Hello Reader,

I don’t have a new post for you today. I liked how this turned out, so I decided to publish it. But I figured I’d check in anyway - share a few half-formed thoughts that have been floating around my head. Not everything needs to be a full essay to be worth saying. Sometimes, fragments are enough. Maybe one of them will stick with you and become something else entirely.

Today I worked outside. Which, from a productivity standpoint, makes almost no sense. No external monitor, no mouse, a screen you have to squint at like you’re reading by candlelight. Everything slows down. And yet, that’s exactly what made it interesting.

There’s a kind of work mode I fall into sometimes—maybe you’ve felt it too—where everything is frictionless. I sit at my desk, the setup is perfect, and I just execute. Ideas turn into interfaces with very little resistance. It’s satisfying. But it’s also easy to go on autopilot, to run with the first solution that comes to mind.

Working outdoors interrupts that flow. It introduces just enough friction to make me question things: Is this really the best way? What else could this be? I end up thinking more, not because I’m trying to, but because I’m forced to. And sometimes that’s where the better ideas live—just on the other side of a minor inconvenience.

I don’t think one mode is better than the other. They’re just different tools for different kinds of thinking. And let’s be honest: in Sweden, we only get about 20 golden summer days a year. I’m not wasting a single one indoors if I don’t have to.

Curious if any of this rings true for you. Do you think better when things are slightly harder? Hit reply and let me know what you’re noticing these days.

Anton

Three (or seven) things

1. I love this series, First of Kind - I even wrote a Linkedin post about some of my own personal reflections.
2. I've been enjoying reading Joan Westenberg lately; "Why I gave up my smart watch" and "I deleted everything". Yes, there's a theme.
3. My absolute favorite substack lately has been Off Menu by Elan Miller. He perfectly catches what I thought when trying Dia; "The interface is changing again", other highlights include "Vercel's brand trap" and "It's 2030. Here's What No One Saw Coming."​​