The Sunday Edition — 06.08.25

Happy Sunday everyone! I was working through a quick Plotter update this week and noticed I had written down my 2025 goals for the year. One of those goals: writing the Sunday Edition for the entire year. I shaded in the 50% complete box (perhaps prematurely), but I’m confident I can pull this off for at least the next few weeks.

Yesterday, I wrote a review of a Bible for the first time in a long, long time. I received this particular model in the heart of the COVID years and neglected to put the finishing touches on the review. It’s single-handedly one of the poorest Bible options I’ve ever been provided considering the price tag, and I didn’t have the courage to be critical and provide an honest review. So I just… didn’t write the review. I gave up the Bible reviewing career — for however brief it was — and stared at that box for five straight years.

I’m glad to be done with the review. And it’s far more negative than I ever want to be. I’m embarrassed in many ways. But I'm very glad it’s done and can now move onto the next reviews. The next reviews are going to be much, much more positive.

On that positive note — I know they're super ubiquitous at this point, but I have a genuine affection for Yeti products. In general, I am rarely disappointed with anything Yeti. We have various Ramblers, hard and soft coolers, and accessories. I recently picked up a big 1.36L Rambler, which has completely changed how much water I drink each day.

My favourite Yeti product is the Lowlands Blanket — we use this throughout the summer at the beach, throughout the fall around the campfire, and in the winters indoors. I know, expensive. Every Yeti product is expensive. But amazingly useful.

I've had a few new items come through my door the last few weeks and I'm excited to touch on them in the weeks to come. I've had a few weeks with the Titanium Milanese Loop for Apple Watch Ultra, have a few new Heirloom Bibles from Crossway, a new set of keycaps, and the new Nintendo Switch 2 is supposed to show up at my door any minute. Lots to talk about.

The Workload Fairy Tale

Cal Newport discussing the results of a few studies around a four-day workweek:

The results of the 4-day work week experiment, however, undermine this belief. The _key_ work – the efforts that really matter – turned out to require less than forty hours a week of effort, so even with a reduced schedule, the participants could still fit it all in. Contrary to the workload fairytale, much of our weekly work might be, from a strict value production perspective, optional.

Work always fills up the available time allotted to it. This is perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses of time-boxing your day — if you give a task three hours, it's going to take three hours to complete. If you give that same task an hour to complete, you'll probably get it done in an hour. I find I'm almost twice as productive when I block out smaller chunks of work more often throughout the day than if I give myself a big three-hour block to finish a financial statement.

I do believe there's more, though. I haven't read all of Newport's stuff, but I know he's very well-respected in the area of productivity. One continual feeling I have when reading his writing is that these ideas are so theoretical and educational, and applying them in the workplace is an entirely different thing unto itself. So much productivity advice — like "Just say no!", or this four-hour workweek — are applicable under certain circumstances in certain situations. I understand selling these ideas to a small subset of people is still enough to build a brand, but there are so, so many people who can't live by these rules.

"Margin", for instance, is not something feasible for folks who work under constant deadlines. I also don't think farmers are able to "Just say no!". Four-day workweeks won’t work for plumbers or electricians, especially during A/C season.

A four-day workweek would, in my view, simply result in some people taking a four-day workweek and inspired, over-achieving individuals would continue to work a five or six-day workweek. They’d get more done and be at the top of the compensation ladder faster. Income and wealth gaps would only grow worse. Success is most correlated with those who are willing to do what others won't. If others will only work a four-day workweek, that'll only increase the results and incentives for working a five-day workweek.

So much of the productivity and business advice online is written to paint a broad stroke across so many industries, while reality would suggest this advice is only applicable to tech workers, knowledge workers, and those who have inherited some sort of asset base to invest on. I'm speaking in a lot of generalizations, so if you know a farmer or electrician who has been able to implement any of these productivity hacks, I'd love to hear about it.

Experiment: Ecosystem without Apple

I really like some of Mere Civilian's thoughts here about switching away from Apple — there are a number of great non-Apple software and workflow choices out there. It's cool to see some Windows or Android alternatives that some of we Apple-only folks may take for granted. I also love the way the Surface Pro is mounted in front of the Studio Display in the last photo. This is my favourite way to work, with either an iPad or a MacBook Pro below the Studio Display.

Now, to preface, Mere Civilian has made it clear he’s interested in finding Apple alternatives because he doesn’t want to be locked down in any one ecosystem. He’s made himself very clear on this.

But there is a metric tonne of folks on specific social networks who have become obsessed with denouncing Apple and moving elsewhere for other reasons. Not being locked down to one particular technology provider is one thing (and something I can get behind; I'm particularly intrigued with Google these days). Moving away from Apple on a morality basis is another.

If you think Apple is the big bad evil dog on the block, then all the others have stooped to that level. If you view Apple a little more altruistically, then the others are equally altruistic. There's no moral high ground to be found in these companies. If you're looking for morality or holiness, find God.

It bugs me to see so many folks changing what works simply for the opportunity to suggest they are fighting evil or something.

Being a technology enthusiast allows someone to change things and see what is fresh throughout the world. This is a fun hobby to be in, to be sure. I would invite change and an open mind in any situation, and this context would be no different. It's entirely healthy for a decade-long Apple user to give a Google Pixel phone a chance.

But to change one's entire productive and technological stack all because of a smoke and mirrors morality check is one step short of crazy.