What I read in April:

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I didn’t read much this month. Not as much as I would have liked to. The three books I did read, however, were useful and substantive and totally illuminating. As an indication: I try to be selective in what I underline or mark up in the margins of a book, but I think I underlined almost half the text in my copy of Creativity, and nearly as much in Essentialism. I sort of cheated and listened to Steve Jobs on audio, a medium I traditionally reserve for music and podcasts (you can’t mark up or “keep,” in any real sense, an audiobook).

When I wasn’t reading I was up to a whole slew of different things. I went to Houston for six days to visit family. I dog sat for four days. I purchased a new road bike and subsequently rode it to and from work most days, as well as around Prospect Park about a dozen times on the weekends. I implemented a new calendaring and task-tracking system that I spend way too much time thinking about and ogling. I may actually write a separate post just on this topic, but spoiler: it’s a harmonious blend of the Sunrise calendar app with Workflowy, a to-do list app that I actually use and enjoy (unlike the many others I’ve tried but can’t commit to for one reason or another). Sunrise and Workflowy, though. I’m telling you. They are just FUN to use. They scratch an itch for me like no other calendar or to-do app can. Completely intuitive, completely addictive. Sunset is already pretty popular and widely used, but I think Workflowy is still in its nascent stages, at least in terms of popularity. There are so many apps in the to-do list space that this one can be easy to ignore (it rarely comes up in those “Top 12 Task Tracking Apps” articles). You have to actively search for it in the App store (meaning it’s not one of the results that automatically appears when you select the To Do List category). So anyway. This is my way of evangelizing. Get Workflowy. Learn its features. Reap benefits real and imaginary.