Idea Surplus Disorder #122

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In This Edition

In this week’s Idea Surplus Disorder, we dig into what happens when AI becomes so seamless we forget it’s shaping our thinking. You’ll see why screen-free spaces still matter, why “interesting work” may beat traditional happiness hacks, and how leaders broadcast expectations through tiny, often unspoken cues.

We’ll also unpack the gap between what organizations say is their strategy and what they’re actually doing, the rising need for “proof of work” in an era of effortless fakery, and why so many employees feel emotionally numb in the face of constant change. Plus, two practical tech tips you’ll want to steal.

And as always, you’ll find a mix of fun finds, practical insights, and thought-provoking quotes to help you lead, live, and think more intentionally.

I'm Matt Homann, and I'm glad you're here.

Ideas + Insights

What are the implications when AI becomes a tool we forget we're using?

When we use a tool, it becomes part of us. That’s not just the case for hammers, pens, or cars, but also for a notebook used to organize thoughts. It becomes part of our cognitive process. Computer are not different. While I’m typing this text, my fingers are flying over the keyboard, switching windows, opening notes, looking up words in a dictionary. All while I’m fully focused on the meta-task of getting my thoughts out, unaware of all the tiny miracles happening.

Our minds are susceptible to outside cues. When we read news articles we tend to believe what seems plausible. When we review code we generally expect it to behave the way it looks, even when we don’t have the context to assess that. The same is true for text: When we let a model transform notes into a blog post, a lot of context and nuance is added. We read it and believe the output to be what we thought. It’s subtle.

Should we make education (and meetings) completely screen-free?

It’s time to remove laptops from classrooms. Across 24 experiments: Students learn more and get better grades after taking notes by hand than typing. It’s not just because they’re less distracted—writing enables deeper processing and more images. The pen is mightier than the keyboard.

The secret to happiness? Do "interesting" work:

When you’re procrastinating on a project, wondering why your outwardly successful career doesn’t feel as vibrant as it could, or feeling stuck on a difficult life-choice, it’s worth asking if you’ve forgotten the importance of building your days, as far as you’re able, around what actually interests you.

Meaningful projects aren’t always fun; life certainly isn’t always easy; and the moment in history through which we’re living definitely isn’t calming and relaxing. But maybe it is always, or almost always, possible to find and pursue something that’s truly and enliveningly interesting about the place in life in which you find yourself, and the paths that are open to you to take. “May you live in interesting times” isn’t really an ancient Chinese curse. But we do live in very interesting times; there are things you could do today that would deeply and absorbingly interest you. It might be worth seeing where they lead.

"Tells" aren't just something in poker games. Leaders have tells, too:

Be aware of your “tells.” Leaders at all levels, recognize that you are a powerful informal management system. Your attention, your questions, and your emotional reactions in meetings send the clearest signals of all about “what good looks like.” Make sure your personal cues are in alignment with your stated goals.

Strategy is as much about what you're doing now as what you say you want to do:

For those who see themselves as waiting to do strategy until they have tackled their execution challenges, their Strategy-in-Use becomes a cumulation of short-term fixes of pressing problems rather than a coherent and purposeful set of choices. The lack of such a purposeful set of choices is what causes the company to be beset by continuous ‘operational/executional challenges,’ which causes the leader to postpone tackling strategy again, which causes more challenges, which cases delay, and so on.

The biggest problem with a substantial gap between Espoused Strategy and Strategy-in-Use is that it is very difficult to improve your current position if you don’t know where you are today. If you want to get to Kansas City, it is sure important to know whether you are starting out from Boston or Los Angeles! If you want to improve from your current outcomes by improving your strategy, it is absolutely essential to know what your current strategy is. That has little or anything to do with what you say, it is a product of what you have done and are doing.

Honest people swear more:

A team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.

We are going to need "proof of work" for everything:

Society has always relied on its own implicit version of Proof of Work for all kinds of things. We have operated on the assumption that if a document, a photo, a technical report, slide deck, student essay or any “cognitive artifact” was complex, it was hard to produce. That difficulty was our proxy for truth. If you saw a photo of a car accident, you trusted it because faking a realistic photo required immense skill and time. If a student turned in a ten-page paper, the artifact itself proved they had engaged with the material.

AI is effectively removing that proof of work from human society. It has driven the cost of that production to zero. We can now trivially generate voices, images, video, code, homework, research papers, political analysis, news articles, medical reports and on and on. [We've created] a world where digital artifacts are impossible to trust because they are too cheap to create.

Generation Numb:

One-half of workers say they feel numb, indifferent, or “nothing at all” when their employers announce changes. Another 30% say that shifts in rules, ways of working, or strategy inspire feelings of overwhelm and anxiety. Among all respondents, 17% say unclear priorities or constant change are the biggest source of negative emotions at work.

These are two great tips I found this week:

• You can add a US passport as your digital ID to your wallet app on an iPhone running iOS 26.1 or later. You still need to carry your passport overseas, but you can pull out this ID for TSA clearance at 250 airports in the U.S., including SFO, LAX, JFK and LGA. To do this go to your wallet, hit the + in the upper right, then choose “Driver’s License and ID Cards,” then “Digital ID.” You’ll be prompted to hold your phone’s camera over the photo page of your passport and then you need to touch your phone to the chip embedded in the back of the passport. Then you’ll be asked to take a selfie and do some prescribed head movements to verify you are real. Finally, your application will await verification. Once verified (mine took only a few minutes) your passport ID will appear in your wallet. 
• If you want a quick way to see all your receipts in Gmail, I recently noticed that in my personal account a “Purchases” label category was automatically created and added to my sidebar. Unfortunately, this feature is not available in my Google Workspace account. I use both personal and work emails for shopping, so to mimic that view I type “category:purchases” into the search box to display messages that include receipts, purchase confirmations, invoices, and statements. This is especially helpful during the holiday season.

Finally, some thinking on long-term thinking.

Fun Finds

• MyTaxReceipt shows you a breakdown of how your U.S. federal taxes get spent.
• Time Magazine's Top 100 Photos of 2025
• Window Swap gives you a look out of windows all over the world.
• A collection of stunning time-lapse videos of plants growing.
• Twenty-five things to tell your children.
• Busy Simulator with recurring app notification noises.

Words of Wisdom

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. – Pliny the Younger

Sustainability without profitability has no impact and profitability without sustainability has no future. – Cécile Béliot

History is where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. – Philip Roth

One who looks around him is intelligent; one who looks within him is wise. – Matshona Dhliwayo

I don’t know what I think until I write it down. – Joan Didion

Up Next From Filament

Every month, Filament delivers an incredible mix of free programming and professional development. You can find links to sign up for all of our upcoming events, including PlayDays, Wavelength, NSFW, and SuperCollider here.