December 2024 – Mike Burke

Five Books That Changed My Thinking in 2024

A grand library interior with tall, ornate wooden bookshelves filled with neatly arranged books. The shelves are framed by decorative columns, and the ceiling features a series of curved wooden arches with metal accents, creating a symmetrical and majestic architectural design. Warm lighting enhances the richness of the wood and the historic ambiance of the space.

As a kid, I was never far from my children’s encyclopedia; I was a voracious reader and especially loved non-fiction. However, as an adult, I do most of my learning through audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube. That is until a few years ago when I started rebuilding my reading habit by switching from scrolling social media to reading ebooks.

Even more recently, I have come full circle back to physical books. Mainly because I realized that reading on a phone just looks the same as scrolling social media and doesn’t help me model the reading habit I want my son to build. As a bonus, I got to experience these five books, which have significantly shaped my thinking. Perhaps one will resonate with you too.

Updated Evening AppleScript for Things

A task management app interface showing a to-do list titled "This Evening." One task is labeled "Feed Walle Dinner" with a reminder set for 18:00 (6:00 PM). The task has tags: "walle," "chore," and "evening." The task is part of the "Chores" group and repeats one day after completion. The background gradient transitions from orange to blue.

Improving existing solutions is a slippery slope for automators. You might improve things in a way that continues to save time and improve outcomes. But you might also be spending time rearranging apps in your Mac’s Dock to save milliseconds of mouse movement, only to realize you could have just used Alfred all along.

In this post, I share an improved automation for dealing with recurring tasks in Things that I think falls firmly on the side of worthwhile.

rsync

A stylized illustration of a cheerful robot holding a stack of colorful folders in front of a large, open vault door. The robot has a blue and orange metallic body with glowing eyes. The scene is set in a futuristic archive with warm lighting and stacks of documents in the background, suggesting secure storage or organization.

When I first started learning photography, I used Aperture as my photo editor and management solution. But I was too dumb to use it right and accidentally deleted the only copy of many photos from the first years of my son’s life. Since then, I have been diligent, borderline fanatical, about having backup copies of family media and important files.

Determined to never repeat that mistake, I explored various tools for creating better backups. One of the most versatile tools I found is rsync, built right into macOS.