One of the seven principles in my book, Cognitive Productivity with macOS: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge, is Surf Strategically. The principle recognizes that cognitive productivity depends not only on deep thinking but also on how effectively you skim, search, scan, and rapidly assess information. These seemingly lightweight interactions determine whether you quickly find what you need—or waste valuable time looking for it. The more knowledge you accumulate, the more important it becomes to have effective ways of finding it again. That's why I created Hookmark, a cognitive productivity tool designed to make information retrieval faster, easier, and more contextual.
Most people think of links as things that open files, web pages, emails, or notes. But what if you could create a link that finds information instead?
That’s exactly what Hookmark’s Search Links do.
Rather than pointing to a single item, a Search Link points to a search. Click it, and Hookmark instantly retrieves whatever currently matches your search—whether that’s one file or twenty. As your information grows and changes, the search results evolve with it.
This opens up some surprisingly powerful workflows. You can create reusable searches for projects, research topics, product names, customer IDs, or any other text that matters to you. Instead of remembering where something lives—or even whether it still lives there—you simply activate the Search Link.
It’s one of Hookmark’s powerful yet least-known capabilities.
I’ve written a short illustrated article that explains how Search Links work and shows several practical examples. If you’re interested in spending less time searching and more time thinking, I think you’ll enjoy it.
👉 Read the article: https://hookproductivity.com/blog/2026/07/find-anything-later-with-hookmark-search-links/
Read more about Hookmark here.
Read my Cognitive Productivity with macOS: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge for more information. It’s a very practical book with over 60 short videos. The seven principles are
I. Principles of self-governance
Principle 1: Lead yourself with knowledge
Principle 2: Manage your cognitive life mindfully
II. Principles of productive information-processing
Principle 3: Assess analytically
Principle 4. Surf strategically
Principle 5. Delve deeply
III. Principles of mastery
Principle 6. Practice productively
Principle 7. Apply knowledge
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