Cansu Tastan is the co-creator and designer of Defter Notes, a tool for infinite spatial thinking. We talked about the power of bridging the gap between analog and digital, how to interact with ideas in a tangible way, how spatial computing can support neurodiversity in note-taki … | Continue reading
When I started working at Google, I was quickly introduced to the job ladder that has since become pervasive in the tech industry. Depending on your first job there, you get assigned to a particular ladder, with fixed accomplishments to demonstrate in order to climb to the next l … | Continue reading
Motivation is a fickle friend. One day, you’re bursting with energy and enthusiasm, tackling your projects with a sense of flow. The next, you find yourself stuck in a rut, struggling to muster the drive to get anything done. It’s a frustrating cycle that can leave you feeling he … | Continue reading
Ever since humans have learned to write, we have documented how special we are and how we differ from other animals. Imagination, morality, and culture are traits thought to only be found in humans. Another aspect that seems to be uniquely human is the need to keep busy. Most ani … | Continue reading
The reading paradox has fascinated scientists for a while. There are many benefits we can unlock by reading everyday to activate the reading parts of the human brain. The post The Reading Mind: Surprising Science-Based Benefits of Reading Everyday appeared first on Ness Labs. | Continue reading
Curiosity has been a driving force behind our species’ remarkable success. By pushing us to question the status quo and explore the unknown, this innate desire to learn has sparked some of our greatest achievements—and shaped the course of human history. In a world where AI is ra … | Continue reading
Beloga offers multi-source knowledge management to offer hyper-contextualized insights, streamline workflows, and make information retrieval easy. In this interview, we talked about addressing the challenges of knowledge management and transfer, cultivating an environment conduci … | Continue reading
Intentional curiosity is the ability to direct your attention towards information inside or outside of you in a deliberate way. In other words, curiosity helps us direct our limited attentional resources to the most important stimuli within our attentional field. The post Intenti … | Continue reading
What should you read this month? This is your March 2024 guide to discovering the most insightful, inspiring, and transformative books on mindful productivity, creative growth, holistic ambition, and developing a healthier relationship with work. The post Ness Labs Best Books of … | Continue reading
I lived in Japan for seven months when I was younger. For all of the challenges I faced there as a woman and a foreigner, I still learned a lot from Japanese culture. Because Japan experienced a long period of relative isolation from the outside world — caused by sakoku (literall … | Continue reading
In our fast-paced world, living a mindful life can seem an almost impossible task, and maintaining your overall well-being is contingent upon paying attention to three key pillars: your mental, emotional, and physical health. The post The Triple Take: How to Balance Your Mental, … | Continue reading
Lilly Chen is the founder of Brainstory, an AI-powered “think out-loud” app based on the Socratic method of questioning. In this interview, we talked about how to use AI for better thinking, how to practice open-mindedness and curious questioning, how to make context sharing effi … | Continue reading
Do you always find yourself excited by new ideas and projects? Being naturally curious, you enjoy learning, discovering new insights, and developing your skills. Your curiosity is one of your greatest strengths, driving you to explore and grow. But that same curiosity can be a do … | Continue reading
In 2019 I made a pact to write a hundred articles in a hundred workdays. Since then, I have written and published one new article almost every week, and I have kept with this cadence while running a business and studying for my PhD. This is my longest running personal experiment. … | Continue reading
FEATURED TOOL Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us think better and work smarter. Abdullah Atta is the founder of Notesnook, an open source and end-to-end encrypted note-taking app with cross-device syncing. … | Continue reading
Timeshielding allows you to protect blocks of time in your calendar for what matters to you, with no specific task list. This could be for research, reading, creative brainstorming, or even just doing nothing. Because timeshielding feels more fun than timeboxing, you are less lik … | Continue reading
What should you read this month? This is your February 2024 guide to discovering the most insightful, inspiring, and transformative books on mindful productivity, creative growth, holistic ambition, and developing a healthier relationship with work. The post Ness Labs Best Books … | Continue reading
We all know that children are curious. Very curious. In fact, children ask more than a hundred questions an hour. This is how they explore, learn, and make sense of the world. However, researchers lament that “over the course of their education, students and adults ask fewer ques … | Continue reading
Racing pulse, tense muscles, dry mouth, restlessness, irritability, difficulty concentrating… The symptoms of anxiety are many, but sometimes we can’t pinpoint why exactly we experience this panicky feeling. Objectively, everything seems to be going well, and yet the sensations o … | Continue reading
Dmitri Leonov is the founder of SaneBox. We talked about email overwhelm, how AI can help us take back control of our inbox, the benefits of combining email management and time management, the myth of inbox zero, how to rediscover lost connections in your inbox, and much more. Th … | Continue reading
All healthy human babies and young children display curiosity, suggesting this is an innate human trait. Exploring our environment and babbling questions appear almost universal in early childhood across cultures. As an adaptive trait, curiosity draws us to seek information and n … | Continue reading
Ben Wisbey is the founder of Pylot, an innovative wearable to track your mental energy and help improve your productivity. We talked about the definition of mental energy and how it impacts our performance, accounting for fluctuating energy throughout the day, the results of thei … | Continue reading
In a world dominated by video, we know we’d benefit from communicating effortlessly through video content. But many of us struggle with camera confidence. This is because our fear of talking to a camera is deeply rooted in our survival instincts. The post The Psychology of Camera … | Continue reading
Posted on February 8th, 2024 A month ago, I announced that I would celebrate my 34th birthday by giving away $3400 to help four people become scientists of their own life. I encouraged people to submit proposals for a personal experiment they wanted to run, where $850 would help … | Continue reading
We all have those recurring fascinations we just can’t seem to shake. You know the ones — those diffuse obsessions and latent creative projects that linger in the back of your mind, calling to you even when you try your best to ignore them. Though you may not realize it, these ‘c … | Continue reading
Stefanie Broes is the founder of Moonbird, the world’s first handheld breathing coach. In this interview, we talked about the benefits of slow breathing, how to use real-time biofeedback to regulate your nervous system, breathwork as a tool for stress management, and much more. T … | Continue reading
It’s easy to stay calm when things are under control. But, sometimes, life happens. A deadline is moved up. Your train is canceled. Your luggage gets lost. Then, your heartbeat goes faster. You can feel the tension in your muscles. Your breathing accelerates. That’s it: You’re st … | Continue reading
As we step into the new year, Ness Labs proudly presents a curated selection of January’s most thought-provoking books. This collection, spanning diverse themes from emotions to imagination and embodied living, have been carefully chosen to spark new insights and foster personal … | Continue reading
FEATURED TOOL Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help people make the most of their minds. Jakob Storjohann is the CEO and founder of Ideamap, which is part of Ideanote. Ideamap is a visual workspace for brainstorm … | Continue reading
Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us make the most of our mind. Vladimir Oane is the co-founder of Deepstash, an app for building your personal knowledge library, helping you become more inspired and producti … | Continue reading
Imagine two aspiring writers, both with the idea of establishing an online writing presence. The first writer, Alex, sets a fixed goal: they aim to grow their newsletter to 1000 subscribers by the end of the month. Alex has heard that consistency is key, so they choose a topic, d … | Continue reading
Whether it’s quitting a job, breaking up with someone, or leaving behind a place, we all have at one point or another to learn the difficult art of letting go. Unfortunately, learning to let go is much harder than holding on. Human beings have a tendency to define themselves thro … | Continue reading
Despite its small size compared to the rest of the body, the human brain consumes a lot of energy, consuming about 20% of the body’s resources. This energy is vital for maintaining the brain’s complex functions such as thinking, memory, and controlling the body. Neuroenergetics i … | Continue reading
Imagine having a thinking partner that’s not just smart but also deeply attuned to your specific needs. This is the promise of a custom GPT model: an AI companion tailored to you, which can help you ideate, learn, and grow. The post Think with AI: How to Use a Custom GPT as a Thi … | Continue reading
Imagine having a thinking partner that’s not just smart but also deeply attuned to your specific needs. This is the promise of a custom GPT model: an AI companion tailored to you, which can help you ideate, learn, and grow. The post Tutorial: How to Build a Custom GPT with OpenAI … | Continue reading
The year had barely started, and I already felt nervously excited, but also slightly off balance. Writing a book in English while completing a PhD and running Ness Labs… Wasn’t I trying to bite more than I could chew? This is my 2023 annual review. The post 2023 Year in Review: O … | Continue reading
As December unfolds, Ness Labs brings you a handpicked collection of this month’s best books. These cover a range of topics, from artificial intelligence to the science of attention. These books are chosen for their ability to open new doors of understanding and offer fresh persp … | Continue reading
Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us think better and work smarter. Oliver Sauter is the founder of Memex, a tool designed to help you better read and research online, by yourself and with the collective know … | Continue reading
Chocolate or vanilla? Trello or Jira? Atom or VS Code? Stay in or go out? Should I click on this link or not? We make thousands of choices everyday, often automatically, using mental models we have created over years of experience. Decision-making is the process we use to identif … | Continue reading
FEATURED TOOL Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us make the most of our mind. Alan Chan is the co-founder of Heptabase, a visual note-taking tool that helps you learn complex topics. In this interview, we ta … | Continue reading
While most people—including scientists—agree on the benefits of reading books, not everyone seems to have been made equal when it comes to remembering their content. Some people (including my dad, who we call a Walking Wikipedia) are an endless source of insights, recalling every … | Continue reading
Your brain is great at creating connections when you support it with active content consumption and the right balance of creative input and creative output. The post Escape the Algorithm appeared first on Ness Labs. | Continue reading
At this point, most people are aware of the benefits of physical exercise. Like with many things we know are good for us, it doesn’t mean we actually act on it: it’s estimated there is between $400 million and $1.3 billion spent on unused gym memberships in the U.S. only. But at … | Continue reading
What should you read this month? This is your November 2023 guide to discovering the most insightful, inspiring, and transformative books on mindful productivity, creative growth, holistic ambition, and developing a healthier relationship with work. The post Ness Labs Best Books … | Continue reading
FEATURED TOOL Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us think better and work smarter. Maks Kuchur is the founder of xTiles, an all-in-one workspace for notes, tasks and projects which allows you to organize and m … | Continue reading
Many people believe that creativity is a natural gift that only a select few are born with and that it cannot be taught or learnt. This could not be further from the truth. Yes, creativity is innate in the sense that we are all born with it. But, as we grow up, most of us ... Rea … | Continue reading
FEATURED TOOL Welcome to this edition of our interview series, where we meet founders on a mission to help us think better and work smarter. Thomas Paul Mann is the co-founder of Raycast, a blazingly fast and extendable launcher that lets you complete tasks, calculate, share comm … | Continue reading
For generations, hard skills have been prioritized over soft skills. Today, engineering and computer science education still places a strong emphasis on building technical expertise through math, science, and programming courses, with little attention paid to fostering interperso … | Continue reading