Effortless Rest
Abigail Bergstrom for Something to Say with Abigail Bergstrom:
It’s my new mantra: I am calling in effortlessness. For me that word was always more associated with some Parisian sense of having everything and being everything without trying.
I like this as a goal.
How to take things less personally
Joel Minden for Support Psyche
Ask yourself, what’s useful? Proactively anticipating the risk of biased thoughts and committing to useful social behaviours helps reduce the tendency to take others’ words and actions too personally.
I think that’s the one I need to work on most.
All I want is one productivity app that can handle everything
Vitoria Song for The Verge:
I’m an organized person. I have to be. Writing is a deadline-oriented job, and I have the working memory of an elderly goldfish. Gone are the days when I could store an entire week’s worth of events, deadlines, and schedules in my head. Now, all of that stuff needs to live somewhere tangible.
My solution is to be nimble. I know I want to try new things and change up my apps and routines on a regular basis. It helps me stay motivated to try new things. It also helps me to just go back and use ones I’ve tried before again. Hello again, Habitica.
The Tragedy and Mystery of the ‘Best Game of the Decade’
Laura Hudson for Wired
Kentucky Route Zero has won “Game of the Year” awards multiple times, was dubbed the “best musical of 2014,” and has been called “the most important game of the decade”—and all this before it was finished.
Kentucky Route Zero is the first game I played/beat in 2023, having recently been published on iOS by Netflix (did you know Netflix was doing this with games?). I think I’ve had more fun reading the think-pieces than I did playing the game, but that’s modern art for you.
I think I could have either had it be more of a novel. The text length and rudimentary choices made me want to read it more than play it, and I’d rather read a book on my kobo. Where’s my KRZ ePub edition?
The rise and long, depressing fall of Calgary’s Eau Claire Market
Jason Markusoff for CBC:
Two weeks ago, as the HBO’s made-in-Alberta The Last of Us had locals gleefully playing weekly rounds of “Hey! I recognize that set location,” a clever Twitter user combined photo editing with a wicked Calgary inside joke.
In terms of malls, I split my time in Chinook and Eau Claire.