Second Brain
• Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte is the best book I have read in a long time and the best book on organization. I am working on a book review for the April issue of Louisville Medicine.
• One of the most important changes to my own behavior so far is scrapping hard copies of reading materials. I was known for being the person who always printed articles to highlight and read. Once finished, the articles would either end up in the recycling or in a stack of papers, with uncertain plans for later use. This has all changed. I resist ebooks in favor of real, physical books (except in rare cases), but have now gone completely digital for scientific and internet articles – saving paper and trees but also allowing for better organization.
• Using a few different apps, you can keep all of your content in one or two places, ready for searching or directed use in academic papers, essays, newsletter, even life tasks like finances, kids assignments and sports practice, etc:
For reading PDFs: on a computer, Preview works on a Mac, Adobe on a PC. On an iPad or iPhone, surprisingly the Apple Books app meets all needs for saving, sharing, highlighting, etc.
For reading internet articles: ‘read later apps’ like Instapaper are amazing. Apparently Instapaper is a two person company! After getting used to it for a week or two, Instapaper has been a game changer for reading content from all over the place. You can make notes and highlights, share just the highlighting, save into folders, and more.
Finally, for organizing written projects, I highly recommend Scrivener, which I have been using for several months now.
• All of these products have competitors with similar function. Explore them to see what works best for you. I will send out a link to the full book review, but for now look into using these tools.
Green Salt
• If you liked the November newsletter about salt, look into Green Salt. I have been using it for weeks, great flavor! Thanks Karen for the recommendation.
• Some info from their site:
Salicornia, a vegetable that grows by the sea, is in the same family as Quinoa and Amaranth. Salicornia’s salty taste comes from its diverse mineral content. With 50% less sodium than table salt, Green Salt contains Chlorophyll, Vitamin B3, Potassium, and Magnesium. The minerals and vitamins help blood pressure control and function of our immune and nervous systems.
Burnout
• Bold 40 minute video on burnout by Dr. Vinay Prasad, an oncologist and epidemiologist. He is not a burnout scholar but he raises many criticisms of the system of medicine/healthcare, especially academics and the path to a career in medicine.
Space Travel?
• Listen to this 2 minute video clip of an interview from 1974 with author Ray Bradbury. He talks about what space travel means for humans, but also what it means to be human, religion and science as two sides of the same coin, myths vs theories, how we always end up in mystery. He mentions a book called Saviors of God, which I will have to check out.
Dog breeds
• In depth scientific article in Nature with experiments on social cognition of dogs (N=1000; 13 different breeds). I can’t tell exactly why they chose these breeds, seems to be based on these dogs having the most data.
• I think the coolest part is Figure 1, and particularly 1a which looks at how each of the breeds approaches a stranger. Golden retrievers win with most likely to be friendly and least likely to be fearful or aggressive. Goldens fall in the middle or even near bottom on some of the mental tasks. They’re the happiest and maybe the slowest (or most laid back?!) of these very smart dogs.
Quotes
Honor those who seek the truth, but beware of those who’ve found it
– Maybe Voltaire but more likely André Gide
Healing means moving from your pain to the pain.
– Henri Nouwen
