I passed by a shop today called “Mästerkattens” which advertises itself as a cobbler/tailor/key-making service.

Strange how these used to be three entirely different professions.

During the 1950s mass production of shoes took off and cobblers had to diversify. Their manual skills and dexterity led them to key-making.

This shift essentially eliminated dedicated key makers as a profession. But those professionals didn’t vanish. The key industry pivoted toward security systems instead.

What we’re seeing over time is our human tendency to invent new professions that replace old ones.

We’re remarkably adaptive creatures. Just as cobblers became key makers when mass production changed their industry we’ll adapt to AI too.

Our history is defined by this continuous reinvention. When technologies shift we don’t disappear. We transform.

Björk released “Medúlla” in 2004, an album where about 80% of sounds come from human voices with minimal conventional instruments.

As an artist who connects technology with nature, she imposed this vocal-only constraint deliberately. She challenged herself to create everything (basslines, percussion, atmospherics) using just the human throat.

Instead of using everything at your disposal, set constraints to test your imagination. When we limit our tools or methods, we’re forced to think more creatively within those boundaries, often leading to more innovative and distinctive outcomes.

Preparing for presentations often involves getting stuck trying to create bridges between different sections. Forcing connections rarely works.

What does work is reviewing the material, taking a step back and going for a walk without any devices or distractions.

The simple act of getting blood flowing activates the brain in different ways.

My most effective tool for beating inertia is a 5-minute alarm app that stays silent when time’s up. It just keeps counting upward while displaying encouraging messages every minute. I only see these if I check the app.

The concept is simple: I commit to just “investing” 5 minutes in a task. Those few minutes are usually all I need to get started and break through my resistance.

Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it is important.

In school we learned to take notes we could depend on for studying for exams. In best of worlds they were comprehensive, capturing key facts and concepts that would be tested later. In worst of worlds they was just a indication on which page number in the books that you should read.

In meetings we learned to take notes for what was being said and what was being decided upon. The focus is on action items, ownership and deadlines.

AI note taking and transcripts are changing meeting notes into something more like school notes. “You actually said this, there is a record of it.” This brings accountability but loses something important.

What’s missing in these perfect transcripts is the context and human feeling around the meetings. The energy in the room when an idea was proposed. The hesitation before someone agreed. The enthusiasm that can’t be captured in words alone.

Different contexts require different note-taking strategies. The key is recognizing what each approach captures and what it leaves out.

When listening to books, podcasts or seminars, the most valuable notes aren’t comprehensive transcripts. They’re the parts that hit you with a “gut punch” or trigger a “that reminds me of” moment.

Capturing everything misses the point entirely. What matters is recording your unique reaction to ideas. How they connect to your experiences or challenge your thinking.

The real value in personal notes is selective attention. This human filter is what turns random information into gold nuggets.

Your notes should reflect your thinking, not just what you heard. They’re a conversation between you and the content, capturing the sparks that light up your mind.

The magic is connecting the dots, those sparks when two oddly shaped pieces of information somehow connected in your brain and created something truly unique that only you could come up with. But that magic cannot happen when you store everything and try to remember everything to be able to connect everything.

The most valuable skills might be those AI can’t copy because they seem “useless” today.

Take time to learn something with no clear payoff, it could become your advantage later.

What looks pointless now might matter tomorrow. Just like alchemy experiments led to chemistry.

The skills hardest to justify on a resume are often what separate human brilliance from machine efficiency.

Think complex systems thinking, strategic procrastination, narrative weaving or deep listening without an agenda.

Socrates worried writing would destroy memory.

Instead, externalizing memory created space for more complex thinking.

How can AI free mental bandwidth for high-order thinking and curiosity, if we decide not to doom scroll?

Why is goals bound to calendars that someone invented centuries ago?

Friday in April can be just as powerful as January 1st. The calendar doesn’t create commitment - your personal readiness does.