My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the internet corner where I unpack my musings, curate and write about noteworthy apps and software, and explore the latest trends in design and tech.

Hey and welcome to Creativerly 332 👋

First of all, I have to apologize to all of you. Last week has been the first time in over 6 years, where I did not send out a new Creativerly issue. There are multiple reasons, but the short version is that I went through some personal stuff that completely took over, and made me forget that I still had to finish up the newsletter. Once I realized it, I had no energy or motivation in my body to finish it up, I was not able to concentrate or find focus, as I just sat there trying to make sense of my current situation. And while writing those lines, I am still in the process of figuring out everything.

I feel a bit lost with the situation, as I do not know how to tackle it, I do not have a "plan" right now, there are loads of uncertainties, and usually, this creates a bit of anxiety in me.

Anyway, I feel a certain level of energy and motivation coming back to my body, as I managed to prepare this newsletter, gather some news, and continue writing some new posts. Maybe this is also a coping strategy to distract myself from what is going on in my life right now.

I am happy to return to my regular publishing schedule after taking an inadvertently break last week.

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Fresh Updates & News

Grammarly acquires Superhuman →

I did not see that one coming, and I would love to know how others feel about this. Grammarly announced that it has acquired the email client Superhuman, in order to push to build out its AI for its productivity suite.

I stumbled across Superhuman as it suddenly popped up in my Twitter bubble back in 2019. Shortly after that, I found myself reading a New York Times article with the headline "Would you pay $30 a month to check your email?". I thought, hell no, but just a couple months later I suddenly hopped on a call with an Onboarding Specialist who helped me set up Superhuman. To be honest, this felt weird, and interesting at the same time. Superhuman's interface immediately struck my eye, and it was a joy to use, but after four months I could not justify paying $30 a month for just a Gmail overlay, as Gmail was the only service Superhuman supported back then (they now also support Outlook).

Anyway, Superhuman's last valuation was at $825 million, so this was probably a huge exit for founders Rahul Vohra, Vivek Sodera, and Conrad Irwin.

Vivaldi ships 7.5 update →

The newest update to Vivaldi browser brings loads of refinements and new power to existing features, shaped by the feedback of the Vivaldi community, and driven by the team's commitment to put the Vivaldi users in full control of their browser.

With this update, one of the most requested features is finally here. You are now able to set custom colors for Tab Stacks. You can assign a custom color to each stack, making it even easier to spot your work project, travel plans, or inspiration rabbit holes at a glance. To make this setting as smooth as possible, Vivaldi added a new Edit Tab Stack dialog, which means you can simply right-click a stack, choose Edit Stack, and then give the stack a name, and pick a color that stands out. Besides that, the tab context menu has been cleaned up and reorganized, so it is faster and more intuitive to get where you want. There are also a bunch of under the hood improvements included in Vivaldi 7.5 as the team worked on a bunch of features related to the address bar, mail and calendar, bookmarks and notes, quick commands and more.

You can find the full release notes about this release via the linked blog post.

Craft introduces updates to navigation, search, email to Craft, and more →

It feels like it became a bit quiet around Craft, and I am wondering if it is reaching its software lifecycle. After taking a closer look at their career page, I found out through the couple roles they are hiring for, that as probably every single productivity software company out there, Craft began working on a new AI-first product called Chaps, aiming to revolutionize personal productivity. Sigh.

The newest Craft update includes a revamped navigation which should help users to get around quicker, an ehanced search to find what you need faster with smarter search capabilities across all sections, the possibility to forward emails directly into Craft, a mobile web for Android closed beta to access Craft on the go, updated folder icons, and more.

Lazy is out of beta and now publicly available →

Lazy is officially out of beta and publicly available to everyone. Lazy has been around for quite some time, but it was locked in a closed beta, and getting access to it was incredibly hard, as you had to book a personal onboarding session. Over the years, it went through a couple of iterations, while becoming AI first, as you can now use Lazy AI to chat with your notes across your entire workspace–from past captures to PDFs and journal entries. It is available for macOS, iOS, and on the web. If you want to give it a try, you have to pay a steep entry fee, as it costs you either $15 per month or $150 per year.

Mental Wealth

❯ Anything could happen, at any moment (and when it does, you'll cope) – “The therapist and writer Sheryl Paul defines anxiety as "a feeling of dread, agitation, or foreboding associated with a danger that does not exist in the present moment." I'm guessing you can relate; I certainly can. (Holding this sort of feeling at bay is, I think, the secret motive behind many people's interest in productivity techniques, personal development and so on.) Both parts of Paul's definition are crucial: anxiety is the feeling that something very bad might be going to happen – combined with the absence or near-absence of any real evidence to believe it actually will. Which is extremely bizarre, when you think about it, and worth a closer look, if only because – and I speak from experience – going around all day with a pit in your stomach is no way to live.”

❯ Taking Blogging Seriously – “It’s a warm summer night in NYC and I’m walking through central park with a friend, the fireflies blink around us like an external reflection of the neurons firing in our brains as the conversation sparks. We talk about meditation, our life’s goals and wants. And blogging, of course. I’ve always been an advocate for blogging. It’s rare for a conversation with my friends to not at some point touch on blogging. It’s a running joke at this point. But it’s no joke. You should take blogging seriously. I am.”

❯ So what are you saying? – “I had a conversation with a friend who described sitting in a workshop where clients and the people they hired were working on problems. As you do. Happens in every consultingy kind of job. But what has totally become normalized is for the people hired, the “experts” to use ChatGPT and similar services to come up with solutions. Think that the conversation leads to a problem and the people hired to solve problems now openly turn to OpenAIs incompetence machine to have solutions generated.”

❯ Taste at speed – “There’s a familiar story about a pottery class. One group is told they’ll be graded on how many pots they make. The other, on a single perfect one. At the end of the term, the best work comes from the group that made the most. The takeaway isn’t that more is better. It’s that quality emerges through repetition—by putting in the reps, making, reflecting, and making again. Possibly there’s also a statistical edge in more attempts, but the real value is in what you learn from them. You refine your judgement. You build taste by doing, not theorizing.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

The reality behind personal knowledge management: why complex productivity systems fail, how true note-taking thrives, and what remains when the hype fades. In my post Systems Over Substance, I take a critical look at the PKM landscape.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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