Digital Safety & Privacy
Digital Safety for Beginners: The Habits That Protect You Most
Digital safety for beginners: 6 habits drawn from agencies in the UK, US, Australia and EU, from guarding your email first to backups and scam checks.
Tools & AI Editor
Theo Marchetti
Articles
AI for Personal Productivity
AI Chatbots for Emotional Support: Benefits, Risks, and When to See a Therapist
AI for emotional support: 48 trials found modest gains from chatbots built for mental health, but everyday chatbots are barely tested. When to get help.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
Shadow AI Explained: Why Employees Use Unapproved Tools and What to Do
Shadow AI is AI used for work without approval. In IBM's 2025 study, 1 in 5 breached firms reported a shadow AI breach. Why it happens and what beats a ban.
Productivity Apps & Tools
Best Time Tracking Apps Compared: Manual, Automatic, or Hybrid?
The best time tracking apps compared for 3 jobs (seeing where your week goes, billing clients, team reports) and the rules on tracking staff.
Automation & No-Code Workflows
Email Filters and Rules: How to Make Your Inbox Sort Itself
How Gmail filters and Outlook rules work, why a few routing rules beat deep folder trees, and 5 steps to set them up and test them safely.
Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
How to Take Notes From Books So You Remember What You Read
How to take notes from a book: a 2022 review of 36 articles found highlighting did little for understanding. Recall each chapter from memory instead.
Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
Best Note-Taking Apps Compared: How to Choose
The best note taking apps compared as 6 types, from phone notes to Markdown files: choose by how you capture, how you refind and how your notes can leave.
Productivity Apps & Tools
One Monitor, Two, or an Ultrawide? What Research Says About Screen Space
Ultrawide vs dual monitors: a review of 18 studies found people prefer two screens, but the evidence on speed is weaker and depends on the task.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
The EU AI Act Explained: A Plain-English Guide to Risk Tiers and Who Is Affected
The EU AI Act sorts AI into 4 risk tiers. What it bans, why hiring tools count as high-risk, who must comply, and the dates after the 2026 amendment.
Automation & No-Code Workflows
What Are APIs and Webhooks? A Plain-English Guide for Non-Developers
An API lets your tool ask an app for data; a webhook has the app tell you. One form entry, 2 routes to a spreadsheet, and how to guard your keys.
AI for Personal Productivity
Is AI Making Us Think Less? What Research Says About Cognitive Offloading
AI and critical thinking: what a 319-worker survey, a school math trial and an MIT preprint found about cognitive offloading, and 4 habits to keep thinking.
Automation & No-Code Workflows
Spreadsheet Automation for Beginners: Formulas, Macros, and Scripts
Formulas, macros and scripts explained, with 5 steps to automate a spreadsheet safely, and why close audits find errors in most working sheets.
Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
The Zettelkasten Method Explained: A Beginner's Guide
The Zettelkasten method explained: the 4 parts of Niklas Luhmann's slip-box, what note apps changed, and what research does and does not support.
Productivity Apps & Tools
Password Managers Explained: Why You Need One and How to Pick
Why a password manager beats memory, and how to pick one on 5 checks: encryption, track record, devices, passkeys, and sharing and recovery.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
How to Write an AI Use Policy: A Step-by-Step Guide With Template
Write an AI use policy in 8 steps, with a plain template built on NIST, ISO/IEC 42001, the EU AI Act and data regulators' advice on chatbots at work.
AI for Personal Productivity
AI Hallucinations Explained: Why Chatbots Make Things Up
AI hallucinations explained: why chatbots guess instead of saying they don't know, what tests from 2023 to 2026 found, and 4 signs an answer may be made up.
Automation & No-Code Workflows
Robotic Process Automation Explained: What RPA Is and Where It Fits
What robotic process automation is, how attended and unattended bots differ, where RPA fits, and where the 30-50% failure figure comes from.
Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
Building a Second Brain: The Core Ideas Explained
Building a second brain rests on 4 steps: capture, organize, distill, express. Here is Tiago Forte's method and what memory research backs.
Productivity Apps & Tools
Best Calendar Apps Compared: How to Choose
The best calendar apps compared for 6 situations, from Google, Outlook and Apple to Proton, Fantastical and Cozi, and why alerts matter more than looks.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
Microsoft Copilot Explained: What It Does Inside Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams
Microsoft Copilot in Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams as of September 2026: what each does, how it uses work data, and what 4 government trials found.
AI for Personal Productivity
How to Write a Good Prompt: A Guide for Non-Technical People
How to write a good prompt in 5 steps: what OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft agree on, and what tests found about wording, tips and expert personas.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
How to Build AI Into Your Team's Workflow, One Task at a Time
How to put AI in team workflows in 6 steps, and why, in a large trial, an AI tool for each person sped up solo work but not the work a team shares.
Automation & No-Code Workflows
Zapier vs. Make vs. n8n: How to Choose an Automation Platform
One 3-step workflow run 500 times a month uses 1,000 Zapier tasks, 1,500 Make credits or 500 n8n runs. Prices, hosting and failures compared.
AI for Personal Productivity
How to Use AI to Write Emails: Prompts for Requests, Updates, and Follow-Ups
AI for writing emails: 3 copy-ready prompts for requests, updates and follow-ups, what a large trial found it saves, and what to keep out of the chat.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
What Is an AI Agent? A Plain-English Guide for Business Readers
An AI agent acts, it does not only answer. What independent tests found about finishing multi-step work, and 6 things to require before you let one act.
Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
The Cornell Note-Taking Method: How It Works and When to Use It
The Cornell note-taking method splits a page into 3 areas and adds 5 steps. Research backs its self-testing step far more than the layout itself.
Productivity Apps & Tools
Best To-Do List Apps Compared: How to Choose
The best to-do list apps for 6 situations, checked on price, devices and sharing, plus a 3-step trial to run before you move your tasks in.
Automation & No-Code Workflows
Workflow Automation for Beginners: What It Is and Where to Start
What workflow automation is, which tasks suit it, and 5 steps to build a first automation that saves time without quietly creating new problems.
Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
Why Take Notes at All? What Note-Taking Does for Memory and Thinking
Why take notes? A 57-study meta-analysis found only a modest benefit from taking notes; a second found substantial effects from taking and reviewing them.
Productivity Apps & Tools
How to Choose Productivity Apps: A Framework That Starts With the Problem
How to choose productivity apps in 5 steps: name the problem, pick the smallest fix, test it on real work, judge it on set criteria, then review.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
AI Literacy Explained: What Every Employee Needs to Understand
How EU law, the OECD and the US Labor Department define AI literacy, the 5 things every employee should understand, and what the EU asks of employers.
AI for Personal Productivity
AI Assistants for Beginners: What They Can and Can't Do for You
AI assistants for beginners: in a 758-consultant experiment, AI help improved work on 18 tasks but cut correct answers on another. What they do well and badly.