Notes on reading less, and building the tool that does it.
Design, engineering, language and security, written by the people who build Shizuri.
Design
5 min read
Why the brief has six lines
We tested briefs from three to twelve lines with 212 teams. Six was the longest brief people finished every day.
Mei Chen
Engineering
7 min read
How we cite every sentence
A brief you can't check is a rumour. Here is how each line keeps a link to the messages it came from.
Tomás Reis
Design
4 min read
Ma, and the brief that fits on one screen
Ma is the Japanese idea of meaningful space. It shaped the product more than any feature did.
Yui Sakamoto
Language
6 min read
Writing briefs in Japanese is not translation
A good Japanese brief is shorter, more polite, and names people differently. Translating the English one gets all three wrong.
Ren Ishida
Product
4 min read
The two notifications that got through
Quiet hours held 41 notifications on a normal Tuesday. The two it let through tell you how the rule works.
Nadia Haddad
Security
5 min read
What we will never do with your data
A tool that reads everything has to promise more than a normal one. These are the promises, and how we keep them.
Clara Voss
Four words we build by.
Quiet, in their words.
I used to start the day with 300 unread. Now I start it with six lines and a coffee.
The sources are the point. I can forward a line to my CEO and she can check it herself.
Quiet hours gave me my afternoons back. The two things that came through actually needed me.
Our Osaka and Lisbon teams finally overlap, even though they never meet on a call.
We turned it on for 40 people on a Thursday. By Monday nobody asked for the weekly status meeting.
It says “I couldn't find that” when it can't. That is why I trust the rest of it.
Asked often, answered plainly.
Something else? Write to us. A person answers within a working day.
Try one quiet morning. Keep it if it gives you back an hour.
Tomorrow at 07:00, one quiet page.
Connect two sources in four minutes. Your first brief arrives tomorrow morning, before the first meeting.