{"id":44459,"date":"2025-07-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=44459"},"modified":"2025-06-26T12:59:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T19:59:37","slug":"whats-in-my-now-steven-ovadia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/whats-in-my-now-steven-ovadia\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s in my NOW? \u2014 Steven Ovadia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/steven.ovadia.org\/\">Steven Ovadia<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;is a father, writer, and librarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4><strong>PHYSICAL<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Self-syllabus<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Every few months, I make a physical list of books I want to read. It&#8217;s not everything I want to read. It&#8217;s just the ten or so books I want to get through next. Sometimes it&#8217;s thematic. Sometimes it&#8217;s not. But it makes it easier for me to get through my reading list, while keeping some variety. And it&#8217;s fun checking things off as I read them. It takes the mystery out of wondering what I should read next.<\/li><li><strong>Library card<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Related to the self-syllabus, my library card is incredible in terms of access to books and reducing book clutter at home. People think librarians love owning books, but I prefer reading them, only owning the ones I love and want to revisit (or write in!).<\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/le3vLJ\">Mechanical pencils<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; I was a fountain pen person for a few years, but they were a lot of work. I have two young daughters, and no spare time, so mechanical pencils are a more realistic and time efficient writing implement. Mechanical pencils feel great, are neater, and can be erased, which is kind of a game-changer I hadn&#8217;t considered. I love these Pentels. Cheap and durable. I have them stashed everywhere for when I want to jot something down.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4><strong>DIGITAL<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/orgmode.org\/\">Org-mode<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.orgzly.com\/\">Orgzly<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; I use org-mode, part of the Emacs editor, to organize myself. It&#8217;s the best, and easiest to-do list I&#8217;ve ever used. It&#8217;s flexible and while there&#8217;s a learning curve, it was well-worth a quick (and fun!)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.udemy.com\/course\/getting-yourself-organized-with-org-mode\/\">Udemy class<\/a>. Orgzly is the Android interface I use to manage my to-do list on the go. It&#8217;s also amazing.<\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/WebDAV\">WebDAV<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; WebDAV is the protocol I use to sync my to-do list on my phone. As I use it, it&#8217;s basically file space I can access on my desktop and phone, and which I get as part of my Fastmail subscription. It&#8217;s easy-to-use and very convenient for syncing tools, like org-mode, but also Joplin, my note-taking app. It&#8217;s a solid option if your file-sharing tools don&#8217;t work with your digital tools.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4><strong>INVISIBLE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Subscription creep<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Pay for what you like for as long as you like it, like software, magazine, newsletters, streaming services, etc. But when you don&#8217;t like it anymore, stop paying for it. I try to think about what I&#8217;m paying for and if it&#8217;s worth it. For instance, I got into WebDAV when I was looking at how much I was spending on hosting certain applications. Support and pay for everything you enjoy! But when the joy passes, empower yourself to shift the money to other projects.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/whatsinmynow.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sign up here<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0to get\u00a0What\u2019s in my NOW?\u00a0a week early in your inbox.<\/em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8ec17518-5a1f-4d72-bb4c-90894919687f_600x600.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>issue #217<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2303],"tags":[1553],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44460,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44459\/revisions\/44460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}