭 Navigation with Apple Maps

📦 Space efficiency

🚓 Cars are small. Minivans are really mini.

🏎️ Sport cars can be also cool.

🚽 Hygiene and butt-cleaning toilets!

👞 Shoes in Japan

👟 Buying shoes in Japan is worth it now.

🛂 Tax-free shopping. Register or carry your passport.

🪪 You can set up a transit card in Apple wallet

🥋 Marie Kondo is ingrained in their DNA

💼 Japanese order in shops and restaurants

👕 Uniqlo clothes and other brands, also very zen…

✂️ Nail cutters and scissors

🇬🇧 Their English is really bad…

❤️ Japanese friends are forever!

✍️ Japanese like writing beautifully

🎸 Placebo - Pure Morning

🎧 The Podcast #224 - The 2-Minute Rule

🎙️ Listen to “The 2-Minute Rule”

📝 Show notes:

🎧 Subscribe to “The Podcast FM”:

🤖 StarWars Day with a Smart Brick

Let’s build a Tie Fighter

Smart Brick charging…

Finishing the starship

Flying with the Smart Brick

Of course I modified the starship!

🍎 💼 ⭐️ Where Tim Cook looked the other way…

What does Apple mean to me?

Developer relations as seen by Epic Games drama…

European Union and lack of DMA compliance…

Cost cutting… at all costs!

Tim Cook was great for Wall Street, but not so good for Apple’s soul…

😎 🎬 Porsche - 75 years of doing everything wrong

Is Porsche doing things wrong really?

It drives like a Porsche…

🎬 AI co-hosts trying to prove they are human?

NotebookLM co-hosts are trying hard…

🎧 The Podcast #223 - AI productivity

🎙️ Listen to “AI productivity”

📝 Show notes:

🎧 Subscribe to “The Podcast FM”:

🔗 Apple Frames Shortcut modified for the iPhone Air

Why I need the “Apple Frames” Shortcut

3 Steps to modifying Apple Frames Shortcut for the iPhone Air

Step 1. Replace the height of the iPhone 16 Pro with Air

Step 2. Modify the X and Y positions in Frames.json for the iPhone 16 Pro

Step 3. Modify iPhone 16 Pro frames for the Air

Done! Now I can generate Apple Frames on the iPhone Air!

Thank you Federico and the MacStories team!

📝 On April 3 `26 I am…

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🎧 The Podcast #222 - Core Hours Framework in practice

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🎙 No Office FM #92: How to Organize Your Whole Life in Nozbe

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