“Linear helps streamline software projects, sprints, tasks, and bug tracking.” A great-looking app (available for web and MacOS – Windows and Linux coming soon) to keep track of software development milestones.

Since none of the mediation apps I try seem to stick, I’m giving this breathing exercise app (iOS only) a go for some easy relaxation techniques before going to bed.

Hylo is another platform that was recommended to me while searching for a Facebook Groups alternative (mostly to manage the community of a building I’m moving into next year). The features look great, though a big caveat with smaller alternatives like this is that mobile app support is limited or not available on all platforms.

There are lots of apps to keep track of the local time of your team mates, but only Whena.re puts your colleagues on a 24-hour dial to help you visualise where (or rather when) in the day they currently are.

Isolate Zine →

Depicting life in isolation

Started as a creative project to spark inspiration during isolation, Isolate Zine aims to shine a light on global issues, whilst giving photographers a platform to showcase their work and raise money for relevant charities. The upcoming second issue focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement with all the proceeds going to that cause.

The Conscious Creative →

Practical ethics for purposeful work

Author Kelly Small had to navigate a crisis of ethics and burnout in their career in advertising. With this new book (released early August) they want us to admit our complicity in problematic systems and take on the responsibility of letting our own conscience guide our decisions: “An actionable guide to mindfulness and practical ethics for any creative professional who wants to make a living without selling their soul.”

Jordan Hall makes a case for defunding and overhauling more than just police departments: “Our institutions become self-serving, bloated, out of touch, and inhumane. Time is corrosive and the forces that tend to push all institutions into corruption have been hard at work across every aspect of our social field for decades. At the same time, the context in which those institutions were born is also far in our past. Both the problems and possibilities of 2020 are very different to those of 1960. What was a good car, phone or computer in 1960 is now a relic. Our social institutions are likewise relics of a past remembered by only the eldest among us. Designed by and for a different age.”

Julia Gillard was Australia’s first female prime minister and in that role she had to endure horrendous amounts of sexism on a daily basis. In this excellent interview, she talks eloquently about being judged differently to male leaders, why trivial things such as her choice of clothing mattered, and how her experience compares with many other trailblazing women in powerful positions. If you haven’t watched it yet, I can also recommend her famous 2012 misogyny speech in the Australian parliament.

Kara Swisher with another succinct take-down of Facebook and a very fitting analogy: “Think about Facebook as a seller of meat products. Most of the meat is produced by others, and some of the cuts are delicious and uncontaminated. But tainted meat ... also gets out the door in ever increasing amounts and without regulatory oversight. The argument from the head butcher is this: People should be free to eat rotten hamburger, even if it wreaks havoc on their gastrointestinal tract, and the seller of the meat should not be the one to tell them which meat is good and which is bad (even though the butcher can tell in most cases).” (may require a free account)