Wonder Tools

Hosted by Jeremy Caplan

Technology Education

Website RSS feed

Episodes

Latest episode

Jul 2026

Language

About the show

Wonder Tools helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Building on one of Substack's most popular productivity newsletters, each episode of the podcast includes specific tips on how to make the most of these new tools to work creatively and productively. wondertools.substack.com

Listen to episodes

60 recent

September 11, 202611 min

My 20 Favorite Google Docs Features ❤️

Google Docs turned 20 this year, so I’m sharing 20 of my favorite GDocs features you might find useful. What are your favorites?✨ 1. Type with my voice 🎙️ Tools > Voice typing When I’m tired of typing, I dictate. I like voice typing with Google Docs to add sentences to a blank page as I think out loud. Here’s a sample of my dictated text. Read it aloud to test your voice typing. The transcription isn’t perfect, but it’s free. 2. Match a prior doc’s format 📋 File > New > Help me create > Match doc format I can base any new doc on a prior design, like my pedagogy resources handout . This gives me a quick way to create new styled drafts. Requires Gemini to be turned on. 3. Add extensions 🧩 Extensions > Add-ons Get apps for GDocs. I like Beep for attaching voice notes to docs. Word Cloud Generator is nice too. Here’s an example , drawn from this post. Docs to Slides by Alice Keeler is useful for converting a doc into a presentation. The Free icons extension from icons8 is useful for easily adding little visuals to a doc. 4. Add a quick link to any text 🔗 Type Command+K with any word or phrase selected Google Docs is the most efficient tool for adding links to text. Select a word and press Command+K to choose from several relevant links without leaving the doc. It helps me avoid opening a separate tab to hunt down links. Here’s a gif showing this. 5. Quickly create a new doc ⚡ Type doc.new into any browser to quickly create a document. This shortcut lets you jump into a new document from any browser window. It works with other Google services too: slide.new, sheet.new, form.new, site.new, cal.new, meet.new, and keep.new. It also works for notion.new, canva.new, substack.new, and playlist.new (Spotify). More examples . 6. Divide a doc into sections 🗂️ Insert > Tab Instead of creating 20 files for a project, make a single doc your headquarters. Each topic can have its own tab. Or each team can. Share everything with one link instead of maintaining a dozen separate docs. See my tips for tabs then add your own idea in a comment. (View a published GDoc version to see the difference between shared docs and published ones). 7. Add a table of contents 🧭 Insert > Table of contents For long documents, create a table of contents (TOC) so people can quickly find what they need. Choose the black text option for a cleaner look, if you’re printing.Add headings within the doc (Format > Paragraph styles) to ensure they appear in the TOC. Here’s step-by-step help on this if you need it. 8. Keep track of changes 🕰️ File > Version history Version history makes it easy to see what you’ve changed, when. Or look at what collaborators have edited. See what’s new, who made an edit, and when. 9. Copy a doc 📑 File > Make a copy Duplicate something to make a different version. Simple, easy, and fast. Sometimes I use this for version control instead of the built-in version history. 10. Download a PDF — or other formats ⬇️ File > Download > PDF Document Sometimes I need to share a PDF so anyone can easily read my doc. Nothing fancy, but it’s been useful hundreds of times. 11. Create typing shortcuts ⌨️ Tools > preferences , then select Substitutions on the top right. Use shorthand with GDocs for words or phrases you frequently type. List them in your preferences. For each one, pick a simple key combination of letters. From then on, any time you type those letters, they’ll expand into your desired phrase. It’s useful for your email or mailing address, or a word you often misspell. 12. Try new templates 🎨 File > New > From a Template Start from a design instead of a blank page. Google now has more than 100 templates, including 60 in the template gallery and 40 when you choose the “from a template option” to start a new doc. The new project roadmap and onboarding templates are well-designed. The resume, letter, and proposal templates also make your words look good. Some of the other templates are a bit visually bland. 13. Design docs for the web 🖥️ Format > Switch to Pageless Many of the docs we create never need to be printed. So GDocs now offers a pageless format for docs you’ll use on screen. It lets you include wider images and eliminates artificial page breaks. See a gif of Pageless view. Here are a few more points about this format. 14. Listen to your words 🎧 Insert > Audio Buttons When I hear my writing read aloud, the clunky bits jump out. That helps with editing. When an AI voice reads my writing, I can look away and devote my full attention to listening. This feature lets you choose from seven synthetics voices. They don’t sound like robots. This feature requires an AI subscription or an eligible Google Workspace plan. 15. Get proofreading help 🔍 Tools > Proofread Check for spelling or grammar errors. Get suggestions for where you might break up overly long sentences or avoid passive verbs. You accept or reject changes one by one. I like getting to decide which fixes make sense. It’s like an augmented spellcheck that requires AI settings to be turned on. See it in action on a prior draft of this post. 16. Translate your doc instantly 🌍 Tools > Translate document Share your doc in another language. GDocs keeps your original and makes a translated copy. It’s not human quality, but it’s enough for the gist. 17. Use markdown for formatting #️⃣ Enable it under Tools > Preferences Easily add headings, bullets, and other formatting from the keyboard with simple symbols. Use *ital* for italics or **bold** to make something bold. You can also paste markdown text from other apps with Edit > Paste from Markdown 18. See who’s viewing your doc 📊 Tools > Activity Dashboard A dashboard you may not have noticed shows who else in your organization has viewed a doc and when. You’ll also see a chart showing when comments have been added. It requires Google Workspace, and it’s not available for solo free accounts. Adjust privacy settings to keep your activity secret. 19. Insert interactive elements 🧱 Insert > Building Blocks Include an AI summary of your document, a decision log, a team directory, a content tracker, or other templated, editable text blocks. Or insert a linked doc that updates automatically when you update the original file. 20. Link to people, events and docs with Smart Chips 🏷️ Insert > Smart chips Smart chips let you paste a live link into docs with a preview. Type @ and the name of a person, place, or calendar event to insert a preview that pops up when someone scrolls over the item. See Google’s help explanation. Bonus tip: Add more fonts 🔠 Fonts > More fonts Georgia, Raleway, Proxima Nova and Oswald look good. And they’re easy to read. But experiment with other new fonts. Use WhatTheFont to identify other fonts you see and like online. 5 ways GDocs disrupted word processing 🚀 Free. Make and store thousands of documents at no cost, with no ads. Auto-Save . Write without fear of losing files. Work is auto-saved constantly. I remember the frustration of losing docs when Microsoft’s old Word crashed. Accessible . Get access to your documents on any device. No need to carry disks around or have a specific device to access important files. Collaboration . Share docs with others, or publish them. I’ve used docs to liveblog, to share examples publicly. Or work privately. Simplicity. Just start writing. No complicated menus. It just works reliably. See more Wonder Tools posts about Google Docs 🪎 Good alternatives to Google Docs 🔄 * Kraa is a slick text editor I like. Create simple, polished pages like this gallery , library , or archaeology article . It has new sharing features . The iOS app is coming soon. * iA Writer offers a simple, minimalist writing view. * Versey is a promising new option I’m testing, with AI to help with editing. Textjam and Reproof are others I’m trying, though not yet recommending. * Superhuman Docs , formerly called Coda, is underrated . It’s an alternative to Notion that lets you incorporate AI in your workspace and connect documents to your calendar, CRM, email, and Slack. * Craft remains one of my favorite tools for creating visual handouts. * Scrivener helps keep long writing projects organized. What’s your favorite Google Docs feature? Leave a comment 👇 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

September 3, 202616 min

Your AI Teaching Toolkit 🍎

I’m excited to be starting a new semester this week, like millions of other teachers. As a resource for my fellow educators, I’m updating a piece I wrote for The 74 , the nonprofit education news site. The average K-12 teacher works 49 hours a week . About a quarter of that time is uncompensated. In higher ed, adjuncts make up about 40% of the faculty workforce. At many institutions, time spent on course prep and administrative tasks is unpaid. Most teachers I know didn’t become educators to spend evenings generating quiz questions, rewriting instructions, or filling out administrative paperwork. AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini won’t change these realities. But when you’re overwhelmed, they can help streamline tedious tasks. They can free up energy for what only a human teacher can do. When used thoughtfully, these tools can actually push us to be more creative. They can help us overcome teaching ruts, nudging us to revitalize how we show up in the classroom. A 60-second guide to prompting The first step to making the most of AI is understanding how to use prompts. A prompt is a natural-language instruction to an AI assistant. It doesn’t have to include technical or formal language. You don’t even have to use full sentences. Prompts work with any AI assistant. Use free private AI chatbots , like Proton’s Lumo or Duck AI . Or download AI apps that run on your laptop without touching the Internet, like Jan , which I tested and recommend. Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT also work well. Whatever you have access to will work. As the teacher, you guide an AI assistant with relevant context. Prompts work best when they include specifics. Generic prompts yield generic responses. It helps to iterate on AI output with follow-up prompts. Ask for more specificity or detail. Adapt the response for your students. Don’t use it as is. Part of retaining your agency in the process is making sure you build on whatever outputs an assistant generates. You’re the director. It’s much like adopting an open educational resource . The advantage, though, is that this material will be more tailored to your students and teaching approach. Knowing how to use prompts effectively can mean the difference between AI that’s actually helpful and AI that’s gimmicky . The prompts below offer a creative boost. Each illustrates a practical way to use AI in support of thoughtful, pedagogically sound teaching. You don’t need any special technical skills. You don’t need paid AI subscriptions. Customize them to suit your subject matter and your approach to teaching. Try my new free Teaching Prompt Assistant . Give it your goal and it’ll guide you quickly to a draft prompt. Start with a project If you want to use prompts more efficiently, first create a project in Claude or ChatGPT, or a Gemini Notebook . Think of this as a folder where you provide context about your class that an AI assistant can reference when you ask for support. You can upload past materials, syllabi, lesson plans, curriculum guidelines, Common Core State Standards, or whatever else is relevant for your teaching. You can also add detailed instructions to the project explaining how you’d like the AI to assist you. You’re teaching it your preferences. Once you set up a project, you won’t have to repeatedly type in the same context. The Prompt Collection 1. The Bell Ringer Start class with a spark The first five minutes of class set the tone for everything that follows. A short, well-designed opening activity can draw students in. Engaging openers are especially valuable on Mondays, after vacations, or when you’re pivoting to a new topic. The challenge is coming up with fresh ones regularly. Goal : Generate five quick options for activities you can use at the start of a class session, adapted for your subject and your students. Prompt: “I teach [subject x] to students in [grade level x] . We’re studying [ specific topic xyz]. Generate five activities I can adapt to start a [xx] minute class. Each should take no more than [x] minutes, require no materials, and either activate prior knowledge or help students reflect on what they’ve just learned. Include one that’s discussion-based, one that’s written and one that’s a game or visual/creative task. [Or adapt these examples to reflect your subject matter. For example, one of the options could be a logic puzzle or an artistic challenge] .” Tip: Be as detailed as possible about your preferences. Include a sentence about your teaching style and context about your students. No need to make it formal. See an example of a Bell Ringer Prompt 2. The Real-World Hook Answer “Why does this matter?” before students even ask When you’re overwhelmed by administrative meetings, multiple preps, and paperwork, it can be hard to give extra attention to helping students relate to a new unit. This prompt helps you brainstorm connections to contemporary music, art, film, TV, cultural trends or other subjects of interest to students. Goal: Generate five ways to show your students how the topic you’re teaching is relevant to their lives, each with a two-sentence hook you can use to open discussion. Prompt: “I’m about to begin a unit on [x topic] with [grade level x] students. [Provide a sentence of additional context and a few additional details about your students’ interests]. Generate five ways to connect this material to something students are likely to relate to. This can include sports, the arts, social media trends, pop culture, music or other contemporary issues. For each connection, suggest a two-sentence hook I can adapt to help jumpstart a class discussion.” See an example of a Real-World Hook Prompt 3. The Bad Example Generator Turn common mistakes into learning opportunities Showing students examples of mistakes can help them avoid those pitfalls. But you can’t embarrass students by showing examples of their weakest work. Fortunately, AI assistants are excellent example generators. They can come up with nearly any kind of error you specify. No need to spend hours creating intentionally bad work. Adapt this prompt to include any kind of error you want your students to avoid. These can include experimental design mishaps in science or mangled math formulas. If you’re teaching essay writing, showcase logical fallacies or ad hominem arguments. Here’s an example of a table of common writing traps I generated. Goal: Produce five realistic examples of a specific error type, unlabeled, so students can identify, discuss and learn from the flaws. Prompt: “I’m teaching [x subject/topic] to [grade level x] students. [Provide an additional sentence of specific context about your class, the learning goals you’re focusing on, and/or the lesson you’re preparing.] Generate five examples of paragraphs with [ad hominem arguments / circular reasoning / weak thesis statements / misleading use of statistics / or pick any other weakness] related to [x topic]. Make sure each example is realistic. These should be the kinds of errors students at this grade level might actually make. Don’t label what’s wrong. I’ll use these for a class activity where students identify and explain the flaws themselves.” Tip: You can also task the AI with annotating or explaining these errors to help you walk students methodically through these common flaws. * See how a specific teacher might use the Bad Example Generator * Try my free “ Wrong On Purpose ” tool to generate examples of what to avoid that you can tailor for your class. (Requires a free Claude account) 4. The Scaffolding Prompt Make instructions clear for every student Complex instructions often trip up students. Simplifying language can help, along with breaking guidance into smaller steps. This prompt helps you clarify instructions for an existing assignment, handout, or any other activity. It’s particularly useful if you have students with learning differences or if your class has a wide range of readiness levels. Goal: Reframe a handout or assignment so it’s clearer and more accessible, especially for students who need extra support. Prompt: “Here is a [handout / assignment / resource] I give students: [paste or upload it] . Help me reframe this for students who face [specific challenges or context] . I particularly want this to be more accessible for students who need extra support. Break the instructions into smaller, numbered steps. Replace any abstract language with concrete directions. Point out any parts I should clarify. Suggest a brief example for each major step and any illustrations or images that might help me make this more visually engaging. Maintain the academic expectations I have for the work.” See an example of a Scaffolding Prompt 5. The Review Game Generator Develop review questions efficiently Coming up with a long list of review questions can take hours. And designing plausible wrong answers can be exhausting. An AI assistant can help, quickly turning existing handouts, lesson plans, or fact sheets into engaging questions, customized for your subject and student level. Tip: Add questions you’ve used in the past to the prompt as a model for the AI assistant to learn from. Goal: Generate 15 multiple-choice review questions, tiered by difficulty, formatted for whatever learning game you prefer. Prompt: “I’m finishing a unit on [x topic] with my [grade level x] students. For an upcoming review session, I’m preparing material to help students practice [a particular skill or area of knowledge] . Generate 15 questions based on the following key concepts: [list concepts or paste notes or upload a handout] . For the multiple-choice ones, include a correct answer and three plausible wrong answers. Vary the difficulty: five easy, five medium, five challenging. Flag the correct answer for each. Also suggest some true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and open-ended questions for variety.” See an example of a Review Game Prompt 6. The Fresh Angle Search Bring new life to familiar content Some topics get stale, especially when you’ve taught them the same way for years. To liven up an old lesson, it can be helpful to gather new sources, examples, statistics, case studies or unexpected angles. Use Perplexity , a free, AI-powered search engine that provides citations alongside its results. Its links ensure you have an evidence trail to verify its responses and explore the original sources. Digging into Perplexity’s concise search summary is more efficient than sorting through hundreds of Google links. Goal : Find five recent or unexpected real-world examples of a concept you’re teaching, including perspectives from outside the U.S. and connections to students’ current interests. Prompt: “I teach [x topic] to [grade level x] students. [Provide additional context here about the topic or learning outcomes you’re focused on] . I’m looking for interesting material [or whatever other description you prefer] to make this subject more engaging for students. [Include any additional context about your students’ interests] . Find me several recent, unexpected or counterintuitive real-world examples of [x concept] that might surprise or intrigue students. Include real-world details to help add nuance for students who think they already understand the concept. And suggest multiple new analogies I can use for students who don’t yet understand this concept. Include international examples, and at least one that has an element of humor.” See an example of a Fresh Angle Search 7. The Skeptical Student Prompt Prepare for the hardest questions before class starts You never know what odd questions might arise when you teach a new topic. AI assistants can help by generating all sorts of potential questions. That prep can help you avoid unpleasant surprises in class, so you’re ready for nearly anything students might toss at you. Goal: Generate 10 challenging questions a skeptical student might ask me about this lesson. Prompt: “Here is a [lesson plan / reading / concept ] I’m teaching: [ paste or upload material, mentioning the grade level and any other relevant context] . Give me a list of potential student questions about the relevance of this new topic and about real-world applications. Also note any doubts students might have. If these students [ at grade level x ] are skeptical that this material is relevant, what might they wonder, and what aspects in particular might they question? Generate 10 challenging questions curious students might ask. Include ones that challenge the relevance of the topic, the reliability of my sources, and the assumptions behind my explanations.” See an example of a Skeptical Student Prompt 8. The Blind Spot Audit Find your own blind spots before students do During a typical week, we don’t always have time to trade peer feedback on lesson plans or syllabi. But we can still benefit from getting input on our materials. AI assistants can critically evaluate your materials for clarity, accessibility, inclusivity, or blind spots. You always have the option of ignoring the observations. I usually like at least a couple of the proposed adjustments. Goal: Identify specific places in my lesson plan or syllabus where I might have an unconscious bias, where my instructions may be unclear, or where my examples may not reflect the diversity of my students. Point out any unnecessary jargon and highlight assessment criteria that might be confusing. Prompt: “Here is my [lesson plan / syllabus / unit overview] : [paste or upload document] . Take the perspective of a critic with expertise in inclusive pedagogy and student-centered design. Identify parts of my plan that may not work for students with vision, hearing, or mobility impairments. Also point out places where an unconscious bias might be influencing the way I’m presenting this topic. Point out places where examples or explanations I’ve included might not make sense to my diverse students. Show me places where my assessment criteria could be clearer. Note any other sections of the material that might not be inclusive, accessible or relatable for students. Be direct. Include the location of each issue so I can explore potential fixes. I want specific critique, not general praise. Explain each observation in detail.” See an example of a Blind Spot Audit 9. The Differentiation Prompt Adapt an assignment for distinct levels In many classrooms, students arrive at varying levels of readiness. But consistently creating multiple versions of the same material can turn 40-hour weeks into 49-hour marathons. An AI assistant’s suggested adaptations can help. Tip: make sure your differentiated materials remain anchored in your own ideas and teaching goals. There’s a risk of cognitive offloading, where you start letting the AI make decisions for you. Avoid that by treating any response you get as a preliminary thought that you shape yourself. Goal: Produce alternative versions of an existing assignment: one with additional scaffolding, and one with stretch challenges for advanced students. Prompt: “Here is an [assignment / assessment] I give students: [paste or upload material] . Generate two versions of this: one for students who need additional scaffolding and more explicit guidance, and one that adds stretch challenges for advanced students. Preserve the core learning objectives. Summarize the suggested changes and explain their rationale, so I can decide how to adapt these alternatives for my students.” See an example of a Differentiation Prompt 10. The Rubric Builder Help students understand how you’ll assess them A well-designed rubric does two things: it clarifies your expectations before students start working, and it gives them a roadmap for revising. Developing rubrics from scratch is tedious. It requires formatting small batches of text into boxes in complex tables. This prompt generates a structured first draft in table format. You can then refine it before sharing it with students. To start, specify the elements of the student work you’ll be evaluating, and describe your criteria. You don’t have to use full sentences or formal language. Just describe what constitutes excellence for this assignment, what satisfactory work looks like, and what evidence signals to you that a student may need more practice. Crafting these rubrics with AI assistance is an iterative process. Revise initial outputs by adding your own details and refinements. Goal: Generate a rubric written in clear, concrete language that helps students understand how they’re going to be evaluated. Prompt: “I’m assigning [assignment description] to [grade level x] students. [Here’s a bit of relevant context] . Generate a rubric with three performance levels: Excellent, Proficient, and Developing. (Or Superb, Good, and Needs Improvement). Include five criteria relevant to this assignment: [list criteria, e.g., use of evidence, originality, thoughtfulness, structure, and mechanics] . For each criterion and each level, write two specific sentences describing what that performance actually looks like. Avoid vague language like ‘good use of sources.’ Put this rubric into a table, then wait for my edits.” See an example of a Rubric Builder 11. The Case Study Collaborator Generate fictional scenarios to spice up discussions Case studies help spark lively discussions. They’re useful whether you’re introducing students to ethical questions or trying to help students relate to a historical situation. They can also bring a business decision or scientific discovery to life. Creating cases from scratch can be grueling. So this prompt helps you build fictional but realistic scenarios customized to your subject matter and student context. Goal: Create a fictional case study to illustrate a tension relevant to your subject, set in a context students can relate to, ending with three discussion questions. Prompt: “I teach [x subject] to [grade level x] students. [Provide an additional sentence of context or specifics to ensure the case studies are relevant and useful.] We’re exploring [x concept or issue. Include as much detail as possible about what and how you’re approaching the topic and your learning goals] . Create a fictional but realistic case study I can use in class next week that is timely and involves [a relevant character, institution, or situation] that illustrates the tension between [value A] and [value B] . Set it in [context relevant to your students: a school, a local community, a specific industry] . Make sure the scenario is complex enough that reasonable people could disagree about what response makes the most sense. End with three discussion questions that I can adapt to push students to apply the concepts we’ve been studying.” See an example of a Case Study Collaborator A final thought AI assistants have arrived at a time when teachers need support to do their best work. In a national survey by the RAND Corporation, just 24% of teachers reported being satisfied with their total weekly hours worked, and 66% said their base salary was inadequate. AI tools won’t make up for unfair compensation. But they can help us strengthen how we serve our students while we make time for the rest of our lives. Share private feedback on Wonder Tools or leave a public comment below. ⬇️ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

July 25, 20261 hr 2 min

🤔 Odd Tools That Are Actually Useful

I’ve always admired the way bestselling author A.J. Jacobs turns his life into a laboratory for testing quirky ideas. He’s written books about following every biblical law for a year, reading each entry in the encyclopedia, and thanking a thousand people responsible for his morning coffee. I consider it immersion journalism. He calls himself a human guinea pig. So I was delighted to meet A.J. at a recent Substack event. Afterwards we spent an hour talking live on Substack about two dozen of the odd and creative tools he uses and trading ideas about our experiments. Watch the recording above, including some surprising confessions, and see a summary of the tools and links mentioned below. Add surprise to your day Algorithms narrow what we see and filter outliers. So A.J. seeks out serendipity. * Wiki Roulette serves up random Wikipedia entries, while Window Swap lets him peer out of windows all over the world. * Ground News A.J. uses this app to see how outlets across the political spectrum cover the same story. Its Blindspot feature surfaces stories covered mostly by one side. I mentioned a related newsletter, The Flip Side , which picks a daily topic and spotlights commentary from the left and right. * Seek out surprises A.J. asked Claude for 10 articles he would probably find boring, annoying, or offensive. It surfaced one gem, about ancient Egyptians buried with golden tongues so they could speak in the afterlife. * Try it yourself Here’s my own anti filter-bubble prompt , and the 5 odd links ChatGPT gave me in my first experiment. * Serendipitous Reddit For stumbling onto curiosities, I’ll type a keyword into the Reddit search box. During my live chat with A.J. I found r/Whatisit , where people post photos of unidentifiable objects. The crowd figures out what they are. And r/MadeMeSmile , which is heartwarming. Try the free Random Reddit Stumbler Chrome extension to discover new Reddit communities. Caveat: You might waste time procrasti-surfing in rabbit holes. * A.J.’s NYTimes archive trick Search the Times all the way back to 1851 for a word of your choice, then read early mentions. Searching for “dogs” led A.J. to a disturbing 1896 editorial titled “All Dogs Deserve Death” ( screenshot ), which argued that dogs spread disease. “It was proof that clickbait is not a totally new phenomenon,” he says. A.J.’s caveat: the archive surfaces ugly history. Searching “cocaine” turned up overtly racist reporting. Accessing the archive requires a subscription. * Read A.J.’s take on injecting randomness into your life Play with words * Parseword The creator of Wordle, Josh Wardle , made this tricky new word game. A.J. describes it as an on-ramp to British cryptic crosswords, which blend wordplay with anagrams and obscure puns. “They’re infuriating,” he says, “but at the same time, very addictive.” I find this one fun but hard. * Raddle Try this word ladder with a twist. The clues are are out of order. A.J. says he enjoys it because you can finish in two minutes. I appreciate the hints so I don’t get stuck. * OneLook “An amazing search engine for words,” A.J. says. Type a word and get its history, related terms, definitions from numerous dictionaries, or quotes, phrases, and lyrics that use it. Or use wildcards to find words that start or end with a group of letters. OneLook scans 17 million entries in 805 dictionaries to answer queries. They also designed an amusing new word game called Cadgy . * Anagram sites . The Word Finder and other multi-word anagram tools like Anagram Solver handle phrases, not just single words. Scrabble Solver helps you find words with your tiles. * Droodles This playful format for minimalist drawings centers on absurd captions, as in these examples . Play by guessing the captions, or make up your own. Wake up your senses * The Sommelier Wine Aroma Kit by Aromaster A.J. bought is a training kit for aspiring oenophiles. It has 88 tiny bottles of individual scents, including Rose and Lemon. Horse sweat, the set’s last bottle, isn’t something you want in a wine. The kit is $400 on Amazon , but you can make a simpler one for $30. A.J. tries to identify scents for three minutes each morning to strengthen his nose for food. Smell is our least trained sense, he says. * Use your own spice rack When my daughters were little, we’d play a guessing game, taking turns holding a spice bottle beneath our noses with our eyes closed. It entertained us in the kitchen and cost nothing. * Vision-distorting glasses A.J. ordered 10 pairs that alter how you see. One simulates a bee’s vision. Another tries to represent macular degeneration. Some are prisms that flip the world upside down. He started this exploration after hearing that yellow-tinted glasses brighten your mood. The tint did little for him. But it made a point, he says. “What we see is a very narrow spectrum of reality.” Watch movies better * Audio description Most streaming apps have an accessibility feature that lets you hear a narrator describe what’s happening on screen. It’s designed for blind and low-vision viewers. A.J. isn’t vision impaired, but uses it anyway. “It’s educational,” he says. “I learn a lot from the voiceover that I didn’t know before.” Watching an Agatha Christie film, he discovered what a cloche is. And a trilby . The narration also alerted him to a novel detail: the O in the Focus Features logo is deliberately out of focus. A.J. says he admires the concise writing required to fit every word between the dialogue. * Closed captions A simpler feature we both use. A.J. turns them on for song titles and for accents. “You’re watching Derry Girls and you have no idea what people are saying.” I started relying on captions for The Wire . * Playback speed A.J. watches films at 1.5x or 2x speed. “I see twice as many movies,” he says. “I admit, I may get 80% as much out of them.” He knows filmmakers hate it. * Netflix offers 1.5x, but not while casting or on the ad-supported web player * Apple TV and Prime go to 2x * Chrome extensions like Video Speed Controller give you finer control * Slow motion A.J. also watches at 0.5x speed sometimes to study scene design. Dense shows like Veep need to be slowed down, he says, not sped up. * WhenJumpScare A.J. appreciates psychological horror, but he hates jump scares. This free site tells you exactly when surprises are coming so you can look away. “I love a horror movie,” he says, “and I’m not going to watch it if I’m going to be jumping in my seat the whole time.” * RunPee ( iPhone / Android ) This free app ( screenshot ) tells you the ideal minute to run to the bathroom during a long movie, and sums up what you missed. A.J. used it for Christopher Nolan’s nearly three-hour Odyssey . Stretch your brain reMarkable tablet We both own one. I use mine to sync, back up, and organize my handwritten notes. A.J. never connects his to the internet. Every morning he spends ten minutes brainstorming with it by hand. Sometimes he flips open a magazine for an improvised prompt. He saw a snowman picture recently and started riffing: “What if it’s a snow woman? What if the pipe is a vape? What if the coal eyes are solar panels?” “99% of these ideas are terrible,” he says. But he doesn’t mind. “If you believe the brain is a muscle, and I do believe there’s something to that metaphor, then this is like going to the gym for me.” Add color to your space I shared with A.J. three of the most colorful objects in my office. I have no affiliation with any of these companies. I’m just sharing what’s on my desk. CMY Cubes A small glass cube reflects light next to my laptop. Each face has a different color. Look through it at an angle and the light refracts into new colors. Designed in Australia, the smallest cubes cost about $23. No batteries, no app. I found mine at the Toy Fair , the annual trade show at NYC’s Javits Center where thousands of toymakers show new wares. Merge Cube A foam cube that supplements augmented reality apps. When you use a compatible app, each of the cube’s faces renders a distinct three dimensional image on your computer or phone screen. I confess, though, that sometimes I just use it as a stress ball. T2 double-walled glass tea flask Some teas smell as good as they taste, and some have a lovely tint. I can see, smell, and savor tea with this clear flask I got as a gift. I do wonder, though, if it’ll shatter if I accidentally knock it off my desk someday. Think with games Brainspin I use dozens of games in my teaching, including those in my Pinterest creativity card game collection . Brainspin is the simplest. It’s a deck of two-dimensional pictograms I use as a brainstorming warm-up in the classes I teach. $25 for a set of two decks, designed by Frankie Abralind , who is now on Substack . Bonus links for more of A.J.’s quirky takes on life * Read A.J.’s newsletter, Experimental Living for more on his adventures. * Watch his five TED talks for more on his unique life experiments * Listen to his Puzzler podcast * Check out his books , which are consistently quirky and funny I’m looking forward to the book A.J.’s working on next, about misinformation. He’s fact-checking his own life. “How do I know the world is round?” he asks. “How do I know my wife loves me?” What experiment are you trying these days? Leave a comment 👇 Thanks to Len Netti , Surya , Gary Rudoren , and many others for tuning into my live conversation! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

July 18, 20269 min

Connect Your Tools to AI 🔗

I’ve changed how I use Claude and ChatGPT lately. They’ve become my digital dashboards, linked to many of the tools I rely on. I can ask Claude to add to my calendar, query my meeting notes, update me on my email, or find a passage I highlighted in my digital notebook. Claude Connectors and ChatGPT plugins connect to hundreds of services. These include Superhuman Mail for email, Google Calendar, Granola for meeting notes, and Readwise for my online highlights. Read on for how and why to link your favorite tools to your AI assistant, and examples of connections and queries I’ve found useful so far. Bonus : I made this new online guide for you based on this post as an experiment with ChatGPT’s new Sites feature . I also made a tipsheet with Claude artifacts to help you get started. Why Connecting Tools to Claude and ChatGPT Is So Useful Claude and ChatGPT know the context for my work because I’ve set up Projects for my primary work areas. Each has detailed instructions and reference documents. And the AI has a memory of the work I do, my style, my preferences, and my objectives. So I can ask my AI assistant to: * Plan: Add four prep sessions to open morning slots on my calendar next week for the classes I’m teaching this fall. Include in each event description relevant excerpts from my meeting summary and reference the recent planning notes I dictated. * Research: Gather recent links I’ve saved to Raindrop, my bookmarking tool, that might be relevant to my team’s research. Then create a new reminder with those links and a summary of my recent related notes. These multiple-part commands require context. They won’t work in Google Calendar, Raindrop, or Granola directly. That’s why it’s so helpful to have Claude or ChatGPT as the command center. Sponsored Message Remember More of What You Read I often finish a good nonfiction book with a handful of useful ideas. Then I gradually forget the details. Can you relate? Shortform gives me a practical way to revisit the books I want to remember. Its guides are written and edited by people, not robots. The guides include clear book overviews as well as deeper analysis, which I appreciate because I want to get beyond the surface. I also like that the guides include examples and quotes. And they often mention connections to related books, which is useful for ideas on what else to read. On the Shortform app I recently read the guide to The Meaning of Your Life , by Arthur Brooks, which led me to Vivek Murthy’s book, Together , about the loneliness epidemic. I use Shortform both to refresh my memory on books I’ve already read, and to explore potential new titles before I decide what to read next. Try it to find guides for business books, education, psychology, biography, and more. Wonder Tools readers get a free trial and $50 off the annual plan. MCP is the New USB 🔗 These connectors have a technical name: MCP, or Model Context Protocol . But just as you don’t need to think about USB details when you plug in a printer, or http specifications when you use the Web, you can use MCP without understanding its technical details. All you need to know is that MCP is a way of linking software tools, sites, and apps to AI platforms like Claude and ChatGPT. Remember the world prior to USB? Printers, hard drives, cameras, and external monitors had their own special cords to connect to your computer. I just cleaned out dozens of them from a drawer in my Manhattan apartment. Now they’re obsolete because USB ports are everywhere. MCP is a similar unifying standard for linking tools to AI. 5 Ways I’m Using Tools Connected to Claude Manage Email 📧 I rely on Superhuman Mail to read, organize, and respond to email. It’s fast, easy to use, reliable, and integrates with my calendar. I use it with three distinct email addresses. Because I have to act on important messages, I’ve linked it to Claude. Get started: The connection guide walks you through linking your email to Claude or ChatGPT. You can then ask your AI assistant to: * “Help me turn a bunch of starred emails into an afternoon plan.” * “List important messages I’ve sent this month that the recipient hasn’t yet opened.” * “Draft concise responses to routine customer questions for my review.” Some of these tactics will also work with Gmail and Outlook connectors. Example query: “ Look at my five most recent starred emails, suggest an action list for this afternoon based on my priority list, then put an hour on my Google Calendar to act on them.” Do More with Meeting Notes 🗒️ I use Granola as my notepad during meetings. It transcribes conversations, then creates a summary based on the transcript and my own notes. (See my guide ). I can already ask questions about my meetings in Granola without needing a separate AI tool. But the advantage of linking Granola with Claude (or ChatGPT) is that Claude has access to insights in my notes, email, and Google Drive, so it can integrate the info it pulls from Granola within the context of a broader analysis. Get started: The Granola MCP guide explains how to link it to your AI. Unlike many other paid services, Granola actually lets free users query meeting notes (for the past 30 days) using your AI tool of choice. Example query: “ Give me a summary of the research questions I said I’d follow up on in my meeting with Pat. Next to each task include a bulleted list of the background details I already collected in my research spreadsheet.” Edit Images and Videos 🌆 Photoshop and Premiere are powerful but complicated. Now you can edit an image or video without even opening a separate app. Set up the plugin, then tell your AI assistant to use it in your prompt. The AI assistants are often clever enough to figure out which tool to use even if you don’t explicitly mention it. Get started: Install the Adobe app in ChatGPT. Or add it to Claude, using this guide . Your AI assistant will now have access to the capabilities of Photoshop, Premiere, Firefly, Express, Acrobat, and other Adobe apps. You don’t even need an Adobe account to get started, though it might be helpful to get a free one if you want to organize, improve, and act on your creations later. ( Canva’s MCP is also useful). Example query: “Help me change the text in this graphic.” Or “Reformat this horizontal video clip for YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels.” Or “Add background blur to this headshot, fix the lighting, and crop it for a portrait.” As a test, I changed the first line in an illustration from “Bold” to “Kind.” Notice that the first attempt wasn’t perfect. The period after “Kind” was missing. But a quick edit request fixed that. The Photoshop edit preserved the font, style, spacing, and angle. The benefit: Instead of hunting through Photoshop menus trying to figure out how to do this, I just asked ChatGPT to use Photoshop to make a change. In the long run, being able to use natural language to accomplish tasks like this may shift how we spend our time away from technical menu-hopping toward more creative work. We’ll spend more time thinking about what to do and why, rather than how to technically get it done. Find Highlights 📚 I use Readwise to collect the passages I highlight when reading online or on my Kindle. It also hosts passages I save when listening to podcasts with the Snipd app. Get started: The Readwise MCP lets you make use of the highlights you’ve made while working on other projects with an AI assistant. Example query : “Show me a bunch of my Readwise highlights that include descriptions of desserts, especially from European novels, then gather a list of related recipes I can make with my daughters before our trip.” Research Legal Cases 🔎 Court Listener from the Free Law Project is a handy way of gathering info about court cases. You can ask for records related to Elon Musk’s recent testimony without paying for a legal research service. Thanks to Hong Qu for the tip. Get started: Use the Court Listener MCP guide for free with Claude or ChatGPT. First set up a free Court Listener account. Example query: “Review the news article at XYZ link, find the case that’s being discussed, and give me additional details about the case and any other related recent cases.” Other Useful MCP Tools 🛠️ * Rize is my favorite tool for time-tracking. I linked it to Claude so I can learn from how I’m spending my time and assess that alongside info from my meetings, email and calendar. The Rize MCP page includes use-cases and helped me get started. Rize requires a paid subscription. * I use Raindrop to save links I’ll need later. I checked the Raindrop MCP page to set it up and learn about the kinds of queries I can run from Claude. When I’m doing research in a project, for instance, I can ask it to pull in relevant links I’ve saved. Or I can even ask Claude to put the links from a spreadsheet I’m working on into my Raindrop bookmark collection with appropriate tags. * Sublime is another tool I use to save quotes, images and useful pages online. Unlike Raindrop and other well-designed clipping tools like MyMind , which are fully private, Sublime lets me see related material other people have saved. Now I can ask Claude to pull in relevant material from Sublime . * Substack has a new MCP , available to select publishers as of now. It lets Claude coach me on my analytics. I recently asked for an analysis of send times to figure out how they impact open and click rates. Substack’s help page notes that the MCP has “read-only access to publication data such as dashboard metrics, traffic data, and publication settings. It cannot publish posts, send Notes, or modify your account.” How to Link Tools to Your AI Assistant * Decide what kind of connector will be useful to you . * Email: Gmail, Outlook, Superhuman, and other email services now let you analyze and respond to your messages. * Files: Analyze or act on files in your Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Slack, Notion, or anywhere else you keep your documents and files. * Planning: Add events to your Google or Outlook calendar, or organize projects with tools like Airtable, Monday, ClickUp, Asana, and Linear. * Fun: Create Spotify playlists based on your work vibe or search StubHub or SeatGeek for tickets your family or friends might enjoy. * Pick from your AI tool’s curated list. Claude and ChatGPT each have a bunch of services pre-configured to work. Perplexity now does too. Popular ones include Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Canva, Figma, and Notion. * Paste in the address of a custom connector. For tools that are not on the default list, you put in an MCP address, which is like a special website to connect an external service to your AI tool. Find more to try in a directory . Step by Step * Click connect on the service you want. * Log in to that service in the window that opens. * Approve permissions your AI assistant asks for, so it can access the external tool. Limit permissions to view only if you want your AI to see info from a linked service but not change anything. You can update permissions later in your AI tool’s settings. Getting started with MCP connections doesn’t require any programming or technical wizardry. If you can add an app to your phone, you can do this. (Note: Google’s Gemini doesn’t yet enable easy MCP connections). Be Careful About Linking Private Data Think twice before connecting services that host sensitive info. I haven’t linked my bank accounts to my AI tools, for example. If you do that and someone gets access to your AI account, they’ll be able to find out a lot about your finances. * It can happen when a thief uses a “prompt injection” to manipulate an AI tool into releasing sensitive info. * Or it can happen if your phone is lost or stolen. New York, London, Paris, and other major cities see thousands of phones stolen each year ( Zipdo 2026 report ) . * Data can also leak from AI systems. It’s rare, but there have been cases like this one . Be Cautious About Letting AI Tools Act on Your Behalf I’m not yet letting AI tools send emails for me. Or submit forms or applications. If Claude or ChatGPT generates something odd because of a glitch, or because I rushed a query, I want to be the one noticing the error. When you start connecting AI tools to external services, you have the option to give your AI assistant power to do things on your behalf. That can be useful for research, summarizing meeting notes, or cleaning up messy computer folders. But you or your AI assistant could make a costly mistake with important info. In a rare but alarming case, Cursor, an AI tool, deleted PocketOS’s company database and its backup ( Guardian article ) . A related 2025 case involved Replit ( Fortune article ) . Other Ways Connected AI Can Go Wrong * Travel booking blunder. You ask it to cancel a reservation, and it cancels your entire itinerary. Or you ask it to book a flight on 7/1/27 and it books a nonrefundable ticket on 1/7/27, assuming you were using the European date system and meant January 7, not July 1. * Disappearing Files. You ask it to get rid of duplicate files. It deletes an entire folder with a similar name. * Calendar Chaos: You ask it to “find a time for everyone” and it reschedules an existing meeting in the wrong time zone, because you were traveling when you wrote the request. I haven’t encountered any of these errors. But these services are still new, so you may encounter occasional bugs or blunders. From Answer Machine to Headquarters I initially thought of AI tools as answer machines. Ask for info, get back useful text. Then I thought of AI assistants as question machines, provoking me to think about things I hadn’t considered. Now I think of them as my online headquarters . Claude serves as a dashboard where I can act on my email, notes, documents, calendar, designs, saved links, and meeting transcripts. It’s like having a new partner to support me and help make work a little more efficient and creative. p.s. To see these connections in action, watch a recording of my live workshop. You’ll find it on the perks page for paid subscribers. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

June 5, 20267 min

📍 Pinpoint, Explained

Google’s Pinpoint is now open to everyone. It’s a surprisingly powerful free tool for making sense of giant piles of digital stuff. (Before June 3, it was restricted to journalists and academics). Read on to learn more about creative ways to use Pinpoint; its new AI features and their limitations; and how Pinpoint differs from NotebookLM. How Pinpoint Works Pinpoint lets you store and analyze hundreds of thousands of files so you can find tiny needles in gigantic digital haystacks. * Pinpoint can transcribe hundreds of hours of audio and video. * It also makes your handwritten text, scans, and PDFs searchable, like my enormous collection of scanned handwritten notes and whiteboards. * Once Pinpoint processes your files you can search, summarize, and organize your collections. * Pinpoint makes it easy to query, label, and extract data from hundreds or thousands of documents. It’s simple to use. No complex menus or commands. Getting Started * Start by uploading PDFs, emails, audio and video files, handwritten notes, or other file types . * Each collection can have up to 200,000 files . You can have an unlimited number of collections, which function like folders. * Journalists and academics can request “ Pinpoint for Professionals ,” which provides 100GB of storage. Others start with 1GB. * Audio and video files can be up to 2 hours long and 8GB . The limits are much more generous than what other AI tools, like NotebookLM, offer. * Pro tip: Create separate Pinpoint accounts for each of your Google accounts. That gives you more storage. It’s also how I keep personal projects separate from work. You can always download files you’ve previously uploaded. And request additional storage if you reach your limit. Pinpoint Features to Try * Scour through audio recordings to locate key moments. Pinpoint transcribes in more than 100 languages. Upload and transcribe your recorded presentations to review how you frame a particular topic. Or how water pollution is described in local council meetings. * Explore text within images and handwritten notes. I’ve scrutinized my old handwritten notes for ideas and checked whiteboard photos for explanations I can improve. * Share a document collection. Invite individual collaborators or publish a collection for public exploration. Giving readers access to source material can be a valuable form of transparency in journalism . * Analyze an email or document archive. Assess a public email trove or document collection, like files from the Enron trial , for connections between politicians and companies, or financial impropriety. * Focus your research on particular people, organizations, locations, or date ranges. Pinpoint automatically lists a collection’s most frequently-mentioned entities. Click on an entity to jump to exactly where it’s mentioned. * Export important Gmail folders with Google Takeout in .mbox format. Takeout lets you export and back up anything Google hosts. You can then upload your email collection to Pinpoint to find patterns, or locate references to specific people, places, or organizations. 🎁 Try my new Pinpoint Assistant to get personalized ideas for how you can use Pinpoint for a project you’re working on. Pinpoint in Newsrooms News organizations have relied on Pinpoint for award-winning investigations involving thousands of documents, including: * Blind Spot by the Boston Globe (Pulitzer) * Poisoned by the Tampa Bay Times (Pulitzer) * Secret Sauce: Expired from North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR) (Edward R. Murrow Award). * Z. Waite’s detailed case study explains how and why BPR used Pinpoint. Waite also notes four good, free, alternative tools: DocumentCloud , Datashare , OpenRefine , and Datasette . Public Collections * Pinpoint’s “ Explore ” section lets you examine document collections from more than 200 news organizations, ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Hindu and Süddeutsche Zeitung . Test out the searching and filtering features before uploading anything. * Notable document sets include JFK assassination records , Mueller Court filings , and 80 years of U.S. foreign agent registrations (86,018 documents) uploaded by the Center for Public Integrity. New AI Capabilities Pinpoint has a bunch of new AI features in beta available in more than 80 countries . In my testing, not all of the AI capabilities work reliably yet, but you can request early access . Pinpoint’s AI features are designed to help you analyze your files, not generate original content as you might with Gemini or NotebookLM. * Explain words or phrases in any file. Highlight any text and ask Pinpoint to put it in context. I like the short, useful explanations based on what else is in a document. * Google words or phrases inside your text to learn more from Google. In my tests, this beta feature consistently yields error messages. * Summarize Collections. I like how Pinpoint gives me an AI-generated overview of every file I upload. It can also summarize an entire collection. * Extract data into spreadsheets . Pull info from up to 100 documents at once and deliver it as a sheet, with links back to the source text for each data point. That’s handy for tracking mentions or doing comparative research. Try this feature for analyzing public government contracts or other information in PDF form that would be easier to work with in a spreadsheet. * Automatically label hundreds of your files in a collection. Let’s say you have a public email dataset. You may want to evaluate just those written by a particular person, or just those discussing a particular stock. Instruct Pinpoint and it will label your collection for you. Limitation: Pinpoint can label 1,000 files at a time. In my tests, the interface only let me select 100 files. If you’re working with tens of thousands of files, labeling may be tedious. * Transcribe audio quickly. Pinpoint now claims to give you high-quality transcribed text 20x faster than it used to. I couldn’t verify that specific metric, but it’s generally fast. Each file is helpfully time-coded. Click on any section of text to hear the corresponding audio. Limitation: unlike Wispr Flow and Letterly , which I use for my personal dictation, Pinpoint sometimes mangles names, and doesn’t learn from its errors. * Compare any two or three files. See what changed in multiple versions of a document, or how three different people addressed the same subject. * Query your collection with ordinary language. Results are often fast, useful, and linked back to the original document. Expect occasional errors, though. One search I tried, for example, returned a document mentioning someone with a similar but different name from the one I was searching for. * Create a timeline. If you’re looking at how something developed over time, you can pick up to 100 files and generate a timeline. You can optionally specify a topic for the timeline. This might be useful if your dataset has dated transactions, for example, or multiple reports you want to put in order. Pinpoint vs NotebookLM * What’s similar: Both NotebookLM and Pinpoint are free Google services that allow you to efficiently summarize and search though large documents. * What’s different: NotebookLM synthesizes and generates (slides, infographics, video and audio podcasts, and reports). Pinpoint, on the other hand, focuses on finding patterns and organizing a wider array of file types in much larger collections of email, multimedia, and scanned images. * NotebookLM allows 50 files per notebook for free users. (See my guide ). Pinpoint lets you upload 200,000 files into each collection. * Combine the two: If you have a large collection of documents, consider gathering, storing, organizing, and transcribing in Pinpoint. Then move the most important files into NotebookLM for further analysis and to generate artifacts like reports, slides, infographics, flashcards, audio, and video. Privacy * Your documents are private. Nothing you upload is public unless you publish a collection. Read Google’s Pinpoint privacy details . * Your files are not used to train AI models. Google explicitly notes that documents you upload won’t be used to train Large Language Models. Read Google’s statement . * The bottom line: I trust Pinpoint for non-sensitive document work. But because uploads are processed on Google’s servers, Pinpoint may not be a fit for everything or everyone. Here are additional privacy details . Limitations * No mobile app. You can view docs on a phone browser, but not all features work. * No NotebookLM integration yet. You can’t easily move files from one service to the other. * Storage caps. On a 1GB account, you may hit storage limits with large files. * AI features aren’t error free. No AI implementation is. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

May 21, 20261 hr 2 min

🛑 Skip the Upgrade

I love new gadgets and gizmos, and I’m constantly trying new sites and apps. So I was intrigued by the title of Eric Athas ’s upcoming book, Saying No to New . Eric’s an editor at the New York Times, where he helps journalists make the most of new tools. He’s also a lifelong early adopter. He told me he used to wait in line for new iPhones. But his upcoming book is about thinking twice about new stuff. In our Substack Live conversation, we talked about old gadgets we still love and new gadgets we never use. Eric shared advice on how to tell the difference between things that might genuinely improve your life, and gizmos that will end up at the back of a closet. We even did a little show and tell with various odd gadgets in our offices. 📺 Watch the full conversation above, or read highlights below. 1. The Vanishing Gap Between Wanting and Getting When Eric and I were growing up, if you wanted to buy something cool you saw on TV, you’d have to drive to a store. You or your parents would have to spend cash. If you ordered something by mail, you’d wait weeks for delivery. Today, you can tap on a phone and the thing that caught your eye appears at your door the next day. You can even buy now, pay later, so you don’t need cash. Coming next? AI agents that shop for you proactively. They anticipate what you want so you don’t have to make any decision at all. Eric calls this the collapse of the “new thing gap.” The time, distance, and cost between seeing something new and acquiring it has shrunk. That gap used to protect us from buying on impulse. * One-click ordering eliminated distance. * Free shipping removed the physical effort of the pickup errand. * Deferred payments eliminated financial friction. You don’t even need the money. Eric suggests we reintroduce friction by pausing long enough to ask whether the new thing will actually matter a month from now. 2. Show and Tell: Our Gadget Graveyards 🎪 Eric and I compared old odd gadgets in our offices. From my desk: * Multiple VR headsets. I have at least three, including one with the plastic still on it. You slot your phone in, close it up, and get an immersive view. Remember when the New York Times announced in 2015 it would ship a million Google Cardboard VR headsets? Eric confirmed that the headset now lives in the Times’s in-house museum. * Lumo posture band . This posture sensor had a belt that wrapped around my waist and buzzed when I slouched. It was a cool, if weird, concept, but the buzzing was distracting, I still slouch, and the product was discontinued. It’s lived in my drawer for years. * PLAUD AI recorder next to my brother’s old tape recorder. The old one has a red record button, a play button, and a stop button. You know exactly what to do with it. The Plaud is sleeker but less intuitive. * Sand timer. This one is both decorative and useful. It’s silent, easy to use for timing, and never needs to be charged. I use it to stay focused during hard tasks. From Eric’s desk: * A USB coffee mug warmer . Cracked. Unused. Eric’s take: once you introduce a USB cord into the coffee experience, it loses its magic. * NeeDoh stress balls. A kid craze. Eric’s children wanted them, squeezed them for a day, and abandoned them. He wrote about the NeeDoh fad here . I have multiple stress balls, and I use them often. Consumer Reports warns they can create a sticky mess or worse. 3. New Things Worth Saying Yes To ✅ Eric’s book isn’t about rejecting everything new. It’s about choosing things thoughtfully so the genuinely useful things don’t get crowded out. Some of the new tools we like: * Seek app. Free. Point your phone at any plant or animal in nature and learn what it is. I discovered it during the pandemic and still use it regularly. * Merlin app. Free. Record birdsong and the app identifies the species. Eric and I are both fans. * Granola . AI meeting summaries. It’s now part of my workflow. Here’s why . It’s infrastructure for me, not novelty. Free for basic transcriptions and summaries. I pay $14/month for additional features, like storing meeting notes for months and querying them with Claude. What these tools have in common: they solve a real problem, they’ve lasted, and we’ve stuck with them. Sponsored Message Sending Emails but Getting Zero Replies? It might not be your copy. Many startups unknowingly have broken email deliverability, causing messages to land straight in spam folders. That means lost leads and wasted outreach. Warmy.io automatically warms up your email accounts, protects your sender reputation, and keeps your emails landing in real inboxes.If email is part of your growth strategy, this matters. Fix your deliverability before your next campaign. 4. Our Brains Chase Seductive Novelty 🧠 Eric’s new book is grounded in neuroscience. When we encounter something new, we get a dopamine hit. That neurological response evolved to help our ancestors survive. New food sources, new paths, new shelter: those discoveries were rewarding. But sometimes novelty seduces us without offering anything meaningful. In one study Eric described, rats repeatedly crossed an electrified grid just to explore an unfamiliar area. They chose pain plus novelty over a known food source. Humans do something similar. We covet a new phone partly for its camera, but partly just because it’s new. Then we do it all over again. Even if we can’t afford it. That’s one reason why so many Americans are in debt. I recently read Dopamine Nation , a surprisingly engrossing book by Dr. Anna Lembke , about how our brains are so readily seduced by pleasure. What results is an unfortunate cycle. We get something new, enjoy it briefly, and soon we’re scanning for the next new thing. My college advisor, Daniel Kahneman , studied and wrote about this “hedonic treadmill” effect. His research showed that we overestimate how much a new purchase will improve how we feel. And novelty tends to wear off quickly. He called it “hedonic adaptation.” That doesn’t mean we should avoid all new things. But it does mean we should think carefully about whether there’s something genuinely meaningful behind the new shine. 5. Experiences Outlast Products 🎒 Research shows that trips, cooking classes, concerts, and other new experiences tend to give us more lasting delight than new products do. That’s partly because experiences tend to be social. You go with someone. Or you meet people there. You talk about it afterwards. Trips have a beginning, middle, and end. You have a story you can retell. A new pan doesn’t generate much conversation after the first week. Its novelty fades fast. Kahneman, who was one of the best teachers and advisors I’ve ever had, introduced me to the related “comforts vs. pleasure” theory. It was originally described by Tibor Scitovsky in The Joyless Economy : The Psychology of Human Satisfaction . It changed the way I think about spending money. Comforts are things we buy and then quickly adapt to. A nicer couch. A bigger TV. They feel great at first, then they fade into the background. Pleasures, on the other hand, are transient experiences: a delicious dinner with friends, a live concert, surprise flowers, or a summer walk with someone you love in a new city. These kinds of experiences are brief, but they retain their emotional charge when you reflect back on them. Kahneman’s argument, supported by numerous studies, was that pleasures enhance happiness more durably than comforts, because we don’t adapt to them. The research findings’ bottom line: if you want more happiness, splurge on special experiences with loved ones rather than expensive things. Eric’s suggestion: if you’re drawn to something new, try turning the purchase into a social experience. Waiting in line with a friend for trendy cookies transforms a dopamine-seeking buying excursion into an experience and a fun shared memory. Daniel Pink recently made a compelling video on the same theme: how to spend money so it actually makes you happier. His take aligns with Eric’s and Kahneman’s. Spend on experiences, not things. 6. Ask These Questions 🔍 Eric suggests a few questions to ask before you acquire something new: * Will I still use this in a month? Will this serve an ongoing purpose, or will it get stuck in the background? (I’ll use this one the next time I’m tempted by a kitchen gadget or iPhone app). * Is it intuitive to use? Eric points to modern car dashboards as a cautionary tale: touchscreens that look futuristic can end up being more confusing than the knobs and buttons they replaced. * Is it likely to distract you? A sand timer, a paper book, a physical photograph: these do one thing well without pinging you. A single-purpose app on your phone, on the other hand, puts you one swipe away from email, Instagram, and other Internet rabbit holes. 7. Good Enough is Sometimes Enough 👍 Eric’s coffee maker still works. His wife wants him to upgrade. He resists, not out of stubbornness, but because it does exactly what he needs. He programs it at night. He wakes up to fresh coffee. No learning curve. His suggestion: before replacing something, ask whether what you already have is still good enough. Something better always exists, but if the upgrade is just about novelty, it might not be worth the effort, expense, or space. I have more than 600 apps on my phone. I use only a small fraction regularly. But I’ve realized that going back and manually deleting everything I’m not using is a waste of time. In the digital domain, unlike the physical one, unused things don’t take up much space. Going back and deleting emails or apps one by one feels like more of a waste than letting them sit idly in the graveyard. 8. Paper Books and Quiet Treasures 📖 About two-thirds of Americans still read books on paper despite the convenience of ebooks. Part of what’s appealing about them is sensory: the way pages turn, the way a book feels in your hands, the smell of the paper. But there’s another advantage. A paper book doesn’t send notifications. It offers no tempting apps. The same goes for vinyl records, Polaroid photos, sand timers, and handwritten journals. Each of these enables you to deeply focus on what you’re doing. My grandfather taught me to use a Minolta camera when I was little. The quality of its pictures doesn’t match that of an iPhone. But old objects like the Minolta have intrinsic value beyond their function. A hand-me-down camera is a reminder of love. I have more than 50,000 photos on my phone. That abundance, paradoxically, devalues each individual image. When film was limited and developing took days, every picture felt more precious. Anticipating which pictures might turn out was part of the thrill of photography. I don’t want to return to that era. But the photos my wife and I have printed and framed mean more to me than many of the ones sitting in my phone’s camera roll. 9. Choices Are Contagious 😷 The last chapter in Eric’s book is about invisible influence. If your friends are constantly upgrading their homes, devices, or apps, you might feel the pull to keep pace. It’s tempting to follow the cultural lead of those around us. The reverse is also true. Choosing to stick to what you have quietly signals to other people that it’s okay to keep the old thing, to skip the trend. Read more 📚 * Saying No to New Available for pre-order. Out September 15 from Balance. * Eric Athas on Substack Behind-the-scenes updates, pre-order bonuses, and a decision-making tool tied to the book’s ideas. * Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke . The neuroscience of novelty-seeking. Eric and I both referenced it. * The Joyless Economy by Tibor Scitovsky . A psychology classic about what impacts happiness and how comforts differ from pleasures. What’s a new thing you say no to? Leave a comment 👇 Thank you Des Kennedy , Betty Solomon , George K Thomas , and many others for tuning into my live video with Eric Athas and thanks to you, reader, for making it all the way down here to the end of this post. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

May 8, 20261 hr 4 min

What I Learned About Time 🕰️

I love Laura Vanderkam’s books about how to make the most of time. It’s never about stuffing more into our days. It’s not about productivity. It’s about savoring and being creatively thoughtful about what we choose to do. Her books 168 Hours and Tranquility by Tuesday changed how I think about my own weeks. For example, her argument for “effortful before effortless,” nudged me to spend more of my discretionary time on my hobbies. Her latest book, Big Time , new this week, makes the case for time abundance: we have more time than we think, and there are surprising ways we can savor it. In our live conversation May 7, we talked about why weeks matter more than days, how to make work more satisfying with small changes, and why your weekday evenings may hold more free time than you realize. 📺 Watch the full conversation above, and read highlights below. My Favorite Ideas from Our Conversation 💡 1. Your Life Is a Circus. Be the Ringmaster. 🎪 When people say “my life is a circus,” they mean chaos. Laura says that’s a slander against circuses. A real circus is a super-organized performance. Nobody gets shot out of a cannon at the wrong time. She thinks of life as a well-orchestrated three-ring circus: career, relationships, and self. You’re the ringmaster. Each ring may have a bigger or smaller act at any given moment. A good circus is managed for delight. You want to run a show you’d actually want to watch. The circus also needs a safety net. Complex lives require backup plans so that complexity doesn’t descend into chaos. 2. Think in Weeks, Not Days ⏳ There are 168 hours in a week. That number matters more than 24. If you work 40 hours and sleep 56, you still have 72 hours for other things. That’s not all free time. But we have much more discretionary time than we often realize. Laura says the time-crunch feeling often results from looking narrowly at today. Zoom out to the week and you’ll often see more room. 3. Track Your Time Simply 📊 Laura tracks her time on a basic Excel spreadsheet. Half-hour blocks. Monday through Sunday. She checks in three times a day and jots down what she did since the last check-in. She doesn’t make pie charts. She uses plain language: “Email.” “Cooking.” “Reading.” “Driving.” Whatever you’d casually tell a friend if they asked what you were doing right now. At the end of each week, there’s room to reflect. What were the highlights? What did you enjoy most? What was most memorable this week? What was frustrating? She then archives the log and opens a new one. Laura has been doing this long enough that she can now pull up an old log from the same week in a prior year. She recently compared this past April with April 2020. She now has a kind of personal time capsule. (My wife and daughters use Gretchen Rubin’s 5-Year One-Sentence Journal for a related time capsule). Tip: You can use Laura’s simple, free time-tracking spreadsheet . If spreadsheets feel like too much work, try Toggl . I use Rize , which automatically categorizes my time so I don’t have to remember to log. 4. Enjoy Work More with 3 Small Experiments 🔧 Laura tested three tactics with hundreds of people over three weeks. Each tactic helped people feel more satisfied with their work to a statistically significant degree. The approaches don’t require that you change your job. They also don’t depend on you having a ton of autonomy. So they’re designed to work for all sorts of roles. * Spend one more hour per week on the work you like best. Every job has tasks you prefer. Even a short conversation with a manager can shift the balance toward more of those. (This reminds me of “ job crafting,” a tactic I once wrote about for Time Magazine). * Spend 15 more minutes per week at work with someone you like. Friends at work are people you’d willingly spend time with outside the office. Social time at work matters more than we may realize. * Take two intentional breaks per day. Everyone takes breaks. Most are unplanned. When you decide in advance how you’ll spend a break, you can choose something rejuvenating rather than defaulting to scrolling or other screen time. One participant in Laura’s study told her: “I thought about leaving my job. I may still do that. But now I see ways to make work better whether I quit or not.” 5. Reclaim Your Golden Hours ✨ Golden hours are what Laura calls the stretch of weekday time after work and before bed. For most people, that’s roughly 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Five hours. Laura’s challenge: set one golden hour intention each day. Thirty minutes of something you chose and genuinely enjoy. Not work. Not housework. It might be: reading. A puzzle. A walk. A board game. Playing music. Even watching a movie with a loved one, if you chose that. The point is awareness, and intention. Once you claim 30 minutes of chosen leisure, you’re less likely to tell yourself the story that you have no free time. Laura also noted that Golden Hours is the title of her next book. Given that this book just came out, I’m impressed that she’s already ready for the next one. 6. Try Effortful Fun Before Effortless Fun 🎯 This was the most memorable and useful tactic I learned from Laura’s previous book. It pops up again in this one. Here’s the idea: when your schedule allows for a bit of leisure time, start with at least a few minutes of something that takes effort, before you default to screens or other mindless activity. Read three pages of a book before opening Instagram. Start drawing or playing an instrument (my choice) before picking up your phone. One of two things will happen. You may get absorbed in the book and keep going. Or you might switch to Instagram anyway, but at least you’ve enjoyed a few minutes of something you care about first. Laura likes taking on big, year-long projects, like listening to all of Bach or Beethoven, or reading all of Jane Austen or Shakespeare, all of which she’s done in years past. Those all require just 10 pages a day or listening to one piece. If you sprinkle your days with effortful moments, you’ll get deep into projects you care about over the course of a year. If not, you’ll have a year’s worth of scrolling or other mindless diversion that may not add up to something memorable. Laura’s insight: effortful fun is especially enjoyable and valuable once you clear the initial hurdle of getting started. But when you start with effortless fun, it’s easy to get sucked in and hard to switch to something effortful with more friction. 7. Go Outside After Dinner 🌿 Laura’s family uses the acronym TOAD: Time Outside After Dinner. Once daylight extends past dinner, go outside. Walk. Play. Just be out there. It breaks the default drift toward screens during the post-dinner hours. 8. Practice Active Patience 🌱 Some things just take time. Laura talked about how her books reveal themselves slowly as she writes them. She may start with a detailed outline, but the nuances within each chapter emerge gradually. A piece of music becomes part of you only after many hours of practice. I’ve spent years on some of my favorite violin pieces; I often find new wrinkles, like dynamics or articulation marks I hadn’t paid much attention to, even after I’ve spent hundreds of hours looking at the music. After 11 years of tracking, Laura knows exactly what fits in 168 hours. Her weekly priority lists are short and realistic. If something is on the list, she’ll do it. If not, she’ll push it to a future week. That precision eliminates guilt. She doesn’t assign herself things she won’t actually do. And she doesn’t feel bad about things she deliberately chose not to do this week. If you occasionally feel guilty about not doing enough, as I do, check out I Didn’t Do The Thing Today : Letting Go of Productivity Guilt, by Madeleine Dore . It’s a brilliant take. 9. Leave Room to Say Yes 🚪 Most productivity advice is about saying no. Laura flips that. Almost all new opportunities, relationships, and breakthroughs come from saying yes to something you’re not entirely sure about. The reason to clear your schedule isn’t just to have less going on. It’s to create the mental space to say yes when something unexpected appears. If you feel completely swamped, you might not even consider new possibilities. Managing mental load isn’t just about getting things done. It’s about staying open to what could come next, and allowing for serendipity. It’s about being open to what Laura calls little bets, giving time to something new that might end up being terrific. Tip: In his book, Flourish , Daniel Coyle describes this approach as opening yellow doors. They’re yellow (like a yellow traffic light) because they aren’t a clear GO. You’re not sure where they’ll lead. You may instinctively resist them in favor of more obvious green doors. Coyle points out, as Laura does, that these yellow doors can lead you to surprising places you wouldn’t otherwise go. 10. This is Probably Not Your Last Day 🐾 “ Live every day as if it’s your last” sounds inspiring. But it’s not practical for consistently making real decisions about how we spend our time. If everything was about living for the moment, you wouldn’t save money, learn a new language, or practice cello. Planning would seem futile or foolish. Laura prefers a different frame: ”Someday we will die. But on all the other days, we will not.” She attributes it to a Snoopy cartoon . Most days are not the last day we’ll be alive. It’s worth investing in things that pay off later. Build skills. Start the long project. The Social Security Administration publishes actuarial tables if you want reassurance about your own life expectancy. For most ages, your odds of making it to next year are excellent. That’s true whether you’re in your forties, like Laura, or 92. Interesting fact: Only when you’re 105 do your odds of dying within a year start to exceed 50%, according to those tables . 11. Make Fewer Decisions. Rely on Presets 🍝 Laura’s family has a routine meal schedule. Pasta on Mondays. Fajitas on Tuesdays. Breakfast for dinner on Thursdays. (They love bacon). Weekends are for trying something new. That approach extends beyond food. Sticking to formulas frees up mental energy for things where decisions are crucial. You’re not being boring. You’re being strategic about where your decision-making efforts go. Jeff Bezos and other visionary leaders talk about separating reversible small decisions from impactful ones that can’t be reversed. If you don’t like one lunch, you’ve got another one coming. If you fire someone or leave a partnership, you may not get an easy redo. Laura’s Simple Toolkit 🧰 Laura doesn’t focus much on tech. Here are a few tools she relies on. * Microsoft Excel for time tracking. Basic spreadsheets, half-hour blocks, simple categories. * iPhone Notes App works well for scanning. Open a note, press the paperclip icon, then scan a permission slip, agreement doc, or some other form straight to PDF. You don’t need a separate scanner. * Toggl for time tracking if you prefer an app over a spreadsheet. The free version works well. It works on your computer or laptop, and integrates with many other apps. I use and recommend a different app called Rize . * Two laptops. She started using two screens by accident when an old laptop couldn’t run Zoom. Now she writes on one and references notes on the other. * A digital recorder for her brief daily podcast called Before Breakfast . She batches episodes ahead of time and sends audio files to her production team. On AI ✍️ Laura loves both writing and puzzling. She says using AI for writing would be like paying a robot to do a puzzle for her. She has used it for brainstorming and research. She once asked for a list of productivity newsletters. About half the results were ones she already knew. Half of the rest turned out not to exist. But some of the results were useful discoveries. She’s open to the idea of feeding time logs into AI for pattern recognition. Her take: it’s a bit like a tarot reading. If you agree with the AI’s categorization or summarization, you’ll think the results are great. If you don’t like the AI’s assessment, you’ll assume it malfunctioned. For my own takes on AI, check out my AI-related posts . Laura’s Resources 🎁 * Free time-tracking spreadsheet : lauravanderkam.com/manage-your-time * Before Breakfast Laura’s daily micro podcast with short weekday tips. I’ve listened to it for years. I love that each episode is just a few minutes long (though I tend to skip over the lengthy opening ads). She’s been publishing episodes daily since early 2019. * Best of Both Worlds Laura cohosts this podcast with Dr. Sarah Hart-Unger, focusing on real-world issues that arise when balancing work and family. (Laura has five kids, aged six to 18, so she speaks from experience). * Big Time Her excellent new book on time abundance. * Tranquility by Tuesday and 168 Hours Two of Laura’s best prior books, both worth reading, both full of specific, practical, non-intuitive ideas that I’ve found useful. Thank you to my brother Ben Caplan, MD , Holly , and many others for tuning into my live video chat with Laura . And thanks for reading all the way down to this note. Leave a comment with your own thought on time. I’d love your input. 👆 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

April 30, 20261 hr 11 min

✍️ Let AI Interview You

The following is a guest post by Jay Dixit , founder of Socratic AI Most people treat AI like a question-answering machine: Ask a question, get an answer. What is chili crisp, and why is Gen Z so obsessed with it? What’s the best starting guess for Wordle? What’s the best time of day to post on LinkedIn? (My own real queries from today.) There’s nothing wrong with using AI to get answers to your questions. But there’s another mode of interacting with AI that many people never consider — one I find much more useful for my creative process. Here’s what I do instead: I flip the script and let the AI ask the questions for a change. Instead of prompting AI, I get the AI to prompt me. You may have heard Jeremy call this technique the “reverse interview,” and he’s previously written about it as a tool for reflection. You might use reverse interviewing, say, to conduct a soul-searching interview about what you want from your career . I take that same role reversal and apply it to the writing process. I call it the “Socratic interview.” It’s the foundational technique I teach for using AI as a thinking partner instead of a content generator. It’s also what inspired the name of my company, Socratic AI , and my upcoming masterclass with Narratively Academy. ( See below for details, including an exclusive discount for Wonder Tools readers.) The Socratic interview works for any writing task — a first-person narrative, a Substack post, a pitch deck, a talk for SXSW, even a speech for my best friend’s wedding. I use two versions of the technique: one to help me figure out what to say, and one to figure out how to say it. Socratic Interviewing Level 1: Excavating raw material How to use AI to help you surface memories, examples, and stories I sometimes meet people who use an even more basic version: the adversarial interview. “Play devil’s advocate. Pressure-test my assumptions. Poke holes in my argument and reveal gaps in my logic.” Maybe call that the starting level. What I find much more helpful is using the Socratic interview as a tool to access my own creativity. As a writer, I’ve always had plenty of ideas, insights, and stories. I know they’re in there somewhere. But staring down the blank page is hard. What’s much easier is answering when someone asks me a direct question. So I use Socratic interviewing to draw out the ideas, memories, stories, and examples I have in my head but haven’t gotten down in writing. For me, it solves the blank page problem — without ever using AI to generate prose. Let’s say I need to write a groomsman speech for my best friend’s wedding. If I were to use ChatGPT as a ghostwriter the way most people do, it would output something lazy and trite. Look what happens when I ask it to generate a draft. “That’s not luck, that’s character”? Pure slop. Socratic interviewing is a different process altogether. Here, I give Claude a bunch of messy context about the writing task and ask it to help me remember the adventures and funny moments I’ve had with Tim over the years. Generating answers is AI’s default mode, but it also excels at asking evocative questions to jog your memory and get your creative juices flowing. You just need to flip it into that Socratic mode. I can ask for questions in a batch or, if I want it to feel less like a writing assignment and more like a conversation, take them one at a time. Either way, instead of sweating over a blank page, I’m now in a playful conversation about funny memories from my formative years. Once I’ve answered these questions, the task ahead of me changes. I’m no longer struggling to compose some perfect sentence to somehow encompass the totality of our friendship. All I have to do is look at my own stories and start choosing and shaping my favorite moments. --------- Sponsored Message I open Shortform for books I haven’t had time to read, books I finished years ago, and books I’m not sure are worth my time. Take What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam (screenshot above). The Shortform guide surfaces the essential ideas fast. It’s particularly useful for nonfiction books, biographies, self-help, and other genres where you’re reading for tangible takeaways. I appreciate that smart humans write Shortform’s guides. In an era when AI-generated summaries are everywhere, there’s a difference. These feel like notes from thoughtful readers. Shortform now covers podcasts and long articles too, not just books. If your reading list grows faster than you can get through it, Shortform is one of the more practical tools I’ve found for making progress on it. Wonder Tools readers get a free trial + 25% off the annual plan 👇 ---------- Socratic Interviewing Level 2: Defining your purpose and strategy How to use AI to clarify your writing goals Just as important as figuring out what you want to say is figuring out how you want to say it. Like all art, writing is about making a thousand tiny decisions. It’s hard to get those decisions right if you don’t even know you’re making them. If the only directive I have in mind as I’m typing is “I need to make this good,” that doesn’t help me figure out how much explanation is sufficient, which words match the register I’m aiming for, and which details will evoke the experience I’m trying to evoke in the reader. The solution is to define my strategy before I start writing. The best way I know to write something good is to clarify what I’m trying to accomplish, keeping a sort of design brief in mind (or in a separate doc) as I write. If I’ve clearly defined what experience I’m trying to evoke and what elements of craft I want to deploy to get there, I can make those decisions more intentionally. “Here’s what I’m going for here. I want these opening pages to be super suspenseful. I want the reader to immediately root for the protagonist, and the scene to be fast-paced and easy to visualize, nothing vague or abstract.” The thing is, I don’t figure this stuff out by staring harder at the draft itself. So before I start writing, I have AI interview me about that too. The questions it asks force me to clarify my purpose and strategy for the piece before I even start drafting. I might use a prompt like this: I’m writing a short satire piece for The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs. Before I draft, ask me a series of questions about my goals for the piece: who my reader is, what kind of experience I want to create for the reader, and what craft choices I plan to use to achieve the desired effect. Fleshing out my writing goals through Socratic questioning has a dual benefit. First, it clarifies my own thinking, so I’m writing with purpose instead of brain-dumping whatever’s in my head. Second, it gives the AI a clear set of criteria. So when I ask it for feedback — “How’s this paragraph?” “Is this section working?” — Claude already knows what I’m trying to achieve. That way, it can assess how my writing succeeds against those specific standards rather than some abstract ideal of what good writing looks like. Instead of generic notes — “This is a little casual,” “consider tightening” — now I get feedback against my own criteria: “You said you wanted this to be visual, but you’re doing a lot of explaining.” My 6-Week Course for Writers Who Actually Want to Finish Socratic interviewing is just one piece of how I use AI in my writing process (and never to generate writing). If you’re interested in learning how to use AI not just as a thinking partner, but as an accountability coach to keep you on track with your writing , I’m teaching a six-week class that covers the whole system. The class is called The Socratic AI Intensive , taught in partnership with Narratively Academy, and it starts May 18. It’s built around how to use AI as a taskmaster, project manager, and accountability coach to help you set a goal, stay on task, and actually finish what you start . All without ever letting AI generate a single word.The accountability coaching is just one piece of the Socratic AI system. The class also covers a set of advanced principles I’ve never seen taught anywhere else — the signature techniques of Socratic AI I’ve developed over three years of working with AI in my own writing process as a thinking partner instead of a content generator. Here’s a taste of what we cover: * Getting non-sycophantic feedback. As I’ve said ad nauseam, I don’t use AI to generate prose. Nor do I allow AI to rewrite my prose when it inevitably tries to jump in and “smooth and refine” my drafts. But I do use AI as a thoughtful first reader to get an external perspective on how my writing is coming across. I ask for high-level feedback on how to make a piece better — what’s repetitive, what’s vague, what’s unclear, where it gets boring, where it needs to get more concrete. Then I do the rewrite myself based on feedback. The AI’s feedback is even more specific and useful if you’ve already gone through the Level 2 process I described above: defining for the AI what you’re trying to achieve and how. * Name what you suspect the problem is. When asking for feedback, it also helps to let the AI know where to focus its attention. If you simply say, “How’s this section working?” the AI will do its best to be helpful. But things work even better if you flag your specific concern: “Is this paragraph sappy/melodramatic?” “Does this headline sound defensive?” “Is it clear why she didn’t just walk back in and apologize, or do I need to spell out her motivation?” When you tell the AI what to focus on, you’ll get a better, more targeted answer. * Socratic revision. As William Zinsser says, “Writing is rewriting.” Writing never comes out quite right the first time. What makes good writing good is revising and rewriting early drafts until they get good. To flip AI into an iterative, Socratic mode, I use one magic phrase: “iterate and improve.” My favorite Socratic prompt: “Don’t rewrite this for me. Ask me questions to lead me to my own creative insights, and give me ideas so I can iterate and improve.” The AI gives you feedback. You’re always the one writing. * Make every conversation Socratic. AI’s default mode is to spit out answers. But AI is more helpful when it has relevant context. The problem is the context you don’t realize you’re leaving out. So even when you’re not doing a Socratic interview, you can still flip the script. In practice, I try to make all my AI conversations Socratic. Here’s a single sentence you can paste at the end of any prompt: “Before we proceed, ask me a question or two to make sure you understand what I want.” One sentence, and Claude stops guessing what you need — it asks. It’s the easiest way to break out of the vending-machine pattern. In the class, I teach all of these techniques in detail and show you how to use them for your own writing. Five class sessions over six weeks. We’ll cover project planning, daily accountability, Socratic interviewing, iterative revision with feedback, and advanced workflows for working with AI on your actual files and projects. The structure: Five weekly live sessions of two hours each, a system for using AI as an accountability coach, and a private community for support between sessions. You bring your writing project: a novel, a book proposal, a screenplay, a collection of essays, whatever you’ve been wanting to finish. You set an ambitious but achievable goal. By the end of six weeks, you’re done. Here’s what you get: * A set of tools and techniques for how to use AI to set milestones, break your project into daily tasks, and keep you on track * A cohort of fellow writers doing the work alongside you * Weekly live sessions with me * A Slack channel for questions, technical help, and shared progress This is the class where you actually finish your draft. By the end of six weeks, the project you committed to is done. It’s $795, and Wonder Tools readers get $100 off with code WONDERTOOLS. Sign up at socraticai.co/intensive . Jay Dixit is the founder of Socratic AI , where he teaches writers, educators, and knowledge workers how to use AI as a thinking partner instead of a content generator. He was previously Head of Community for Writers at OpenAI and has taught writing at Yale. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Psychology Today. Thank you Lucy Gray , Andrew Nelson , and others for tuning into the live video with Jay Dixit ! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

April 10, 20266 min

My Quieter Toolkit 🌙

Mornings are for deep work. Afternoons are for everything else — teaching, planning, thinking, movement, and meetings. This is part two of my daily kit. Part one covered my morning apps . Here are the apps and gadgets that carry me through from noon to bedtime. I’ve included a few AI tools, but mostly the quieter tools that don’t get as much attention. Catch up on Part 1 👇 12pm: Midday Break Healthy Minds 🧠 This free app helps me with mindfulness. The 5-10 minute audio lessons work well as walking meditations. I sometimes also use Headspace or Calm for meditation or focus music. Libby 📚 I rely on Libby for free library audiobooks. I listen when walking to lunch or commuting. Here are tools I rely on for finding great books . Lunch * Resy and OpenTable 🍱 for quick reservations nearby * The Infatuation for opinionated local restaurant recommendations * Too Good To Go for trying heavily discounted (66% off) dishes from local restaurants, bakeries, and juice bars. The fixed-price mystery bags reduce restaurant waste. Sometimes you get a delicious bargain, but the quality varies. I’ve occasionally gotten a weird bread or a bland pastry. * MealPal When I don’t bring my own lunch, I like MealPal, a lunch subscription service. Local restaurants offer one dish a day as part of the subscription, which costs about $6/day. I like the variety: you can choose which restaurant to try on any given day. It’s available so far in 12 cities . 1-3pm: Preparing to Teach After lunch, I continue developing teaching plans or work on other school-related projects for my job as Director of Teaching and Learning at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism . ( More of my thinking in a recent Columbia Journalism Review interview ). Craft 📄 My go-to for creating visually engaging digital handouts. It’s easy to use and works wonderfully on mobile or desktop. See my post on why Craft is so useful . Wispr Flow , Text Blaze and Raycast * I often use Wispr Flow to type with my voice. It works in any app. I just hold the function key and talk. * When I do type with my hands I use Text Blaze keyboard shortcuts to add snippets into my email and documents. It works for email addresses and signatures, search prompts, and phrases I type a lot. * Raycast also works well for these shortcuts. Why I rely on Raycast . Notes by Hand 📝 I like writing notes away from my laptop periodically to get my eyes off the screen and to change my brain mode. I alternate between: * I use a Rocketbook reusable notebook for lists and reminders. * A giant whiteboard helps me draw connections and play around with ideas away from the glowing distractions of my screens. * My reMarkable Paper Pro tablet hosts notes I will return to repeatedly. What works for me , paper vs. digital Keynote for Slides This Mac presentation software works reliably offline or on for in-person and remote classes and workshops I lead. Keynote is now part of Apple’s new Creator Studio , a package of software that includes video and image editing tools. I haven’t found the Keynote AI features useful so far, but the basic software is excellent for designing and delivering compelling slides. Pricing: Keynote is free with any Mac. I wouldn’t recommend the subscription upgrade, at $129/year or $30/year for students and educators, unless you’re a heavy user of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, or the other pro software tools. iA Presenter I vary slide apps to keep things interesting. I sometimes write a lesson outline and paste that text into iA Presenter, which turns it into clean, typographically sharp slides. Like Keynote, it works offline. For more on why this app is so useful, watch the demo video or read my post . Kahoot , Padlet , and Slido 🤔 I rely on this trio of teaching tools to power activities that promote active learning in classes or workshops — rather than passive listening. Here are more of my favorite apps for teaching . Time Out for Screen Breaks ⏳ I set this app to remind me to give my eyes a screen break every 15 minutes. It pulses over the screen to nudge me to stretch or look out the window. The Raycast Focus Mode also helps, blocking email and distractions during short, focused, deep work sprints. 3-5pm: Meetings 👥 I try to schedule meetings for the late afternoon to conclude the day with collaboration, after starting with more creative work. Granola for Summaries🤖 Granola weaves my own notes into its summary, sends no bot into my Zooms, and lets me search across meetings for tasks, patterns, or insights. My full post about it👇 describes 10 of the features, along with tips, limitations, and alternatives. Camo for Webcam Customization Camo lets me modify my camera to zoom in, adjust lighting, or add overlays during video calls. It also lets me use my phone or other external cameras. Prezi Video and Airtime enable lower-thirds, annotations, and overlay visuals I occasionally use for presentations. Sony UX570 Voice Recorder for Interviews My reliable backup for recording audio. I like that it doesn't require an open laptop or running phone. I often transcribe the audio files with MacWhisper . 6pm: After work Snipd for listening to podcasts on my commute This smart podcast app lets me preview podcasts and save highlights to my notes. I triple-tap my AirPods to save my favorite moments to Readwise , a service that acts as a repository for highlights from my online reading, Kindle books, and other apps I use. A recent favorite: The history of Trader Joe’s episode of the excellent Acquired podcast , which features multi-hour deep dives into remarkable companies. Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones I splurged on the $460 WH-100XM6 headphones to block noise on the exhaustingly loud New York City subway. I had my previous pair (WH-1000XM3) for seven years, so hopefully this investment will prove equally durable. I use them for commuting and focus music. Nex for Games and Exercise Breaks I love playing the sports and workout games on this family video game system. They’re all active games played with your body, not your thumbs. I play solo or with my wife & daughters. It’s like a next-generation Nintendo Wii , which we also still play (especially the balance board games). To get away from screens, we also play these family tabletop games . 11pm: Bedtime 🌙 Glocusent Rechargeable Reading Light This tiny $13 light clips onto any book. The battery lasts for months. Yogasleep Dohm White Noise Machine This $50 gadget masks random night sounds, making it easier to sleep. Peakeep “Invisible” Alarm Clock I turn off the display on this $13 bedside clock so it doesn’t glow at night. I tap the top to see the time if I need to. Its morning alarm lets me keep my tempting phone out of the bedroom. That’s my noon to night kit. What tools carry you through your day? What’s One Tool You Recommend? Leave a Comment👇 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe

April 4, 202613 min

Meet Granola AI ✨

I’ve tried a dozen AI note-taking tools. Granola is the one I use daily and recommend most. Read on for 10 ways to make the most of it. Bottom line: Granola transcribes and summarizes nearly every meeting I have. 998 so far. It helps me keep track of what I’ve learned and promises I’ve made. What it does: It’s software you download, not a bot, so it doesn’t attend meetings. It just runs on my computer or phone. I can use it to record in-person meetings, or anything online: Zoom, Google Meet, or even Substack Live. Setting it up: I connected my Google Calendar. Now it auto-detects my meetings and opens automatically when I start a call. How it’s different: Unlike other bots that spit out a generic summary, Granola gives you a window for your own note-taking. That means I can include my own thoughts and highlight what I find most important. The summary then weaves in my own points in black, distinct from the gray AI summary notes. I can always return to either my own separate notes or the AI-assisted summary. I can now query any meeting I’ve been in since I started using Granola in September 2024. I look for patterns across meetings and presentations I’ve given over the past couple of years. Free or Paid: You can use Granola for free plan. You get excellent summaries of an unlimited number of meetings. I was on the free plan for more than a year. Now I pay $14/month to access all of my past meeting summaries. That also pays for better AI models, and lets me query my notes from Claude or ChatGPT. 👇10 ways Granola stands out 1. Write your own notes while AI fills in the rest Most AI note-takers give you only the AI’s version of what happened. Granola keeps your own notes alongside the live transcript. You always have both. I type my own most important observations, priorities, and reactions during a meeting. The AI fills in other details. This way I’m not reliant on a generic summary the way I am with other tools. My own emphasis and perspective helps shape the summary. After the meeting, my original notes appear in black. The AI-generated content appears in gray. That’s a nice design touch, so you can easily tell which is which. Tip: I use shorthand like triple asterisks (***) for key points and triple ampersand (&&&) for memorable quotes. Or choose your own “internal hashtags.” Pick ones easy to type during a live meeting. Later you can search for those to quickly find what you flagged as important. (Works with any tool) 2. Search across meetings by person or company 🔍 Granola organizes meetings by people and organizations. If I’ve had a series of meetings with someone, I can click their name and search across all of those conversations. Or I can search through all the conversations I’ve had with people at Acme Inc. This is useful for questions like: What did we agree to last month? What themes keep coming up? What did I promise to send that I haven’t followed up on? You can also create folders for specific projects or series. If I’m attending or teaching a series of workshops, I can then search across all of those sessions. Tip: If you ever write or give presentations, ask Granola to compile key points or ideas you’ve shared in past meetings or presentations. It’s helpful for exploring and building on your own ideas. Instead of using AI to think for you, you’re using it to help you organize and make more of your own ideas. 3. Record in-person meetings w/ a phone or laptop 📱 I’ve been to public events where I wanted to remember what was discussed. The iPhone app is great. Same account, no separate setup. Your in-person notes sync with your desktop notes and appear in the same searchable archive. Other recording apps I’ve tried occasionally crash when I get a call or open other apps, but Granola has been consistently reliable, even for long meetings. I’ve been surprised to find that it works well even when I’m not sitting close to the speaker. Available on: Mac, Windows, and iOS. No Android app yet, though one is expected later this year. 4. Start free with unlimited meetings The free version works well if you just want to try it. The transcription quality is the same as the paid version. Students get Granola free for a year . Startups do too . The paid plan is $14 a month. I pay that for unlimited access to my 1,000+ meeting summaries, the ability to query my notes from other AI tools like Claude, and access to the strongest AI models for summaries. The free plan limits how far back you can access old meetings and limits the AI models you have access to. If you don’t need to refer back to old summaries or plug your notes into other AI tools, the free plan is great. Try Granola free for a month with this link. 5. Give Claude or ChatGPT access to your Granola notes This is one of the reasons I upgraded to the paid plan. Granola connects to Claude through something called a Model Context Protocol ( MCP ). Don’t worry about the technical details. It’s just a way to connect AI tools to one another. The practical benefit : I can ask Claude or ChatGPT to look across my recent Wonder Tools Live sessions and tell me which topics I’ve talked about but haven’t written about yet. Or vice versa. Because Claude has access to my newsletter archive (via Mizal ), it can consider what I’ve discussed in meetings and what I’ve published. Sponsored Message The Smarter Way to Read More There are more great books than any of us will ever finish. I made peace with that, though I still wish I could read more. So I found a tool that helps. Shortform has helped me get inside more books. I use it for books I haven’t had time to read, and to rediscover ideas from books I finished years ago but have already started to forget. What sets it apart is that it’s powered by human writers and editors, not AI summaries. You get substantive analysis, useful examples, and quotes from the book. You also get recommendations for related titles and a one-page overview. It’s like having a smart friend sum it up for you. A few to check out on Shortform : a guide to What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast , by Laura Vanderkam (I’m a big fan) and Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin (also an author I admire). Shortform also has podcast and article guides to get the gist of long interviews or sprawling posts. If your reading list ever creates anxiety for you, as it does for me, it’s worth a look. Wonder Tools readers get a free trial + $50 off the annual plan. → 6. Catch up mid-meeting if your mind wanders This is the feature that surprised me the most. While a meeting is happening, you can ask Granola to summarize what’s been said so far, or to catch you up on what you missed. This was hugely helpful recently when I was in a live session and my mind wandered. I missed what a couple of people had just said and felt bad about it. The only way to catch up without asking them to repeat themselves was to query Granola. It instantly gave me a concise recap of the last few minutes, while continuing to transcribe the session. You can also scan back through the live transcription yourself while the meeting progresses. 7. Analyze meetings with “recipes” Recipes are prompt templates built specifically for your meetings. Instead of recreating the same query every time, you save it once and reuse it. A few I use regularly: * List recent to-dos. Scans recent meetings for tasks I mentioned but may not have added to my task list. I caught a missing follow-up this way just recently. Someone asked me to send them a logo. I got sidetracked, didn’t put it on my task list. The recipe surfaced it. * Prep next meeting. If I’ve met with someone before, it reminds me of our prior conversations. If I haven’t, it can reference other similar meetings. * Coach me. Analyzes how I showed up in meetings and suggests what I might do differently. * YouTube description. I created this for workshops I lead. Some of them end up on YouTube, and I usually don’t have a description for them. Granola has the full text of what I said. So the recipe helps me generate a description. You can browse a public library of recipes and grab ones that interest you. There are special recipes for sales, marketing, customer interviews, and other common business use-cases. You can also create your own, which is as simple as writing a prompt. 8. Share meeting notes others can explore You can share a link to a Granola summary with anyone. The person on the other end doesn’t have to log in or have a Granola account. They can read the summary and even query the transcript themselves. They won’t see your private queries, and you won’t see theirs. You can also share an entire folder with a colleague, or even a workspace with your team, if you want to have collective access to shared meetings. You can also create a separate private space within your account. Example: Here’s a Granola summary of my most recent Wonder Tools Live Show and Tell, where I talked about why I like Granola. For context, these are live monthly sessions for paid subscribers where I show what I’m using and share tips on making the most of new tools. 9. Protect privacy with text-only transcription 🔒 Granola captures only text. It transcribes in real time but doesn’t store audio or video files. Some people don’t want to be recorded video-wise, or they don’t want their voice recorded. Granola works well for that, because it stores only text. This is a deliberate design choice. As CEO Chris Pedregal told me when I interviewed him for Fast Company recently, the value is in useful notes, not in retaining audio. The tradeoff: you can’t go back and listen to verify a quote, or hear the emotion in someone’s voice. If that matters for your work, pick an alternative below. 10. Take private notes without a bot joining your call Open a typical AI note-taker and you’ll see a bot listed as a meeting participant and a robotic rectangle in your video window. Some people find these bots intrusive. Granola doesn’t join your meeting. It runs on your computer (or phone). Nobody else in the meeting needs to know it’s there, though I recommend telling them anyway. Ask if it’s OK if you use an AI note-taker to help you remember what we talk about. Your data is protected. Granola is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant , which basically means an independent auditor has checked that the company has safeguards to protect sensitive info. How Granola can make life easier Granola is useful beyond work meetings. Here are some ways I’ve used it: * Learn from conferences and workshops. Capture notes from panels and talks. Later, search across all the sessions. “Which speakers mentioned AI regulation?” or “What books did speakers recommend?” You get a searchable archive of an entire event. * Catch up with online courses and webinars. I use Granola when I’m hosting or watching a Substack Live. If I have to step away, I can catch up. Or I can search across a series. “Remind me which tactics we covered.” * Prepare for a follow-up. Use the “Prep me” recipe before meeting with someone again. It pulls together what you talked about last time. * Capture medical or personal appointments. You can use Granola for therapy sessions, vet visits, or doctor appointments. Ask for permission. When you leave and can’t remember what the expert said about dosage or next steps, check the transcript. How to make the most of Granola * Ask permission first. Even though Granola doesn’t record audio, let people know you’re using an AI note-taker if it’s not a public event. I usually say something like: “Is it okay if I use an AI note-taker to sum up the meeting? I’m happy to share the summary with you. If you’d prefer, I can keep it off.” * Split long events into separate sessions. If you’re at a three-hour workshop with distinct segments, stop and restart Granola between sections. You’ll get more detailed summaries for each section instead of one sprawling summary. * Choose your AI model. On the paid plan, you can select an advanced AI model. I like Claude’s Sonnet 4.6 Thinking. You can switch to a Gemini or ChatGPT model. Limitations No tool is perfect. Here’s where Granola falls short so far: * No audio or video playback. You can’t go back and listen to what someone said for the emotion in their voice. * No file uploads yet. You can’t drag in an old interview recording or audio file for transcription. So far the focus is on live meetings. * Chats can get messy . Granola doesn’t have a place to store answers you get when you query your meetings. You have to copy & paste into a separate notes tool. And it’s not optimized for taking notes without audio. * Limited free archive. On the free plan, you only get access to 30 days of meeting archives. * No Android app yet. Available on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. I expect the Android app to launch later in 2026. Alternatives to Granola Granola is best for people who take their own notes during meetings and want AI to fill in the rest. If you’re on Android, Otter is a popular alternative until Granola’s Android version is available. If you want to upload recordings, or if you need video or audio saved, you may want something else. Consider these alternatives: * Fathom is a good option if you want video and audio recordings tied to a time-coded summary. Click on part of the summary to jump to that part of the recording. Start with the free version. It’s useful for sessions where you want to go back and watch specific moments. I sometimes use Fathom alongside Granola. * MacWhisper is useful for transcribing audio files you’ve recorded elsewhere. It can run locally on your Mac, so nothing leaves your device. You can buy it as a one-time purchase for $74. The free version also works well. * Supernormal is one I’ve used and liked. * For more options: Wonder Tools contributor Ulrike Langer, who writes the great News Machines newsletter about how news orgs are using AI, recently wrote a guide to transcription tools with additional alternatives. How to get started 🚀 * Try it for one meeting. Download Granola on Mac or Windows , or grab the iPhone app . Connect your calendar and join a meeting. Take a few of your own notes. See how Granola combines them with the transcript summary afterward. * Try an in-person meeting. Bring your iPhone to a coffee meeting or a live event and open the Granola app. See how the mobile transcription feels. * Chat with your first summary. After your meeting, try asking a few questions: * “What were the three main takeaways?” * “What deadlines or follow-ups should I remember?” * “Summarize this meeting in 3 sentences for a colleague.” Try Granola free for a month → What are you using and why? Leave a comment 👇 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wondertools.substack.com/subscribe