Featured on Creativity Hacker

The Very Slow Game Jam

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:54:40 +0000

When I was a teenager, my dad and I would play slow chess. His job involved regularly rotating shift work, which meant that we often went weeks at a time where our days didn’t really overlap. So, to stay connected, we kept a chess board in the kitchen. Every day, Dad would make a move on the board while eating after he got home, and I would make mine after school. It was a fun way to stay connected when our lives were otherwise out of sync.

We didn’t know it at the time, but we were also inventing what would become an important ritual between us.

About The New Site

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 00:36:31 +0000

Welcome to the new Creativity Hacker. If you remember the old site, things will look very different this time around, but there’s method beneath the madness. Follow me down below the fold to find out how I’m organizing things this time around. And more importantly, why.

Shopping Online Is Greener

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 15:51:46 +0000

For years I’ve felt guilty about my use of online shopping. All those little packages coming from big Eastern cities, all the way across the continent, to be driven to my door by a harried little man in an overworked Honda. Surely that’s wasteful compared to me just going to the local bigbox outlet and buying it in person, right? Well, I recently had a thought that has me questioning that logic.

The Note and Tag Pipeline

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 09:59:59 +0000

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this new site is being designed with a streamlined workflow that will let me manage it as a normal part of my existing note-keeping system, but what I haven’t done yet is explain how it works.

The Blessing (and Curse) of New Tools

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 19:04:15 +0000

When you invest time in any process, you quickly learn to appreciate the difference between a tool for the job and the right tool, and so far, Hugo is knocking it out of Right Tool Stadium, but there is a downside.