work needs a desk, not a piletabs are good at switching pages and bad at holding a thread. the research, the draft, the numbers it came from, the next step. offload keeps them arranged in one frame, so the work is something you can look at, not something you reconstruct.
approval is a boundary, not a settingthe useful version of a personal secretary is not the invisible one. donna lines the work up, fills the form, writes the reply, and stops at the moment something would leave. that stop is enforced in code. we think the pause is the product.
personal software must stay legiblethe more specific software becomes to one person, the more it has to show its work. everything donna does happens where you can see it: the tabs she opens, the drafts she writes, the receipts she keeps. capable without becoming opaque.
the hours were the limitthe personal computer made you productive. the personal secretary makes you free. everyone gets the same day; the difference is what stands behind it.