Jury duty, housing prices, and our most requested feature

Hey Reader,

On Monday last week I carried my jury summons into the county courthouse along with 200 other people. Unsure if I'd be dismissed in a few hours or have my next week+ upended.

Through pure chance I ended up in the 15% of people in that room placed on a jury. Out of about 60 people called for each case there are only 12 jurors and 2 alternates.

We were assigned a felony sexual assault case that lasted a week and a half, including 11 hours of deliberations over 2 days. Ultimately we found the defendant guilty on 3 counts and were undecided on the final count (the jury was split 6/6 and in criminal cases the jury has to be unanimous to reach a verdict on a count).

While the experience was challenging, very emotionally draining and disrupted more than a week of work, I'm really glad I went through it. It was interesting to have a first hand look and it left me with a lot more faith in our justice system.

If you get the chance, I highly recommend serving on a jury (not that you really have a say in the matter).

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In last week's newsletter I shared why Figma won and said this week I'd write about applying those principles to

...then jury duty happened. So that will be another week away, but I've still got some good stuff for you today:

WHAT I'M WATCHING

The biggest drop in average home prices since '08

We knew increased interest rates and insanely high prices would result in a decrease in prices, but this is really fast. Though to be clear, we're still at averages above last year.

Boise, where I live, was one of the hottest markets and the prices needed to come down in order to stay anywhere close to wages.

Sunsama

"The last productivity app you'll ever need"

Have you maxed out your productivity tools and are tired of them not helping you?

Traditional tools are simply glorified todo-lists. What you really need is an assistant that will help you focus, prioritize the right tasks, and manage your day.

Sunsama will help you pull tasks from your calendar, email, and other tools into one focused dashboard, it automatically nudges you to plan your

days intentionally and end work on time. You can see daily and weekly analytics of how you spent your time and improve your productivity gains over time.

You can try it free for 14 days, no card needed.

WHAT I'M READING

Lifestyles by Morgan Housel

Fifty-four years ago this month, in a push for publicity, The Sunday Times offered £5,000 to whoever could sail solo nonstop around the world the fastest. It was technically a race, but that was an afterthought, as no one had ever completed the feat.

This blog post from Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, talks about how the quality of your life is shaped by who you want to impress. I loved it.

Read the whole post here »

FROM CONVERTKIT

Account notifications: our top requested feature

We just released a new feature for account notifications in ConvertKit. By default we've turned on a weekly summary, but you can also turn on notifications for every new subscriber or every new purchase. That means you don't need to use Zapier for notifications anymore.

Have a great week,

Nathan