Ann FriedmanInterview
Journalist (New York magazine, Tomorrow)
Adapted from Ann Friedman's interview on Uses This, published 7 May 2013. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
I am deeply dependent on my two-year-old MacBook Pro.
The James Bond-iest piece of hardware I own is my Echo Smartpen, which prevents me from having to juggle a notebook, recording device, and a pen when I'm doing interviews.
Communication
Every morning, before I even put on my glasses, I check email and Twitter on my phone.
Gmail is my everything, my life archive.
I love both Twitter and Tumblr, which are essential to how I find news and ideas, keep in touch with both friends and colleagues, and promote my work.
I send my weekly newsletter with the help of TinyLetter.
And even after they removed those features and failed to push me to use Google Plus, I continued to use Reader as a way of selectively searching only certain sites that are relevant to me.
I'm still trying to figure out where I'll migrate all of my RSS feeds - maybe The Old Reader?
Productivity
Anyway, to round out the Mac stack, I also have an iPad that, letsbereal, I mostly use to read Instapaper and the occasional e-book.
And Google Docs, which I use to pass drafts back and forth with the editors of my two weekly columns (at New York magazine and the Columbia Journalism Review).
Now's the part where I scream and cry and gnash my teeth about the demise of Google Reader.
Browser
Notes
Evernote, synced across my devices, is where I keep a sprawling list of column ideas and random thoughts to follow up on.
Media
I use Spotify to send music to friends and make themed playlists ("editing vibes," "Up To No Good," "stonezone").
I am trying to love Vine but I am very bad at it.