I’ve started rereading Rework (the English edition is titled Rework: Change the Way You Work Forever), and the first chapter is called “Ignore the Real World.”

I realized how my attitude toward these kinds of bold concepts has changed:

1. Yes, great! Do whatever you want! They don’t know anything and don’t understand!
2. But the world became what we see now, so the rules of the game clearly work. A norm is a viable order.
3. (you are here) Sometimes play helps you get unstuck and change something (at least your point of view, to start with).

Now I look at it positively. Maybe I’ve simply come to see that rules and norms allow for mistakes. That doesn’t mean the mistaken thing will take root (probably not). But as a designer, I understand that experiments and play are necessary.

That’s what design thinking is. Not the version with sticky notes on a wall, but the one about understanding the balance between norms and errors.

I want to understand why dictating text works not only as a speed boost, but as a different mode of thinking.

I used to talk about fast capture, but it’s not just about speed. In an interview, Andy Matuschak mentioned that he walks around the room and dictates text instead of typing. What caught my attention wasn’t that it’s faster, but that speaking seems to switch off the inner editor. When you type, you’re constantly tweaking, deleting, rewriting, and that can look like thinking. But sometimes it’s more like a brake.

I had often heard about this, but I could never truly grasp the idea myself. I’m talking about the fact that notes, in any format or medium, are first and foremost for ourselves.

Earlier, inspired by Luhmann, Matuschak, and others, I wrote notes because “that’s what you’re supposed to do.” I had heard they worked, that “evergreen” notes should produce some kind of effect in the future. I believed it, but I didn’t really understand what it meant for a note to “work.” Of course, I enjoyed writing, and that gave me energy to continue, but from time to time I would find myself facing a concrete wall with a large inscription: “WHY?”

Another small tool for my workspace. And one more logo.

I created a small tool for my workspace and decided to design a logo for it. It matters to me that even a utilitarian thing has a simple, recognizable cover: in the Obsidian interface, in the repository, and in the portfolio, the project immediately comes together as a coherent object instead of looking like a collection of files.

This is not about a brand or a service, but about a neat working tool. There is a calm version for everyday use, and an accent red one for moments when you want to present the project as a standalone artifact.

No psychologist today will tell you about the importance of a kindred soul, or how to find it. They themselves live in a perverted world and present it as the norm.

The soul is not a function of the system — it’s a glitch, a void, a call, a light. It’s something that should not exist in a functioning system.

Recently I already wrote about the lighting that pretends. I had a feeling they’d outdo themselves. And just the other day, I was “lucky” (and there’s really no other word for it) to ride yet another version — or configuration — of this miracle of engineering and design thinking. Are you ready? They’ve added a red LED strip along the windows. Cool, right? Innovation!

But that’s not all.

Huh? What do you think of this design? I even had to squint from how bright the interior was.

Now, seriously.

When there’s no taste, everything slowly turns into a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, that’s the case here now.