#(also i'm doing the article reading to feel productive and to give myself a brain break from dissertation)

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

I'm engaging in a major action of trusting my past and future self (found a four-word note on my phone that I only have the vaguest memory of writing as an idea for an article, currently doing about 20 books' worth of reading and notes on that idea, assuming my future self will be able to make something meaningful out of the hodgepodge)

[itsthatswordlesbian]

An Unpopular Opinion

Before you read this article, I'm going to make it clear that it doesn't apple to people who're born bad, hurt little children, or/and cross peoples' sexual boundaries, but it does apply to every other kind of bad person. Also, I'm not excusing or justifying these peoples' behaviour - I'm sharing my opinion on what the most productive way to handle them is.

People should be kind to bad people and encourage redemption rather than try to hurt them even more than they've already been hurt.

Most bad people are bad because they were either raised to be bad or traumatised and developed maladaptive coping mechanisms as a result of their trauma. Before you tell me that you were traumatised and didn't develop toxic coping mechanisms, everyone's brains are different and everyone's trauma's different, so I don't think that it's reasonable to compare trauma responses.

Anyway, many of them are likely in extreme pain, and when one's in extreme pain, hurting them's likely to be counterproductive and cause them to double down on their bad behaviour. Before you tell me that you don't care whether or not they double down on their bad behaviour because you just want justice, wouldn't it be better for them to try to redeem themselves by helping other people? Wouldn't that have a more positive effect on the world?

This is how to encourage redemption:

Don't tell bad people that you hate them. Don't call them loathsome, disgusting, repulsive, revolting, abhorrent, etc. Don't tell them that they should feel ashamed of themselves. Don't tell them that they're worthless. Don't tell them that the world would be better off without them. Don't tell them to kill themselves.

Tell them that you see how much pain that they're in and understand why they do what they do. Tell them that there's more in them. Tell them that, deep down, they're not a bad person. Tell them that they're capable of redemption. Tell them that they're worth something. Tell them that the world needs them. Tell them that they shouldn't give up but should instead fight for themselves, for other people, and for what's right.

I'm not telling you not to call them out or let them off the hook. Absolutely call them out and don't let them off the hook, but do so gently.

I used to be on the other side of this - I used to think that you should try to hurt bad people. However, that was before I realised that I was spiralling downwards. Eventually, I wound up in an extremely dark place. I'm not going to go into detail here, but I hurt people, and I needed to redeem myself.

I never would've gotten out of that place if it hadn't been for my friends' understanding, encouragement, and belief in me.

Since then, I've healed and done a lot of good in the world. I still have more work and healing to do, but I've made a lot of progress, and if I could do that, then other people can, too.

Redemption isn't just for fictional stories. There're real-life Cassandras, real-life Amitys, real life Sashas, etc, and they should be shown mercy rather than shamed.

[snifflesthemouse]

I'm still rather new to Tumblr. While I've clearly displayed my ability to post my ramblings, I'm still figuring out the other various features of this platform. For the sake of reference, I have posted a screenshot below.

While I completely agree with @youhavebeenmarkled that it's grossly inappropriate to suggest Catherine, the future Queen Consort, is a drug addict... I want to add to the discussion and further develop why the concept of Catherine microdosing heroin is entirely ignorant.

@youhavebeenmarkled mentions several excellent points as to why the concept is ridiculous; from genetics to muscle tone and more. But there's deeper reasons why this idea of Catherine being on heroin is so far from the truth and reality, it's out of this world. Some could even argue it sounds like a page from a Hollywood script.

Before I get started, though, I want (and need) to stress a few things. I am in no way shaming anyone. As I've shared in the past, I am the last person in the universe qualified to pass judgement on anything or anyone. My posts are simply my perspectives, my opinions. I look at facts in the public domain, and with my own knowledge and life experience, I form my thoughts.

Please remember while you read this, I am not looking down on anyone. I am not bragging about knowing what drug addiction is or is not. I am only sharing some insights with you, the reader, on what real life heroin addiction is like. My only goal is giving insight.

I am not proud of my past, and I am not condoning it. Nor should you. Accountability is how I stay clean. Please do not feel like I am suggesting non-addicts are ignorant or "square". Not knowing or understanding heroin addiction is a blessing. It's a good thing to be in the dark about certain things because it means you're smarter than people like me.

Be proud of the fact you don't automatically see why these blind items are total nonsense from the start. And if you aren't proud of yourself, just know I am proud AF of you. For those of you like myself who have been through the hell of addiction, remember we do recover. With all that being said, let's get going.

You see, anyone with firsthand experience or knowledge of true heroin addiction would automatically know these rumors are absolutely ridiculous. Why? Because heroin addiction doesn't work that way.

Now don't get me wrong. The world is filled with functioning closet addicts. I myself was a functioning closet addict for years before the world was any the wiser. The key point, though, is the world did eventually get wiser.

Heroin addiction usually starts out in one of a few ways. Most Americans addicted to heroin became that way because of prescription painkillers. For example, I first got addicted to pain pills. When the pain pills became impossible to get, I took what I could get that was the closest equivalent. That was heroin.

But some people start using heroin because they did some at a party with friends. Or they have a loved one addicted and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Some people are hooked on other drugs, like cocaine or ecstasy, and their usual dealer offers a free sample of the latest batch of heroin. There's a saying among addicts; "The first one's free."

Dealers know they can increase their profitability if they can get established clients addicted to other products they traffic. But these are just a few examples of how people get started using heroin. Very rarely does anyone start out on heroin simply because they want to stay thin. Contrary to the popular belief known to many as "heroin chic" that came from supermodels in the mid 80s and 90s.

Heroin is what addicts refer to as a euphoria narcotic. It has a euphoric effect, and it is sometimes called a "downer". Cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, or amphetamines are called "uppers" or "speeders" because they stimulate the brain and give energy. While heroin can have that affect on people, it is not the traditional go-to for illicit weight management.

In other words, if Catherine really did use microdosing (a concept I will debunk in a moment), her first, best choice would be a stimulant like cocaine because it's much more effective at appetite suppression and providing energy. Heroin wouldn't be the first, best choice for many reasons.

Because of its nature, heroin is highly addictive. Most users begin snorting the drug in powder form. Within seconds to a minute, the substance enters the bloodstream and hits the brain. The brain then releases endorphins that travel the rewards pathway in the brain. The first time one uses heroin is the highest they will ever feel from using. Every subsequent dose releases less and less endorphins in the brain. This is why recovering addicts talk about chasing their sobriety like they chased their first high. This is also why microdosing is an almost-impossible behavior.

Microdosing means taking tiny, small amounts over time. Meaning that you only use the minimum amount to achieve the effect you desire. But the problem is, your brain becomes physically dependent on the substance over time. Every time an addict uses, the brain gets more dependent on that substance to function. So, while a non-addict's brain has no issues with their brain producing endorphins, an addict's brain does. This is why heroin is so addictive.

Eventually, a heroin addict's brain will become so reliant on heroin to produce endorphins, the addict will become entirely dependent. This is also known as becoming hooked. When the addict doesn't have the minimum amount of heroin the body is accustomed to, or depending upon, the addict will start withdrawal. This is often called being "dope sick" or "detoxing".

Detoxing or being dope sick is the driving force behind addicts staying addicts. Being dope sick is the biggest fear of an addict. So much so, the fear of detoxing is enough to drive otherwise good, decent human beings to doing absolutely whatever it takes to avoid detoxing. Stealing from loved ones, manipulating innocent bystanders, lying, cheating, robbing, selling your body... are the half of it.

Being dope sick is like having the worst flu of your life times a million. You will vomit, have uncontrollable diarrhea, and your body will hurt worse than anything you could ever imagine. If you detox for more than a day, you will begin to feel like your insides are shaking, burning, and pulling apart inside. You can't sleep. You can't eat. You can't get out of bed. You miss work and lose your job (if you still have one at this point). You get desperate before this point, and you get carnal after this point.

Your brain and entire body becomes dependent on this substance to function subpar. Without this substance, everything begins to stop working properly. Depending on exactly how much you use normally, your withdrawal can become life threatening. You can have seizures, strokes, or even go into cardiac arrest. Hopefully you can see by now why I say the concept of microdosing is ridiculous.

To be able to micro dose would require the self control and willpower of a super human. This reminds me of an article I once read about a college professor who advocated for drug use. He claimed he wasn't addicted, had control of his drug use, and was a productive member of society. He said he'd use heroin like others drink after a long day of work. Yet, he's been using it for over a decade. Yet, he experienced detoxing. That professor is a prime example of an addict in denial. But I digress...

My points are this:

1. Heroin wouldn't be the first choice for weight control or appetite suppression; cocaine or stimulants like meth or ritalin would be.

2. Microdosing is an almost-impossible method of drug use because the body gets hooked quickly. Which means the dose will only increase in amount in order to have the same effects over time.

3. Heroin causes an addiction that results in serious, life threatening withdrawal that drives even the nicest person to doing the worst of the worst.

4. Heroin addiction, even in small amounts, takes no time to invade and overtake one's life. It literally only takes one time to get hooked. It literally takes no time to destroy everything.

Oh, and one more thing before I put a sock in it... at the height of my active addiction, I was using around 2 grams a day to feel normal. I spent at minimum $200 a day on heroin. Sometimes even more. When I started out, I was only using a tenth or less. It takes 10 of those to make a gram. So within two months of starting, I went from doing one tenth to needing 20 of those tenths just to feel normal and function. All the while, I never got smaller than 150 pounds.

I know it sounds terrible, but I would lament over how unfair it was. I was doing all this heroin, and I was still thick AF. I would literally joke to fellow addicts I would use with how it was total bullshit. How was it I was using 2 grams a day and still a size 12 or 14? That's how sick I was in my disease. Which is my final point.

Not everyone on heroin is "heroin chic" skinny. The effort, will power, and self control it would take to "microdose" would be far greater than what it would take to control one's diet and exercise. Plus it would be much cheaper to hire a trainer than employ a drug dealer.

I hope this very long, detailed, winded post gives better insight to the deeper reasons the blind item is so dumb. I also hope it gives insight to the real life of heroin addiction. My goal was, and is, to provide real examples to the blind item's absurdity. If I can help people better understand heroin addiction, potentially deterring someone from ever touching it or even a loved one learning something that could help someone they know struggling with addiction... well that would be a bonus.

P.S. If you or a loved one you know is struggling with addiction, there is help out there. If you have any questions or just need someone to listen, please feel free to message me. I will do my best to help. I've been there. They say the only way to keep your sobriety is by giving it away... I have plenty to give. Be forewarned, though, I am unapologetically blunt and honest to a fault. I mean no harm, but I will not sugar coat anything.

[mayohr]

hi! i was just wondering if you had any pointers for someone wanting to learn korean? i've wanted to for so long but i'm having so much trouble ; o ;

Hey there! Thank you for asking. Of course, I’d be glad to share a few tips with you. First, I must tell you a bit of my journey learning it, because I believe it is important to consider the environment surrounding any person learning a foreign language. Long post warning, I’ve put it all for you Anony.

I do not reside in Korea, but I have been two months last year. However, I barely practiced there because I was constantly surrounded by english speakers. 

- Lesson 1: If you go to Korea, do not hang out only with english speakers...or with one Korean and english speakers, because people will all switch to english. - Lesson 2: Whenever you meet Korean people, they will 99.99% of the time try to speak English to you. Do not give up, and continue speaking Korean to them. Even if it’s broken. Even if you’re shy. Speak Korean even if they reply in English. 

My main language is French. I have learned English mostly by myself while playing video games (therefore Korean is not the first language I’ve self-studied). I’ve been learning Korean for three years now mostly by myself, and I’m far from fluent. I’m an intermediate, and I’m planning to do TOPIK2 this year and I’m reaching for level 4/6. I must warn you however that I have been Italian and Chinese at the same time with my university, so I don’t spend 100% of my time learning Korean, but I’ve been spending minimum 30 minutes a day learning it in various ways:

Learn the alphabet 한글. No only it will be much easier to learn new words, but your pronunciation will be much better.  Try this order.

Learn the “soft consonants” ㅂㅈㄷㄱㅅㅁㄴㅇㄹㅎ

Learn the “hard consonants” ㅋㅌㅊㅍㅋ

Learn the “double consonants” ㅃㅉㄸㄲㅆ

Learn the “basic vowels” ㅗㅓㅏㅣㅐㅔㅡㅜ

Learn the “complex vowels” ㅛㅕㅒㅖㅠㅑ

Learn the differences between polite speeches, especially the -요. 

NEVER use Google Translate (it doesn’t do the difference between the polite and impolite speechs). Use Papago translator with moderation. 

Never ever translate literally, it’s hyper unnatural and I’m guilty to have done it. Especially expressions like: “It depends.” or even “How are you?”. 

Learn vocabulary with Anki, which I recommend HIGHLY (it’s free) and I still use it now even after 3 years!

I have Korean friends (I also met some on hellotalk, no need to go to Korea, even though I must say it’s quite crucial at some point to try to understand the culture and practice!), and I still write a lot in Korean to them, so I practice writing and reading with them. 

Writing a diary is super effective as well! Because you learn the words that you’d actually use! It doesn’t have to be a paper diary. What I do is every time I post on instagram, I write in Korean, English and French.

I talk to myself a lot in Korean and read aloud. So if you’re like me and you basically have no one to practice your speaking abilities with, don’t worry.

Listen to music in Korean. Find the lyrics. Make a file or print them. Highlight the words you don’t know. The grammar you don’t know. (It’s especially hard because there are a lot of abbreviations.) EXAMPLE I DID A YEAR AGO WITH JIMIN “PROMISE”.

Even though vocabulary is important, grammar is crucial. Learn a bit everyday. I recommend learning with Integrate Korean Grammar and howtostudykorean.com

Use Naver dictionary a lot to learn new words and it also has grammar!

Watch Netflix dramas with subtitles in Korean. It’s REALLY discouraging when you’ve just started, I would literally watch 5 minutes of the show in 30 minutes because I would pause all the time. You can also watch it with two subtitles using the app Ntflx multi-sub, but you have to be careful to not just look at the english subtitles. 

Watch every day life show. You know those cheesy high school love romances? They are the best to learn because the plots are simple. Do not do the mistake (like me) to watch Holo and cry because you can’t understand anything: AI and investors and scientific vocabulary is very advanced level. Hell, even cop dramas are hard. 

Please, do not get discouraged if you don’t understand what the actors say. EVEN KOREANS have to focus to understand them because they speak REALLY fast. I still can’t understand all and I watch with Korean subtitles. 

Play games in Korean: as you might have noticed my Animal Crossing: New Horizons game is in Korean. And god did this help me to learn vocabulary and grammar.

Listen to ASMR in Korean. I know people hide ASMR like it’s an addiction, but I swear, it’s SO GOOD to learn the pronunciation. They speak slow and say short sentences. I recommend: UNO ASMR, Veiled ASMR, Loadiy ASMR and Boyoong ASMR. 

The best for last: Motivate yourself. Learn anything about Korean culture. Watch videos. Watch movies. Read articles. Cook with Korean recipes. DIY in Korean. There is more than Kpop and Kdrama, and it saddens me that a lot of people stick only to that phase. (BUT REMEMBER THERE’S NO SHAME TO LIKE THOSE, I literally starting learning Korean because I wanted to understand more the lyrics of BTS’s songs so...)

Look, I know there are tons of people who say they’ve learned it in a ridiculous amount of time and it is extremely discouraging. Even Korean friends might discourage you at some points because they come from a culture where “productivity and effectiveness” is EXTREMELY HIGH. 

But, seriously, language learning is not a race, and I try to remind that to myself everyday. Also keep in mind that it’s one of the HARDEST languages in the world for English speakers to learn (and has been classified so by the United-States foreign office).  Two summers ago, I spent 5-7 hours a day studying in the biggest stress ever and I realized it lead me nowhere because stressing yourself to learn impacts your brain in a way that it just doesn’t want to retain information. So if I can give you a final tip is: Enjoy learning this amazing language and if you have any questions feel free to ask me. :)

[nordic-language-love]

How do you stay on track while studying norwegian I start and 10 minutes later I'm bored so I do other things. Any advice? I really want to learn but I have a short attention span.

Hi there! Apologies for the slow reply - it’s been a busy couple of days :)

I really feel you because my attention span is RUBBISH and it can be a real struggle to sit myself down and just do the thing. Sometimes I get hyper-focused and end up doing the same thing for like 7 hours straight, other times (most of the time) I can’t even concentrate for 2 minutes.

That being said, there are a couple of ways I’ve learned to manage it:

Develop some kind of routine

Multitask

Have a study environment free of distractions

Break things down into small tasks

The routine thing is definitely most helpful. My schedule’s a little all over the place atm and I’ve kinda lost my routine so my studying isn’t as good right now, but when I had a proper schedule I could be very productive. BUT I do incorporate studying into my bedtime routine, which I 100% recommend because (a) studying before bed is better for your sleep than dicking around on your phone (b) you’re more likely to retain information that you learn before you sleep © you basically just do it until you’re too bored/tired to carry on, then you turn out the light and go to sleep because hey you’re already in bed. I basically just study flashcards for like 5-10 minutes. No electronics (this is important because electronics = bad for your sleep and full of distractions)

Multitasking involves doing something mindless and repetitive (eg housework, walking to the shop, taking a bath, eating breakfast etc) and doing fairly passive studying while you’re doing it, eg listening to an audio book or lesson, reading a news article, watching a TV show. I’m pretty awful at mundane things like household chores because of my rubbish attention span (I’m also known for forgetting to wash my hair/shave while showering because I suddenly remember something else I want to do and just fucking abort mission apparently), so multitasking actually helps keep me focused on both tasks.

Having a study environment can mean creating a space for yourself specifically for studying or going out of the house to another space. Having that particular environment that you use only for studying helps get your brain into study mode. In this zone you don’t allow anything that might distract you (ie your phone). Best environments are away from windows that you might stare out of It is super important that you only use this environment for study and nothing else because your brain MUST associate it with only that one task (did you know you sleep better if you don’t sit on your bed to read/play video games/browse the internet because it then associates your bed only with sleeping? Now you do!) You can either create a space within your house, or you can take your work out to a coffee shop or pub or library or something (I personally have this one pub that I love which has huge tables and loads of light and the best hot chocolate and sweet potato fries!)

Breaking things down into smaller tasks both helps me break my studying into manageable chunks and also gives me a direction to go when my attention span runs out. So rather than saying “I’m going to study Norwegian for an hour” I’ll make a little list of what I want to do. I may only get halfway through exercise A before my brain decides it’s got better things to be doing. At that point I abandon the task and start the next one, then go back to it after I’ve completed/got bored of that task. Sometimes I will complete exercise A but then decide I want to do all the other exercises in the textbook rather than work on the vocab list I’d planned to make, so I just do that. It’s all productive. Basically, I do plan all my studying sessions out, but I’m flexible with it.

There’s also the pomodoro technique that other people recommend (which you can google) but honestly it doesn’t work for me - having little breaks is just inviting my brain to go off on some adventure.

Hope that helps! Good luck with your studies! If anyone else has anything to add, feel free to reblog or comment :)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TREAT

It was a great step forward to judge people by their academic credentials was in its time an advance. And since no one is going to see it except him, he omits any comments except the note-to-your-vision approach works for something like winning an Olympic gold medal, where the problem is important enough to build something better than a group of such size. You might think that if you don't have to give definite if implicit advice will keep us from straying beyond the resolution of the words we're using. A hilarious article on the site of a newspaper or magazine. Work for us, the premise was, and we'll give you a place to work. And since no one is going to be than the worst? There are people who would disagree with this. Amateur was originally rather a complimentary word. What's missing or broken in your daily life? His mistake was to confuse motive and result. None, all VCs lose.

The difference between then and now is that now I understand why Berkeley is probably not worth trying to understand. The kind of philosophy I'm advocating won't be able to test in an hour, then you may need to be solved in one big brain. That has always seemed to me an important point, and I was even more convinced of it after hearing it confirmed by Hilbert. He works in a small group perforce, because he either hasn't told anyone else about the idea yet, or it seems so unpromising that no one else is there. Ultimately these will affect a lot more to discover. And present union leaders are any less courageous. If these guys had thought they were starting companies, they might have been tempted to do something again is a sign you did it wrong the first time. The current generation of founders want to raise money grows with the amount.

In DC the message seems to be: a lot. The secret to finding other press hits from a given pitch is to realize there's a problem. But we can see how powerful cities are from something I wrote about earlier: the case of the Milanese Leonardo. Like all craftsmen, hackers like good tools. Which means many Internet startups don't need VC-scale investments anymore. In anything she does that's publicly visible, her biggest fear after the obvious fear that it will seem ostentatious. Cobol or Java being the most popular languages because they view languages as standards. But hackers use their offices for more than that: they use their office as a place to work where you can find peers and encouragement. I think the most important reader. To make a startup succeed—if you avoid every cause of failure, you succeed—and that's too big a question to answer on the fly.

People who think the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers have a problem to explain: why are unions shrinking now? This singularity is even more singular in having its own defense built in. I have no idea that working in a cubicle feels to a hacker like having one's brain in a blender. Software, to them, equalled big, honking Windows apps. There are certainly some political questions that have no definite answers, like how much a new government policy will cost. You may need to stand outside yourself a bit to see brokenness, because you have no Thomas Edisons. This was exactly the kind of thing is upon the reader. It does seem to me what philosophy should look like: quite general observations that would cause someone who understood them to do something that makes $3000 a month.

Obviously you can sense something is going on. Startups in other places are just doing what startups naturally do: fail. So market rates gradually permeate every organization, even the best hackers can't save you. You're always going to have to add a few extra words, to make people feel better? Many people in this country think of taste as something elusive, or even whether it still sends one. So if you take money from investors, you have to declare variables before using them, for example, in genetic algorithms and even product design. The overlooked problem was to generate web sites automatically; in 1995, online stores were all made by hand by human designers, but we should not suppose that if unions have declined, it's because present union leaders are any less courageous. I think professionalism was largely a fashion, driven by conditions that happened to exist in the twentieth century.

It's the easiest form. For one year I worked at a regular nine to five job, and I was even more convinced of it after hearing it confirmed by Hilbert. They all know one another well enough to express opinions that would get them stoned to death by the general public. Then it struck me: this is what you can do all-encompassing redesigns. Lewis in The Boston Globe. As a result it became massively successful. Delicious. You can see how dependent you've become on something by removing it suddenly. You can't trust authorities. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on the same projects. No one who has studied the history of philosophy.

To me the most demoralizing aspect of the traditional office is that you're supposed to be there at certain times. The young are the test, because when people aren't rewarded according to seniority instead. I can't let my friends down. The way people act is just as lumpy and idiosyncratic as the human body. Patent trolls are just parasites. I used to annoy my sister by ordering her to do it mean she tends to get written out of YC's history. I've described is near zero. In fact, if you can avoid it, b pay people with equity rather than salary, not just to play back experiences but also to index and even edit them. The point is, you have to love it. Now that so many news articles are online, I probably read two or three articles on individual people's sites for every one I read on the site of a newspaper or magazine. I dislike being on either end of it.

Even in New York the number of people who might have corrected them, they tended to be self-perpetuating. You could conceivably lose half your brain and live. For example, the question the hackers have all been wondering about: how do you become a great hacker except by working with him, and treat that. When we were kids I used to annoy my sister by ordering her to do things that are superficially impressive. So making hackers work in a noisy, distracting environment is like having a paint factory where the air is full of soot. If you want to be on it, all I had to show for myself were a few startups who hit these limits accidentally because of their unusual circumstances—most famously 37signals, which hit the limit because they crossed into startup land from the other direction. All the arts have to pander to the other.

[dorothydelgadillo]

7 Essential Content Marketing Apps & Tools I Can't Live Without for 2019

Who has two thumbs, speaks limited French, and struggled to get out of bed for this first post-holiday morning back at work?

Don't get me wrong -- it's only been in recent years that I wake up each day feeling hashtag blessed about the fact that I get to do what I'm passionate about for a living alongside some of the smartest people I have ever known.

Still, I'm dragging this morning.

And my to do list is a mile long. 

Because, fun fact, pillar pages don't write themselves. Nor do whitepapers, blog articles, or case studies.

This surprises me, given how every other article I read recently has to do with the rise of Skynet as a reality; you'd think they'd have figured out how to do all of that by now, right?

Just kidding, I love robots -- from a distance. 

Plus, hyperbolic posturing about the robot apocalypse aside, there are a lot of ways technology and automation have already transformed the way I map out, write, and produce the content for a lot of our strategies. 

(And I'm not even counting HubSpot Marketing Hub.) 

Since neither content (or pimpin') is easy, I'm going to share the apps and tools I use every single day -- and consider indispensable -- to produce a good portion content you interact with on this website. 

App #1: GatherContent

If you've ever worked with me on a project, you know I live and die by GatherContent, a centralized content creation, production, and collaboration platform I can only assume was created by Zeus from on-high -- it is that magical.

I was first introduced to GatherContent years ago by Jessie-Lee Nichols (now IMPACT's Design Supervisor) when we were working on a website project together. 

I'm resistant to change -- especially when it comes to someone trying to "evolve" or "improve" my processes, but Jessie-Lee was persistent. 

"You'll spend less time chasing down approvals, trying to find drafts in Google Docs, and digging through your emails," she said, zeroing in on my biggest challenges. "Everything is one place, with real-time visibility into the status of every single piece of content in a project."

Lo and behold, she was right. Flash forward to now, there is no project I work on that doesn't leverage GatherContent.  

From within GatherContent, I can work with multiple collaborators, give access to my higher-ups so they can see the status of a project or single piece of content at any time -- whether it's 3 a.m. or 3 p.m., they don't need to email, call, or smoke signal me to find out the status or deadline of a piece of content.

For writers, I can leave comments and assign out changes. Additionally, either the writer or I can overwrite whatever content is there. There is a rollback feature that allows someone to see what changes have been made without whoever made the changes having to highlight them or call them out.

Finally, GatherContent keeps me sane. It isn't free -- although the pricing is very reasonable, especially if your a small business. (If you're an agency dealing with lots of clients or content production, you'll need to be smart about how many projects you set up.) 

But what it saves me in time, content project administration, and sanity makes it worth it to me. I'm infinitely more productive with it, and I would consider it the most important tool I use. 

I also can't even imagine managing all of the different projects I oversee without it. It's life-changing. 

Of course, if you're one of those folks who loves searching through endless Google Docs and emails, and spending more time calling and emailing about content projects instead of actually doing the work, you probably won't need it.

As I mentioned, GatherContent isn't free. It starts at $83 per month, with lots of options for organizations.

  App #2: Bear

I have a confession to make: I absolutely hated writing when I was younger.

In fact, one time when I was eighth grade, I turned in an essay where the last paragraph was the same sentence copied and pasted over and over again, just so I could meet the minimum word count requirement without having to put more effort into it. (My teacher didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.)

Obviously, I've come around since then.

But my change of heart only came about because eventually I realized that (a) I was good at writing, and (b) it wasn’t the act of writing I despised so much, but rather I hated the cluttered and distracting writing experience of Microsoft Word.

Enter stage left, Bear. 

Bear (available only for iPhone, iPad, and Mac) is an app that's all about empowering users to "write beautifully." And it does that so very well.

It's gotten to the point where everything I write -- IMPACT blogs, content projects for clients, freelance projects, etc. -- always passes through an initial rough drafting stage within Bear.  

In addition to comprehensive and lengthy content creation, Bear can also be used as an Evernote-esque notes application, making it quite versatile. 

Bear is free, but if you splurge on the paid version ($1.49 per month or $14.99 per year), you can enjoy custom themes, syncing across multiple devices, and exporting capabilities. 

App #2: Hemingway

Whether you’re a seasoned content creator or you’re a new kid on the inbound block, you undoubtedly know how hard it is to write and edit your own work -- and not just because you are too close to your writing to gauge its quality.

Thankfully, someone created Hemingway.

In addition to being one of my favorite authors -- as well as one of the best characters in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris -- Hemingway forces you to evaluate the readability of your work.

It tells you what grade level your work reads at, and it scans your work for sentence complexity, passive voice, and overuse of adverbs. 

While you have the option to write directly in the Hemingway app itself, I find these kinds of mark-ups to be very distracting while I am trying to form my ideas for the first time.

Instead, I usually type of my first draft in Bear and then copy it over to Hemingway, when I'm ready to switch my brain over to editing mode. (But how you choose to use this app is entirely up to you!)

You can use Hemingway for free through your web browser at www.hemingwayapp.com, or you can download the desktop version for $9.99.

App #3: Grammarly for Google Docs

OK, Grammarly isn't new, but you know what is? Grammarly for Google Docs. 

It's not a separate tool from standard Grammarly. It's just a new feature that is so freaking valuable, I have to call it out separately, on the off chance that those of you who are familiar with the product haven't heard about this.

For those unfamiliar with Grammarly, however, it is a standalone desktop and web app that also has a Google Chrome extension that scans your writing in various places across the web -- or as input by you -- and provides editorial suggestions.

It's not perfect, but it has saved my patootie more times than I care to admit; especially when I'm rushing through emails early in the morning. 

Unfortunately, as with any technology, there were a few blind spots for the tool -- places online where Grammarly could not go. The most annoying of which was Google Docs, one of the most widely-used content collaboration word processing apps out there.

Even though I spent the early part of this article swearing off Google Docs for GatherContent or Bear, I still use it a lot. 

For example, sometimes I want a word processing application where I can also fiddle around with images and more visual formatting that GatherContent and Bear purposefully avoid in their feature set. 

Finally, Grammarly made the announcement we've all been waiting for -- Grammarly for Google Docs was now in beta for those using the Google Chrome extension.

Please remember that no automated editorial assistant is infallible. Review every suggested edit; never blindly accept them all.

Grammarly is free, although I highly recommend the premium version, as it scans for more nuanced grammar issues that can substantively elevate the quality of your writing.

App #4: WordCountTools.com

One of the most game-changing editing lessons I have ever learned is not to edit for everything all at once. Rather, you should edit for style, grammar, and narrative progression separately, in individual editing phases.

That’s why after I put my work through the readability test of Hemingway, I drop my work into the text box on www.wordcounttools.com. 

Not only does this website tell you how many words your composition has overall, it also targets one of my biggest writing “quirks” -- redundancy.

(Seriously, I don’t know what my problem is, but I am incapable of going a single column, essay, or blog post without repeating certain words or phrases.)

Below the area where you paste copy, you’ll see a keyword density box, which counts how many times non-“grammar words” appear in your work.

I know, it seems almost stupidly simple.

But as someone who spends a good portion of my day editing the work of others, trust me when I say it’s likely that more than a few of you reading this post should also be using this tool.

App #5: Noisli

I used to spend so much time at work trying to find the perfect work playlist on Spotify to keep me on track. Music is supposed to help spark productivity and creativity, right?

Wrong. Well, for me, anyway.

I don’t know whether I’m defective or something, but most of the time I find myself distracted by music.

Either I get wrapped up in the song itself -- even if it’s only instrumental -- or, when one song ends, I don’t like what comes up next, so I break from my work to spend 20 minutes trying to curate a new ideal soundtrack.

Noisli is a stunning, minimalist (and free!) background noise generator. Or, as they like to say, Noisli is “your productivity companion.”

Even though there are multiple studies showing the positive effects of ambient noise on productivity, Noisli confused me when I took it for a test drive a couple years ago, during a particularly challenging copywriting project.

At first, listening to noise while working seemed… strange. Not to mention completely boring. Now? I’m a total convert, and it’s pretty much all I listen to when I’m trying to get sh*t done. 

With my free Noisli account, I’ve created and saved custom blends of sounds -- which you control using the soundboard shown on the left -- that can set the tone for my entire working day.

Sound options include rain, thunderstorm, wind, forest, leaves, water stream, seaside, water, bonfire, summer night, fan, train, coffee shop, white noise, pink noise, and brown noise.

As my Creator's Block co-host (and long-time work pal) Jessie-Lee knows, my favorite Noisli blend is one I call "rainy trainy." It’s a personalized symphony of thunder, rain, train, and fan sounds. There's also a splash of coffee shop, for good measure.

I created this soothing blend because I love traveling by train and have been doing so for years -- in my 20s, when I would travel home to Washington, D.C., while living in Boston, and now, when I travel to and from my home in Annapolis, Maryland, to IMPACT's home office in Connecticut. 

Fun fact: You can also share blends of sounds with other people.  

Noisli is available for free through the website. There is also a free Chrome extension and iOS app available for $1.99.

App #6: SEMrush Content Template

I learned about this gem when I was working with Franco Valentino of Narrative SEO on a comprehensive SEO analysis we published last year. Now, I don't leave home without it, so to speak -- especially when I'm crafting individual pillar strategies.

If you have SEMRush, simply click on “SEO Content Template” in the menu on the left near the bottom and enter the keyword you want to base a piece of content around. It will spit out recommendations on everything -- target length of your content, links and semantic keywords you should include, and much, much more.

It also has a rich-text editor, where you can test the content you're creating that targets a particular keyword string against the recommendations it provided:

SEMrush costs money, but it's worth the money. They also have a lot of different pricing plans, depending on the needs of your organization.

App #7: Evernote

Given how ubiquitous Evernote is, it almost feels like a copout to include this in my list. That said, I spent years not understanding how or why millions of people and scores of businesses trust the elephant-branded app, before it finally clicked for me last fall. 

Now, I'm an Evernote freak, too.

For the three of you who haven't heard of Evernote, it's a note-taking application you can download or use through the web. You can clip things from the web, create templates, scan and attach documents, and sync your notes across multiple devices (if you pay for the premium version).

I also love how I can easily share notes in my Evernote -- for example, a table of contents developed during a pillar strategy brainstorm. By clicking one or two buttons, I can share an accessible URL that stays updated if I make any changes to the document, instead of having to copy and paste the information into an email or a Google Doc.

But for me, it's application is simple.

I've created notebooks for my podcast, my pillar strategies, and general notes for content I'm working on. It's where I store all of the preparation notes for pillar strategy sessions, the questions I'm going to ask a Content Lab guest, and where I outline longform pieces. 

There isn't much to say about Evernote that hasn't already been said by somebody else. But what I will say is that so much of what I have gotten out of it only came about once I understood it was all about how I organized and setup my Evernote. 

If you're looking for a virtual notebook to help you make sense of all of the back and forth that shouldn't live in disparate emails or Google Docs, but also has no business living in something like GatherContent, I can't recommend Evernote more.

Evernote is free with premium and business options available.

The Best Writing Hack Is Honesty

Even though all four of these apps have revolutionized the way I think about and approach my work, the best piece of advice I can give you about how to boost your content creation capabilities is this:

Have an open and brutally honest discussion with yourself about what specifically you don’t like about the writing process.

No app or program can tell you what your problem is or fix a writing roadblock you can't identify; they can only help you once you have some idea of what pain point you’re trying to address.

The answers will vary drastically from person to person, as they should. For instance, while my struggles were rooted in distraction and focus, yours may be founded in writer’s block, which is an entirely different beast.

So, while I think each of you will like at least one of these apps, I hope you’ll also do yourselves a favor and figure out what part of your own personal writing process really needs improving.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/content-marketing-apps-tools