Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter

Over the past decade, farmers have been offered all manner of software tools to analyze and manage their crops. In general, though, the more software that farmers use, the more they find themselves overwhelmed by data that the tools collect. “We’re collecting so much data that you’re almost paralyzed with having to analyze it all,” one farmer told ... See more

In short: it is probably a mistake, in the end, to ask software to improve our thinking. Even if you can rescue your attention from the acid bath of the internet; even if you can gather the most interesting data and observations into the app of your choosing; even if you revisit that data from time to time — this will not be enough. It might not ev... See more