Reading Time: 2 minNot long ago, Grey and Myke from the excellent Cortex podcast released a new product called the “Sidekick Notepad“. It’s a paper notepad, intended to go between you and your keyboard, for quick notes throughout the day. Here’s a photo of it from their site: In listening to how it came together, it seems like […]
Productivity
Use fleeting notes to avoid yak shaving
Reading Time: 2 minBefore I dig into this post too much, I should probably quickly explain the title. Fleeting notes (or disposable notes) are those quick notes that you take during the day. This could be using Apple Notes or Google Keep, or even just a notepad on your desk. Yak shaving is when you have one issue […]
Do you want to garden your notes or not?
Reading Time: 3 minAs I’ve shared before, I’m all-in on using Obsidian for my note-taking right now. I’m very happy with how things are set up, and it’s working very well for me. As I’ve used various note-taking platforms over the years, I’ve grouped them together in different ways. One way I recently shared was Sync vs Saas […]
Don’t forget about the medium ties
Reading Time: 2 minMany books talk about the difference between “strong ties” and “weak ties” in your network, and understanding the difference can be very beneficial. Strong ties are the roughly 150 people that you can stay in regular contact with, known as “Dunbar’s Number“. These are your friends and colleagues that you see regularly, and it’s difficult […]
Sync vs SaaS
Reading Time: 2 minWith my recent decision to stick with Obsidian, it got me thinking about the two types of products that I use: Sync The two main sync tools that I use are Obsidian and Anki. Both sync to the cloud for access from multiple computers, but all of the data that you use lives directly on […]
What to read next?
Reading Time: 3 minWhen I finish a book, I often have a small struggle to determine what to read next. I largely addressed it last summer when I set up more meta data around my book library, but I’ve recently taken it a bit further. Thanks to tips from folks like Adam Walker, I now have a good […]
Obsidian wins for now
Reading Time: 2 minA few months ago I started playing with the idea of migrating my notes from Obsidian over to Tana. Tana is a fantastic system and a great tool, but I’ve ultimately decided to keep things in Obsidian for a few reasons. Ownership While I have faith that Tana will be around for a while, using […]
Personal note-taking is going to change dramatically
Reading Time: 2 minMy history of using different note-taking tools over the years is well-documented in this blog, including my recent move from Obsidian to Tana. While Tana has some great features and I really enjoy using it, it’s ultimately just a slightly better version of the tools that came before it and I may end up moving […]
Use paper to assist thinking, but store everything digitally
Reading Time: 2 minFor about three years now, I’ve been loosely following the Zettelkasten method of taking notes (here’s what that is) and I’m quite pleased with how it’s going. I’m finding that having everything in one system (daily notes, book notes, meeting notes, church notes, other ideas, etc) is amazingly valuable. I’m currently using Tana for that, […]
Duplicate your calendar
Reading Time: < 1 minAs time goes on, I’m finding more and more value in duplicating my calendar. I don’t mean duplicating in terms of having a backup (though that’s certainly wise), but in literally copying all of your appointments by hand to a different system. I started this about three years ago with the Full Focus Planner. Each […]