The Sunday Digest: Strap In

Jan 24, 2021

Happy Sunday!

Okay, it’s official: we’re launching something really big on Tuesday morning EST.

We can’t share more than that right now—but the thing we’ve been working on for the last few months is finally ready to go, and we can’t wait for you to see it.

Until then, of course. there’s a Digest to read! We’ve got the inaugural entries of 2021 for Superorganizers and Free Radicals, both of which contain cream-of-the-crop writing and insight. Per usual, Means of Creation put the team on its back with another duo of well-rounded roundup and live conversation. And Tiago Forte took us back to Note School once again.

All that should be enough to tide you over until Tuesday, so sit back, dig in, and see you in two days!

What We Published

The lowdown on this week’s output, including three articles and two conversations.

📝ARTICLES📝

⚡️ How Hard Should I Push Myself?

by Dan Shipper in Superorganizers

Superorganizers returns with a deep, transparent, and open-minded look at a quandry faced by anyone who works: “How much stress is good, and how much is bad?” Shifting between his own personal experience and scientific research on stress, Dan finds a nuanced corner of an area that is often reduced to monolithic Dos and Don’ts. “Stress isn’t good or bad. It’s a tool,” he writes. Armed with science-based coping strategies, this ode to balance reframes conquering stress as a daily practice, not an insurmountable task.

Read (8 minutes)

🦠 Leadership is a verb: Leigh-Ann Buchanan is shaping a new generation of innovators

by Sherrell Dorsey in Free Radicals

As founder of a nonprofit aimed at “bridging the gap between talent and access” for Miami’s burgeoning tech community of creative minds, Leigh-Ann Buchanan has plenty of insights on what it means to foster community, and which qualities are necessary to maintain support for innovators—especially in uncertain times. She brings all that to her conversation with Sherrell here. To Buchanan, companies have a responsibility to avoid neutrality and treat their employees as individuals. “If you, as a leader of an institution cannot make a statement that may not be political, but that is grounded in how you see people,” she says, are you leading?” This is essential reading for employees and employers alike.

Read (15 minutes)

💝 Snapchat’s Attempt to Mint Their Own Celebrities

in Means of Creation

If the past week of 140-character hot takes from tech and beyond (mostly beyond, this week) has you burnt out on reactions, go on an opinion cleanse with two of the sharpest news-digesters in the game. Nathan and Li set their sights on some of the most fascinating articles and news bites of the year so far, from Taylor Lorenz’s wild article on Snapchat’s overnight millionaires to Andrew Yang’s push to make Hype Houses an NYC thing. They also dig into what might be behind the popularity gaps on platforms like OnlyFans—and why, unfortunately that might just be par for the course. If you’ve been wrestling with questions about any of these topics, or if you just want conversation material for a Zoom Happy Hour, the MOC weekly roundup’s got you.

Read (10 minutes)

🗒 The Modern Swipe File: 15 Unexpected Uses for Digital Notes

by Tiago Forte in Praxis

For his latest case study, Tiago kindly shares the contents of his Second Brain—the “system of knowledge management that lives outside your head and helps you keep track of your most valuable knowledge.” Moving that system to the digital realm opens up a realm of possibility for your notes, from meeting notes to everyday observations—all knowledge that, as Tiago writes, “you can store indefinitely.”

Read (14 minutes)

🎞 COMING ATTRACTIONS 🎞

🗣 More TLC is On the Way!

After a short winter hiatus, the Long Conversation gang reconvened to catch up on each other’s recent writing joys, troubles, and questions. The episode will be up this week as a podcast—in the meantime, make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already!

Subscribe to The Long Conversation

⚡️Action Items Get Visual

On his Twitter, Dan has been experimenting with sharing excerpts from upcoming Superorganizers installments. They’re short nuggets of his interviews with the minds behind some of the most compellingly built systems out there—and, as always, the wisdom dispensed is uber-actionable.

Dan Shipper @danshipper

I chatted with @mattdavella about creator burnout. Some quick lessons: - chasing the numbers can suck you dry - the things you need to do to build an audience are different from what you need to do to keep it

🎥 VIDEO CORNER 🎥

💝 How Creators Became Digital Celebrities, with Evan Britton

Last Friday, Li and Nathan welcomed Famous Birthdays founder Evan Britton to the live show for a chat about the evolution of celebrity and resisting conventional fundraising models, among other topics. The recorded conversation is up as a video and podcast now.

Friday’s talk with TubeFilter’s Joshua Cohen, on how the creator economy went pro, will be up Monday as a video and podcast!

What’s Going On

News you might have caught or missed this week, with takes from Bundle writers.

Scott Alexander Returns

If you’re reading this, there’s a decent chance you read Slate Star Codex at one point or another in the past—which means you’re also likely to remember the minor news spectacle surrounding a newspaper profile that resulted in the anonymous blogger revealing his identity. Even those unfamiliar with the most visible Rationalist on the web tuned in to coverage of the situation, because it pivoted on many topics that often resound in conversations about the contemporary media climate—from establishment power to the protection of web communities, and most pointedly, the question of whose privacy is respected online.

Now, Scott Alexander is back—on Substack, no less—as Astral Codex Ten, a newsletter whose throat-clearing installment made major waves this week. (It’s definitely worth a read, even if you’re a new reader.) The post drew plenty of reactions affectionate and relieved, our own Nathan Baschez among them: