Let’s start with Kosmik shutting down. Kosmik actually came out of beta late last year and it felt like it came a little out of nowhere. Let me be clear, I don’t know what the thought process was and I do not have any information about the thought process inside of Kosmik, but to me it felt a little rushed. It felt like they still needed some additional features. Specifically, I wanted better ways of organising, and it was a feature they promised. To be honest, I did not think anything of them releasing early back then. It is after they decided to shut down that I started thinking that they released a little too early.

Running an application or a business in general is really hard. There is just so much that needs to click in order for an app to be really successful. Not only that, you need a little bit of luck too. Especially in the current stage of productivity applications. Because there are productivity apps coming out everywhere. The competition is hard, and everyone is trying to figure out what AI will mean in the productivity space. Basically, some people think AI will live inside of the apps we use, some people think it will live in our operating system, and a lot of people think that productivity apps are now over and we will do everything inside of our AI apps like Claude or ChatGPT. It is a lot of uncertainty, and that means that it is hard to commit to new applications. For example, if you had committed to Kosmik, you would now have had to move apps. I did that when Spaceduck shut down. In other words, gaining the trust of the users is harder now, especially when it comes to whether or not your app will stay around.

The second huge problem is that the competition is just really high right now. We have everything from huge projects like Tana to small leaner projects like Twos, and you have a lot of apps in the middle of that. There are so many applications out there that it is hard to keep track of, and with the productivity boom a lot of developers have gotten with AI coding tools, we are seeing more solo projects. I have recently gotten an increased number of requests to check out apps by solo developers. There is just a lot of competition. On top of that, a few people are moving away from productivity apps and just using AI by itself. Which means that together with the huge competition, there are also fewer users to get. Which is a terrible combination if your goal is to sell more subscriptions.

There is also one trend that specifically goes against apps like Spaceduck and Kosmik. We are seeing a trend towards applications that are privacy-focused and local. Especially note-taking apps. Apps like Obsidian, Octarine, and Thymer have risen up to become more popular choices among PKM enthusiasts, which makes a lot of sense. It has been a trend we have seen for a while. It is not the application’s fault that these are the trends, but nevertheless they are affected by it.

It also seems like the visual applications that try to target designers or people in creative fields is really hard to do. Before Spaceduck and Kosmik, we saw Clover Notes getting acquired and we saw Walling struggling for a while. While Walling has now gotten a second chance under new leadership, Clover, Spaceduck, and Kosmik are gone. It just seems to be a hard market to reach. For now, it seems like Milanote is the only one that has been able to do it. Maybe together with Mymind, which has also been around for a while, but Mymind really differs from the others by focusing highly on privacy. While the other apps focus on collaboration. All that to say that visual note-taking apps like those ones seem to be difficult to do right.

It is always sad to see apps shutting down. People have often poured their hearts and souls into products, and for one reason or another they have to shut down, which is really sad. Especially when the apps are really good, they just can’t find a user base for their idea, or the competition is too fierce, or one of the other reasons apps decide to shut down. But for users, it teaches us one thing. Don’t jump into every new app that comes around, because that app might disappear. Play around with different apps, test them out, but I would not recommend relying only on an application that is in beta. Because the app might shut down, but not only that, it might also change a lot. It feels weird to recommend that after saying how sad it is that apps are shutting down, but it is the current state of apps. For me personally, I have recommended apps that have shut down and I have recommended apps that now look totally different. It is a paradox, but it is what it is, and there are of course exceptions to that rule.

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What the issue was

The issue was not Readwise. Actually, after realizing the issue, I think I can easily go back to Readwise and still keep reading a lot, taking a lot of notes, and generally doing as well with my reading as I do now. So the problem is not the apps, but the philosophy I brought with me when I was building my second brain. I saw other people’s second brains and they had so many notes, all connected together, and it looked really beautiful. I wanted that, and instead of taking my time building a second brain with things I cared about, I decided to capture everything.

I created a second brain that felt more like a dumping ground than an actual second brain. This is the philosophy I brought with me when I read books and articles. If a book or article could not be highlighted and added to Readwise, I would just not read it. It was a waste of time, because if I did not capture anything for the projects I was working on, I was not being productive. So the reading would be a waste of time if I did not capture everything. This also meant that I would read books and articles not focusing on learning or understanding, but rather on what I could capture. I would read books searching for quotes, read articles looking for stats, and try to find things I could add to my note-taking app. It changed the way I thought about knowledge. Knowledge was no longer something I needed to understand, it was something I saved for future reference. In the end it became annoying and it made me tired. Always analyzing everything you read in order to find something to add to your note-taking app gets exhausting. I lost the fun and enjoyment of reading, and that is what made me stop.

Reading is actually a really fun experience. I spent a lot of time reading the wrong way. I read books I did not enjoy, I read as work and not for enjoyment. It was a shift in mindset that made reading enjoyable again. I am no longer thinking of reading as productivity. I am thinking of reading as enjoyment, like watching sports or TV shows. I spend longer on each book and read fewer books, but I read more. I remember how I would just skim through books to capture as much as I could, and then I could not tell you what the book was about. I would go back to Readwise and see all of my highlights, and I still was not sure about the core ideas. That is different now.

This realization came from watching a couple of YouTube videos. I saw people summarizing books and their core ideas using AI and adding them into their note-taking apps. For me that felt off. There are some use cases where it makes sense, like when I am reading a report I am not particularly interested in and am just looking for one specific piece of information to use in a report, video, or article. For example, I once needed the consumption of Pepsi Max in Norway for a LinkedIn post. I was not going to read through entire reports or articles for that. But I could not imagine doing that with all of my reading and learning. Automating all of it. I then realized that my habit of chasing what to capture was just a version of AI summarization. That is when I figured out that my way of reading was actually stopping me from really reading.

There are real benefits to reading, and I want those benefits. Not only that, I wanted to learn to enjoy reading again, because I used to love it. So removing apps like Readwise, and even my regular note-taking app, for a while helped me build a better reading habit. That habit has since actually helped me create a better second brain. So basically, I had a second brain and app detox, and it helped.

The problem is not the apps. It was me, and the way I thought about productivity. Quitting those apps helped me understand that I was not living the way I wanted. My philosophy of productivity and life in general is to go deep on ideas and things. I want to prioritize depth. Unfortunately, I had not been doing that. So taking a break from apps like Readwise helped me realize how I was not acting according to my own values.

To summarize: I stopped using Readwise for a while. Not because I did not like Readwise, but because I had stopped reading. The problem was not the app — it was the philosophy I had adopted, which was wrong for me. I am not saying that reading in order to capture things is inherently wrong. The problem was that it did not feel like I was living the way I wanted. This connects to the bigger idea of slow productivity and slower living, which in the end gave me back my joy of reading and I am happy about that. At some point I will probably return to apps like Readwise, because it is a really good app. But if I do, I will come back with a different philosophy: one of doing things more slowly and focusing on going deeper. Because that is the life I want to live, and one that I think many others can benefit from too. Live slower, and live in the moment.

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The whole idea of mindful productivity comes from this idea of productivity and planning being different things. I have tried to combine them and called it mindful productivity. The whole philosophy I have around productivity is that the goal needs to be spending time doing the things you want. I am efficient at work because I want to have more time outside of work doing the things I love. Not that I hate my job,I actually enjoy it. But you kind of get the point. Often we are not trying to be efficient when we are drawing, painting, watching a movie, or playing video games. We are doing it out of pure pleasure.

With that being said, I feel like we lately have been trying to make that efficient too. The point is no longer to enjoy a book you are reading, but to read 50 or 100 books. Not that it is wrong to read a lot of books, but I wish we could focus more on enjoying the process instead of chasing goals and always doing more. That is where I believe in this idea of mindful productivity. Being efficient so that you have the time to spend enjoying and being present with the things you love. Let me try to give you an example of where productivity comes in here. I write down everything even on vacations, if I remember something I should do at work, I just quickly write it down. I write it down so I can let it go. If not, I try to remember it when I am on vacation and I get all stressed out and just end up doing it on vacation. When I write it down in my notebook, in my to-do list app, or elsewhere, I know that I have set up systems to make sure that it appears when and where I need it to. So I can let it go. This is not something that suddenly happened. I needed to spend a lot of time learning about myself and force myself to let things go. I am not into productivity just because I find notebooks, fountain pens, and apps fun. I am into productivity because it is vital for my mental health. Every time I feel like my system breaks, I spiral, and it makes sense, because I also struggle with bipolar disorder, but that has been one of the main reasons why I am into productivity apps.

Planning and productivity being two different things is sort of the same as the way I am thinking about productivity. I think dividing them is something I should consider going forward. Not just for planning, but also for things like note-taking. Because sometimes I take notes for efficiency. I know that in the near future I will have to do something with those notes, whether it is a project or something else. The point is that the note is getting used for something soon. Other times I take notes to think, to work through things like a book I am reading. I don’t want to use them for something specific right now, but I am trying to understand a book I read just for enjoyment. There is no pressure; it is just for fun. I do that type of note-taking a lot, connecting ideas with my own thoughts and trying to understand things better. I can do something with those notes, but that is not the goal. The goal is just to deepen my understanding of something I find exciting. It is not important, I don’t have to do it, but I am doing it because I want to. Those notes are different from my meeting notes or work notes. With work notes, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on them. I want to figure out where to use them and what is important. I might even decide to outsource those notes to someone or something (AI) else. They are different and should be treated differently.

I am a big fan of the idea of differentiating planning and productivity, and I feel like this can also apply to other things in productivity, like note-taking. I like differentiating between those things simply because I like to differentiate between the times I should be efficient and the times I should be mindful. That is why this idea I came across on Cal Newport’s podcast resonated with me as much as it did. I feel like I have been chasing efficiency for so long. The goal of being productive has been just doing more, and in some places getting more done is important, but I am fighting to try to avoid living my whole life like that. So the words we use are not important. The important thing for me is to differentiate, so I can live a slower life and so everything in my life is not all about efficiency. That is why I love differentiating between productivity and planning, and it will be an idea I will continue to play around with going forward.