Winning the wrong game & Craft introducing Craft Agents
Morgen launches it v4, Marco – a fresh new email client, is now publicly available, why your productivity systems collapse, and more in this week's issue of Creativerly.
My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the internet corner where I unpack my musings, curate and write about noteworthy apps and software, and explore the latest trends in design and tech.
Hey and welcome to Creativerly 362 👋
Well, a couple of months ago I found myself in the most-overwhelmed state of my life so far. There was way too much going on. Fast-forward to today, and there is still so much going on, however, I learned to deal with highly emotional situations, I am looking after myself, I am focusing on deepening connections to the people I love, leaving work early in order to make room for the things and activities I love (please do not tell my employer), I learned that I can simply change the things and habits which I do not like in my life, and stuff I can not change, I simply have to accept, which is how I got rid of constant frustration impacting my daily life.
I still experience emotional chaos within me, however, instead of hoping that it magically disappears on its own, I am exploring all my emotions and feelings, I am talking about them, and I especially engage with the people which are causing this emotional chaos, in order to work it out.
For the first time in my life, I have the feeling that I have figured out my priorities, I am affirming life, I know what I want to do, how to spent my time, what experiences I am after, what I want to explore. And, this was a bit scary to realize at first, because I am 31 years old, so I spent already 31 years on this planet. But then, I looked at one of my all-time favorite graphics by Tim Urban who is writing Wait But Why. It shows life paths from when you are born and leading to the future. The black paths show the past, while the green ones show the future. For whatever reasons, most of us spend too much time thinking about all those black lines, forgetting the fact that it is all still in our hands.

And my past paths with all the turns I took, lead me to who I am today. I am incredibly thankful for each experience I gained in the past. Would I make things differently? Take different paths, if I now look back? Oh YES, I would. But why should I spend my time thinking about where those changes would have lead me, when all that matters is looking ahead and choosing my next paths?
I am concentrating on the past to learn more about myself and reflect, but I am concentrating on the future in order to apply the things I have learned and found out about myself.
And now, enough yapping, enjoy this week's newsletter. ✌️
The best new app for newsletter reading.
Meco is a distraction-free space for reading newsletters outside the inbox. The app is completely free and packed with features designed to supercharge your learnings from your favourite writers. Become a more productive reader and cut out the noise with Meco - try the app today!
This is an affiliate link to support Creativerly. If you are interested in putting your tool, product, or resource in front of over 2000 creative minds, consider advertising in Creativerly and book a sponsor or classified ad spot. Find all the important information at creativerly.com/advertise.
Fresh Updates & News
Morgen launches it v4 including a web app, task upgrades, routines, and more* →
Morgen just launched its new major version, bringing its experience to the web, which means Morgen is now available on macOS, Windows, Linux, and the web. The new web app replicates Morgen's experience which is optimized for speed, security, and reliability, on the web. You can now enjoy a web app app that feels as responsive as the desktop version, and a true extension of Morgen across platforms.
Besides that, this new major version is not only about bringing Morgen to the web, but it also introduced the ability to add tags to tasks, creating them on the fly by using #, customizing their colors, and use them everywhere. Additionally, there is now a clear split between routines and recurring tasks. You can use routines for things that do happen at a specific time, like breakfast, lunch, workouts, or evening shutdowns. Recurring tasks are now driven by repeating due dates, not fixed calendar slots.
Check out this blog post to read about all updates and changes, as v4 of Morgen brought even more improvements.
Craft launches its internal tool 'Craft Agent' as open source project →
With the first update of 2026, Craft introduced a bunch of updates and improvements to their core product, as well as a completely new tool which the team has been using internally for the past couple of months in order to build Craft Docs. According to a the release notes, Craft has implemented lots of changes on how they work with AI, and stated their two-fold goal to increase the quality and velocity of Craft's development, so they can ship a better, faster, more reliable Craft Docs, and understand where AI truly adds value in a productivity product.
To achieve those goals, they started building their own internal tooling on top of the Claude Agent SDK. That tool now became Craft Agents. The release notes further state that using Craft Agents, the team has fixed hundreds of long-standing bugs, taken on ambitious performance and stability projects they could not realistically attempt before, and built new capabilities, like an upcoming mermaid diagram support.
Furthermore, the release notes mention that Craft Agents is not a new Craft product, it is not replacing Craft Docs, it is a tool Craft built in order to support its team. Craft Agents is open source, which means in case you are interested in giving it a try, you can simply download it.
Marco lets you manage all your inboxes effortlessly →
Marco is a fresh new email client which just launched to the public. As most email clients today turned into closed systems, some only work with Gmail or Outlook, and others fund themselves by scanning or selling your data, Marco aims to restore email's core values, focusing on offering a fast, private experience, free from lock-in. With Marco, you can connect your Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, or any other provider. You can use Marco on macOS, iOS, and the web, enjoying the sam lovely crafted UI, workflows, and the same muscle memory.
Since Marco provides an offline-first approach to email, every search, tap, action feels instant. Additionally, Marco is built as a straightforward, bootstrapped business, which means you pay with a monthly subscription instead your data or privacy.
Marco just launched to the public is available to test through a free trial. After that, Marco costs $8 per month which gives you access to unlimited email accounts, apps for all platforms, offline access, custom email views, and advanced search. A Pro subscription is coming soon, which will additionally include personalized draft auto-creation, read receipts, customizable rules engine, and priority support, and will be available for $20 per month.
Mental Wealth
❯ Must Creativity Necessarily Come at the Price of Misery? – “There's a persistent idea—stubborn, seductive—that madness and creativity share a root system. That suffering is not merely an obstacle but a wellspring. The artist must suffer. The thinker must descend into hell.”
❯ Why We Speak – “I've been working in and around the technology industry for a long time. Depending on how you count, it's 20 or 30 years. (I first started getting paid to put together PCs with a screwdriver when I was a teenager, but there isn't a good way to list that on LinkedIn.) And as soon as I felt like I was pretty sure that I was going to be able to pay the next month's rent without having to eat ramen noodles for two weeks before it was due, I felt like I'd really made it.”
❯ Winning the wrong game – “With studies upon studies showing that actual measurable productivity gains through “AI” (which these days basically means chatbots) are really hard to come by and that “workslop” (meaning the extra work created for the rest of the organization by one person using “AI” lowering their work quality) eats up a lot of what might have been productivity gains many critics feel somewhat relieved: When the main narrative of “AI” (massively increased productivity) fails, this surely marks the end of this bubble and we might be able to get back to talking about actual problems.”
❯ Why Your Productivity Systems Collapse – “Sure the Internet is amazing. You can start today with a tool like Obsidian then head to r/ObsidianMD or YouTube and find many creators willing to show you their note system, including myself. Unfortunately this also brings along complexity to the beginner who doesn’t need the solutions being pedalled as they start their note journey.”
Do not miss out on this ...
❉ Experience the ultimate vector editor for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Get started with Amadine*.
❉ Think tasks, not apps. Setapp* is you one-stop subscription to solving every task on Mac and iPhone.
❉ Fathom is cookie-free, GDPR compliant, privacy-first website analytics software. Get $10 off your first invoice and a 7-day free trial when you use this link*.
These are paid promotions or affiliate links to support Creativerly. If you are interested in putting your tool, product, or resource in front of over 2000 creative minds, consider advertising in Creativerly and book a sponsor or classified ad spot. Find all the important information at creativerly.com/advertise.
Appendix
❯ ICYMI
The corporate web is doomed, but the indieweb is thriving. In my post "Searching the indieweb: how to find real people, real projects, real writing in a sea of AI slop" I provide alternative search engines to flee the corporate web.
❯ Quick Bits
- Trump Loses Another Case Against Offshore Wind (Emily Pontecorvo / Heatmap News)
- January was a warning of where Trump will go next (Pema Levy / Mother Jones)
- A Year in Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign (Gerardo del Valle / ProPublica)
- AI health care is taking off in China, led by Jack Ma’s Ant Group (Viola Zhou / Rest of World)
- AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy (David Gilbert / WIRED)
- How often do AI chatbots lead users down a harmful path? (Kyle Orland / Ars Technica)
- Bluesky issues its first transparency report, noting rise in user reports and legal demands (Sarah Perez / TechCrunch)
- ‘We’re basically pushers:’ How a battle over kids on social media is unfolding in two California courtrooms (Colin Lecher / The Markup)
- Fear of ICE is keeping pregnant immigrants in Minnesota from critical care (Shefali Luthra / The 19th)
- Oracle rallies after announcing plan to raise up to $50 billion in debt and equity this year to fund its AI ambitions (Luke Kawa / Sherwood)
- What it takes to get an H-1B visa in Trump's America (Ananya Bhattachary / Rest of World)
- Nike Says Its Factory Workers Make Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. In Indonesia, Workers Say, “It’s Not True.” (Matthew Kish / ProPublica)
- Trump’s SNAP rules are about to imperil food access for millions (Katie Herchenroeder / Mother Jones)
- The Trump Administration Is Now Delaying Renewable Projects It Thinks Are Ugly (Jael Holzman / Heatmap News)
- Epstein files contain 1,056 documents mentioning Putin and 9,629 mentioning Moscow (Ellsworth Toohey / Boing Boing)
- The Tech Elites in the Epstein Files (Brian Barrett / WIRED)
- Nvidia CEO denies he’s ‘unhappy’ with OpenAI (Terrence O'Brien / The Verge)
- Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native (Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / The Register)
- Snapchat blocks more than 400,000 Australian accounts but warns of ‘significant gaps’ in under-16s social media ban (Josh Taylor / The Guardian)
- AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird fast (Benj Edwards / Ars Technica)
Till next time! 👋
Support: Do you have a friend who is looking for inspiration, news about design, and useful tools and apps? Forward this newsletter to a friend or simply share this issue and show some support. You can also show some love by simply clicking the button down below and keep this newsletter a sustainable side-project by buying me a coffee. ☕️ 🥰
Some of the links in my newsletter and my blog posts are affiliate links. Those links are marked by an asterisk. If you buy something through the link, the product will not cost you anything more, but I will receive a small commission which not only supports Creativerly and my work but also helps me to keep this publication a sustainable side-project.
Creativerly is proudly published with Ghost*.

Discussion