For Offscreen’s Tech Editor, Productivity Means Doing Less
Kai Brach shares his perspective — and some live Kickstarter projects he’s excited about now.
For the last seven years, Kai Brach has edited, designed, and published 20 issues of Offscreen, a magazine that investigates our internet-connected era in a, well, offline format. And he does it without any staff or long-term collaborators. He also sends out a weekly newsletter, Dense Discovery, that rounds up practical and inspirational links for creative folks who work on the web. Here, he tells us why productivity shouldn’t mean doing more things, and rounds up some live design projects he’s excited about.
Kickstarter: Tell us more about Offscreen and Dense Discovery.
Kai Brach: Offscreen is a high-quality print publication with thoughtful interviews and essays about the human side of technology. It was born out of a desire to have a slow, paper-based counterbalance to the fast-paced, buzzword-heavy tech coverage online. I’ve been at it for a while, and I’m currently taking a little break to reassess and figure out what’s next.
I come across a lot of apps, projects, tools, and ideas that don’t fit into the magazine, so I started a weekly newsletter called The Modern Desk more than three years ago to share them all. I have sent out an email every week ever since, and I recently renamed it Dense Discovery to turn it into a separate brand that stands on its own.
What do you think are the major barriers to being productive?
One of the biggest barriers is mistaking actually productive tasks (writing an article, doing research for interviews, planning the next issue) with seemingly productive tasks (answering emails, doing admin work, trialing yet another productivity app).
For me, the hard part about productivity is not about figuring out how to get more done. It’s figuring out how you intentionally make time for reflection — the thinking in between all the doing. Productivity is kind of pointless if you end up just getting stuck in your ways. I’d much rather get less done but have time to experiment, explore new ideas, have inspiring interactions with others, and so on. The flow-on effect of that is much more valuable than ticking one more to-do item off your list.
A lot of your recommendations in Dense Discovery could apply to work, creative side projects, or life in general. How do you think about work-life balance? What do you aim for in yours?
While I think there should be some general rules about keeping work out of our private lives (such as not feeling obligated to answer emails or calls after work hours), I think believing that there is an ultimate life-work balance hack out there is misguided.
We all go through different phases in our lives. There are times when putting in a late-nighter is exactly what you need to do, and then there are times when you need to scale back work to the absolute minimum to focus on friends, family, or just yourself. Beating yourself up about working too much or too little only adds more pressure. Our lives don’t move in a linear fashion. We constantly need to readjust to internal and external factors, and work is just one of those.
Projects Kai loves
A few live Design projects he’s excited about now.
See Sense BEAM and ICON2
“I think we’re finally at the point where ‘smart’ bike lights have turned from gimmick to actually useful.”
Fingertip Microscope
“For the scientist in you: a tiny microscope you can attach to your phone’s camera to get up to 800 times magnification.”
Vessi: The Waterproof Knit Shoe
“No more deciding between lightweight summer shoes or waterproof boots: when the weather looks unreliable, wear these sneakers and you’ll be fine either way.”
Zauberfaden Floss
“I’m a compulsive flosser, but I always feel bad about the waste it generates. Zauberfaden Floss looks like a great biodegradable alternative to the plastic-y standard.”
