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I still wake up at 7:15 a.m. Not because I have a meeting. Or a commute. Or a list of deliverables thats longer than a CVS receipt. Im up early because something about lying in bed while my corporate counterparts clock in makes me feel like Im behind, even if theres no race Im actively running. The day kicks off with the usual: matcha, oatmeal, a spin on the Peloton, and a shower. But then? Stillness. No Slack pings. No check-ins. No one asking for a quick sync to circle back so we can get our ducks in a row. Just me, refreshing LinkedIn, wondering if today is the day a recruiter cannonballs into my DMs like Ron Burgundy. I launched this column five years ago as a mid-level marketing manager in Seattlecorporates middle child, navigating microaggressions, vague feedback, and vibes that often felt . . . off. I wrote about working through a pandemic, watching my well-meaning white colleagues bumble through a so-called racial reckoning, and climbing org chart rungs while staying woke to the wonkiness of upper management. Back then, I wrote as The Only Black Guy in the Office. Now? Im still him, but theres no office at allunless you count the one in my spare bedroom. For the first time in a long time, Im unemployed. There, I said it. I used to pray for times like this, imagining being unshackled from the chains of recurring standups, performance reviews, and a 27-tab document named Final_FINAL_V3_(1). Id see myself rewatching The Boondocks episodes on a random Tuesday afternoon, hitting up local museums during off-peak hours, day drinking with a pinky pointed toward the clouds. But since those first couple of weeks post-layoff, the fun in funemployment has hopped on a paper plane and gone MIA. Im over the midday mimosas and matinees, especially now that Im fresh out of severance dollars to spend and Severance episodes to binge. My savings and sense of purpose are each trending downward, dawg, without a namaste in sight. Theres an odd grief that hits the moment your work account passwords go inactive. Its the coldest closure, like an ex changing the locks while youre still packing your things. Except here, your belongings are stored in a shared Google Drive and a Slack archive youll never access again. I once thought I couldnt feel any more like an outsider. I was wrong. But that wasnt the only wake-up call. Things done changed for this era of job hunters. Im learning the futility of cold applying, the scams targeting desperate job seekers, the absurdity of stuffing resumes with keywords to appease the bots. Even when I make it past the algorithm bouncers and land in front of an actual human, I wonder if the HBCU degree I worked so hard for is a reveal that invites bias before Ive said a word. The hardest part of this all? Its not my obsessive clocking of banking apps and job boards, nor the dystopian friend-or-foe role of artificial intelligence in the application process. Its the identity shift with which Ive only recently come to terms. When youve spent your entire career outworking self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism, being unemployed feels like failure, even when its not. Doesnt matter if its due to a layoff, a budget cut, or a strategic realignment. For years, my job was more than a source of income and fodder for my therapist. It was where I could be a rockstar in one conference room and a firefighter in the next. A place I could lift up others who looked like me and, when necessary, check those who didnt. If Im keeping it a bean, it was validation. Now, with no decks to compile or KPIs to hit, Ive had to sit in that stillness. Ive had to create the structure in my days that I once dreaded. Ive had to convince myself that the youre too talented to be in the market for long! sentiments shared by friends and peers are sincere. This column has always been a pressure release valvea space to process what it means to be Black and corporate and exhausted. I didnt realize how much Id need that outlet again. Maybe even more now than before. So Im brushing off the cobwebs and writing again. To make sense of this moment. To connect with folks who are navigating the same in-between. And to remind myself, and maybe you too, that being without a job doesnt mean being without value. The matchas iced, but the tea is still hot. Sip slow.
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This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. Most bookmark tools feel like cluttered digital filing cabinetsfull of folders, tags, and organizational overhead. mymind is a minimalist alternative. Its a clean, simple online hub for saving anything you find online. Create a gorgeous private scrapbook of images, links, articles or anything else you want to save, without the hassle of labeling. Its an opinionated tool thats not for everyonecaveats below include no sharing or importing. And Ive noted a bunch of strong alternatives. But mymind remains a superb example of a design-focused service thats a pleasure to use. Since I last wrote about it, mymind has improved the way it shows visuals, Read on for an update of my previous post to learn what its most useful for and how to use it. 6 ways to use mymind I like using mymind to save remarkable visuals, thought-provoking charts, amazing videos, beautiful poems, and memorable articles. I also use it to collect AI-related links to scan through. Create an inspiration moodboard. Save stunning photographs, brilliant art, your favorite interior designs, cool clothing, yummy food, pictures of homes youd love to live in someday, or whatever else catches your eye. Then the next time youre staring at a blank page, open your moodboard for a spark. Collect project ideas. Save links, quotes, or screenshots to inform a project. Highlight articles to save specific passages. Curate quotes & graphics for presentations. Use the one-click save button whenever you stumble on notable material to add to a slide deck or handout. Save articles and videos for later. The distraction-free mymind interface makes it a nice place to read long articles or watch YouTube videos. Clip recipes. I was surprised by how helpfully mymind strips out the cruft in online recipes. It shows just the ingredients and instructions, though you can easily return to the original recipe page. Organize shower thoughts. You can write text notes or to-do lists. Jot a few words or an essay outline. mymind is clean and simple No ads. No data tracking. No vanity metrics or likes. No social sharing or collaboration. Read myminds manifesto & promise for their philosophy. No complex menus or manuals to read. How to start using mymind Go to mymind.com and create a free account with your Google or Apple ID. Download a browser extension and/or the iOS, Android or Mac app. Save a few interesting sites by pressing the browser button. See an image you want to save? Right-click it. Or highlight text in an article and right-click that text to save it as a quote. You can add a note if you want to. I often save a short phrase as a reminder of what caught my attention. Return to mymind online or on your mobile device anytime you want to see what youve saved. Browse your collection. Try a search term (like book, pizza, video, or quote) to surface whatever youre looking for. Collections: You can optionally create custom spacesbasically smart searchesif you like organizing your finds into sub-categories. Serendipity mode lets you focus on one saved item at a time, enabling minimalistic deep thinking. Pricing: Its free to save up to 100 items or cards. To collect more, pay $8/month ($79/year) for unlimited cards and some advanced features, or $13/month ($129/year) for the Mastermind plan with more advanced AI, reading mode, and article backups. Videos from mymind are a useful easy way to learn more. And myminds newsletter is well-curated and gorgeously-designed. AI-enhanced: mymind uses AI to classify everything you save. That makes it easy to find anything, even after you accumulate a large library. Caveats No sharing. mymind is designed for privacy, not sharing. I end up saving my most valuable finds in multiple places to give my future self options. mymind is great for visual exploration, but I need other services, like Raindrop, to share my collections. If you want to share your library, consider an alternative below. Limited flexibility. myminds design, while gorgeous, isnt flexible. Its not meant for you to rearrange, though you can pin cards. If you want to manually resize items or drag things around on a canvas, consider Milanote or a whiteboard like Miro, Mural, Lucid or Figjam. No import. You cant easily bring in items youve saved on other servicesheres why mymind discourages thisnor can you email things in or develop automations as you can with other clipping tools. No Firefox bookmark button. If thats your browser, this might not be for you. Limited free plan. To save more than 100 items, you have to pick a paid plan. Alternatives Sublime is a cool new service Im trying out for collecting online inspiration. Unlike mymind, you can use Sublime to hare finds, see others related discoveries, and use its canvas to move from curation to creation. Compare it w/ other tools like Notion, Apple Notes, Readwise & Raindrop. Pricing is free for up to 50 cards, $75/year unlimited. $100/year for premium+ subscription to The Sublime on Substack. Raindrop is my favorite bookmark-saving service. It replaced delicio.us and Google bookmarks for me. Why Raindrop is so useful. Best for helping you save and organize links and share them publicly. Works on all platforms & integrates free with 2,600 other services. Less ideal for calmly exploring your collection of visuals or quotes. Pricing: Free for almost all features. $28/annually for full-text search, backups, AI tag suggestions & other extras. I pay to help preserve the robust free tier. Readwise is excellent if youre mainly saving articles and videos to read and watch later. How and why I use Readwise. Best for reading and highlighting saved articles and newsletters online or offline in great Web and mobile apps. Less ideal for saving images or collecting links because its designed for reading and video viewing. Pricing: Free for 30 days then $5.59 or $10/month for full access. Eagle is useful as a tool for organizing all your screenshots and any files on your computer. Why I like Eagle so much. Milanote is one of the few apps thats as elegantly designed as mymind. It lets you organize ideas and saved items on visual boards. Best for creating your own visual collections with a variety of images, links, documents and annotations. Less ideal for simply saving or storing images, quotes and material you encounter online. It works best for creating project-specific boards. Pricing: Free for up to 100 notes, then $10/month billed annually for unliimited notes. A team version is $49/month. This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
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Let’s be honest: Your phone is a jerk. A loud, demanding, little pocket-size jerk that never stops buzzing, dinging, and begging for your attention. It’s the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night. Enough! Now, Im not talking about tossing your phone into a volcano. Im talking about swapping it out for something simpler. And you don’t have to go full Luddite. Here are some unique options that scratch the itch of modern connectivity without all the noise. Light Phone III [Photo: the Light Phone] The Light Phone is a name that’s become a philosophical statement, and the Light Phone III is the next evolution in simplicity. Make calls, set alarms, get directions, use the calendar, take notes, and . . . well, thats about it. The E Ink screen from previous Light Phones is gone, replaced with a matte AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display. It’s still black and white and utterly boring, but its more responsive. And its got a stripped-down, point-and-shoot camera along with other modern comforts like 5G connectivity, USB-C charging, NFC (near-field communication), and a fingerprint sensor. The phone is available to preorder for $699 and is scheduled to ship in September. If you cant wait that long, check out its $299 predecessor or the similar Mudita Kompakt. Unihertz Jelly Max [Photo: Unihertz] The Unihertz Jelly Max unapologetically answers a question no one asked: What if a phone had a 5-inch screen and were crammed into a rugged, chunky, see-through body? This $340 phone runs a modern-ish version of Android, which means you can download all the apps you want. But the screen is a little too small for comfortable browsing. The phone itself is a brick. The form factor discourages a lot of casual, mindless use. Its great for someone who needs the power of Android but wants to be reminded with every physical interaction that a phone is a tool, not a lifestyle. The Minimal Phone [Photo: the Minimal Co.] The Minimal Phone knows you love typing, but it also understands that your iPhone is an endless black hole of distraction. The solution? A full QWERTY keyboard and a proper E Ink screen, just like a Kindle. Available for preorder, this $400 to $500 phone isn’t for scrolling through Instagram stories or cruising TikTok all day. It runs a custom version of Android that has an app store with only the essentials. The physical keyboard and the black-and-white screen are brilliant psychological deterrents. The only thing you’ll be tempted to do is write an email or a very long text message. It’s a phone designed for anything but mindless consumption. Wisephone II [Photo: Wisephone] Now for a twist. The $400 Wisephone II looks like a smartphone with a big, bright screen and a familiar rectangular shape. Oh, and its got a Samsung logo on the back, just like . . . wait a minute: This is a Samsung phone. Its actually more than that. It runs on a deeply modified version of Android: no social media, no explicit content, and no web browser. Its purpose is to handle calls, texts, photos, and apps that arent built to monetize your attention. Basically, a modern device without the digital baggage that comes with it. Aside from the $400 price tag for the phone, youll need a Wisephone service plan (from $25 to $70 per month), or you can use your own plan and pay just $15 per month for the customized operating system, a curated list of apps, and software support.
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E-Commerce
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