Off by default

Uncommon working habits I’ve picked up in 2026.

1) I fired WisprFlow because I think more clearly in writing

I was addicted to voicedumps, I was addicted to not typing. I would recoil from having to type a single word. Oh am I really in the top 1% of fastest-talking users?? I would never be able to type so much text by hand, it would take forever!! Except — when I type for one minute I generate more understanding for myself, and for Claude, than when I voicedump for six.

2) I have stopped listening to podcasts and music and let my mind wander

It’s easy to spend all waking hours either using screens or listening to something. Music on from the moment you wake, in the shower, in the gym.

But our brains need silence to integrate new knowledge — and to come up with new ideas.

It’s now easy to get a transcript of any podcast. And going off music in my alone life makes me appreciate it more when I am out.

3) I ban agents from where I do my thinking work

I think through writing inside Roam Research. Agents can’t read or write in Roam. In January I thought it was a shortcoming, now I see it as a blessing. Working inside Roam feels calming — I recognise every word and every page. My agents have a free rein in the Obsidian knowledge base they’ve built for themselves.

4) I block access to my internet browser for 21 hours each day to spend more time in deep work mode

If I need anything from the internet — all Substack posts from a specific writer, or what people I follow on Twitter have said about X — I just ask Claude to grab it for me. But the new default is “internet off”.

5) I first assemble a corpus of sources when answering a high-stakes question with LLMs

Books, tweets, podcast transcripts — anything relevant to the question. Now the model can ground its answers in the sources, rather than rely on its hazy memories of what it had read on the topic.