Managing knowledge effectively is essential in today’s information-rich world. Over the years, I’ve experimented with various tools and systems, but Obsidian has emerged as my primary knowledge management platform. In this post, I’ll take you on a tour of my Obsidian vault, showcasing how I’ve structured it to optimize learning, creativity, and productivity. Remember that this is a work in progress—my vault evolves as my needs and ideas do.
Thank you Ian for sharing how you use Obsidian, especially your vault under the hood. Always food for thought. I feel that I am well and truly due for a review of my workflow. With regards to Markdown I recently ditched Trello and feel on the edge with Obsidian, still trying to workout how to make it all best fit.
My take-away from all of this is that the cost of these things is really adding up. I feel like my ‘Sunday drive’ of a blog really does not cut it. It would seem to do all this properly I am going to end up with a multitude of subscriptions. I guess in not paying for the various efficiencies gained with Sync or Readwise then it is costing me my time? Food for thought I guess.
https://i0.wp.com/craphound.com/images/26Oct2024.jpg?w=840&ssl=1 Today’s links Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers: The single best part of “Getting Things Done.” Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find …
This is as simple as things could possibly be! I literally just type “WAITING,” then a space, then the category of thing I’m waiting for, then a few specifics, then the date. When I follow up on an item, I add the date of the followup to the end of the line. If I get some details that I might need to reference later (say, a tracking code for a shipment, or a date for an event I’m trying to organize), I’ll add that, too, as it comes up. Creating a new entry on this list takes 10-25 seconds. When someone gets back to me, I just delete that line.
Cory Doctorow reflects upon the idea of a ‘suspense file’ in which he records things he is waiting on others for. This is a part of his wider engagement with David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
As requested, here is my list of ten tools. Although not meant to be in any order, I have ordered my list based on use and importance:
WordPress – WordPress is where I ‘collect the dots‘ in my ‘Collect‘ site and join them together in some sort of response in my main site. This has completely replaced my use of social bookmarking applications, such as Diigo, which I finally let go last year. Also, if I reply to anyone on the web, my reply starts on my site and is then syndicated elsewhere either via webmentions or manually.
Libby (and BorrowBox, Libro.Fm, Spotify and Audible) – I (re)turned to reading/listening to books lately as my main source of ‘dots’. I have always read books, but they had become secondary to staying on top of various feeds. Now I often find myself churning through audiobooks on walks or while doing jobs around the house. My local library has a subscription with Libby by Overdrive, which I use to borrow books. However, I also use Bolinda Audio’s Borrowbox via the local library and Spotify at times, as well as purchase books from Libro.Fm and Audible.
Moon+ Reader Pro – If I cannot find a book in audiobook, I will read it or listen to it on my Android phone via Moon+ Reader Pro. Although I have used Kindle in the past for this purpose, I like the options and flexibility that Moon+ Reader Pro provides. I also often use this app to annotate books that I listen to as audiobooks.
Inoreader – For content online, I try and syphon everything through Inoreader, this includes Mastodon. Gone are my days of dipping in and out of streams. Sadly, I am no longer able to pull my Twitter feed into Inoreader, therefore I only use Twitter now to respond to certain people in certain situations.
Pocket – When I find an interesting article, I often save it to Pocket to read or listen to later. However, I must admit, I do not get through my saves as I once did, especially after putting pause on my monthly newsletter.
AntennaPod – I use AntennaPod for podcasts. It does what I need, but I really wish I had a cleaner way of collating what I listen to, other than sharing out elsewhere.
Obsidian – I have started using Obsidian after discovering that I could easily pull all my annotations from Kindle with ease. I now pull my annotations from Moon+ Reader and keep track of the podcasts I listen to, sort of. I do not really use it to backlink etc, actually I do not use it that well, especially as I do not pay for it meaning that I have a vault on my phone and on my work computer. I often use it as a place to carve ideas out in Markdown. I used to use Trello for this, but it was feel a little too over-engineered for what I was trying to do, while I also use Literal a bit to track the books that I have been reading, but at the end of the day, Obsidian is (currently) my dumping ground.
1Password – I would not usually consider a password manager as a learning tool per se, but I cannot argue with Harold Jarche when he states that it “simplifies my online life and gives me more time for learning.”
Google Sheets – As with 1Password, Google Sheets is not necessarily a tool that I learn from, but it is a tool that helps streamline a lot of my learning and makes it more ‘doable‘. For example, I realised that I did not have a clean process for recording my professional development required for my teacher registration, so I made a spreadsheet with a separate tab that allows me to collate the different standards associated with the learning.
YouTube – I do not watch a lot of video, often preferring books and podcasts. However, there are times when I do look things up, check videos from channels I have subscribed to or saved to watch later after they have come up in my Inoreader feed.
I’ve heard Doctorow speak, and he’s incredibly persuasive: he has that rare talent of making everything he says sound like it’s completely obvious, and each successive piece of logic as inexorable as Lego pieces joining. Also: I’ve no idea how he produces so much, day after day, and finds time to sleep and eat.
I often wonder the same thing Charles. I struggle to keep up with all of Cory’s work, let alone to consider the amount of time and effort that must go into it. I think he clearly must have well honed habits. Just wonder if there is any downtime in his life?
My go-tos for reporting, research, and writing. “Writing Tools I Use All The Time” is published by Clive Thompson.
Clive Thompson reflects upon the writing tools he uses. Although written from the perspective of a Mac, I was intrigued by Scribd, which I clearly had not explored properly as a platform. I also liked the reference to Blackwing pencils, I feel I take this side of the way I work for granted at times.
As Sarah mentioned on Twitter the other day, if there’s an organized (open source) effort to provide a world-class writing experience in WordPress, I would absolutely invest my time.
If This Then That (IFTTT), a web-based service that lets you set up useful task flows between popular apps (like sync photos you post on Twitter to your Dropbox storage) is adding a paid tier after a decade of being available for free.
More importantly, it’s reducing free tier usage to three applets (tasks). The company said it’s taking this step to “better align our Pro product roadmap with the needs of our most active Applet creators.”
IFTTT’s decision to limit how many free applets are available is not a surprise. A reminder of why we need to be mindful about ‘free’ options when it comes to workflows.
It’s too painful to quickly get frequent notes into note taking and related platforms. Hypothes.is has an open API and a great UI that can be leveraged to simplify note taking processes.
I really enjoyed your reflections Chris. I feel that I need to be way more deliberate about choices and workflow. My frustration is still with mobile.
There’s probably a level to this where I need to figure out what’s best for my workflow while also finding something that I would like to be engaged with. Maybe I just need to start tossing things around and talking about how they connect.
Jeremy, I actually use Trello to compile my posts. I have written more about my actual workflow here. I am still unhappy with this, but have not managed to come up with anything better that works across both mobile and desktop.
For me, the ideal set-up is much less about the hardware or software I am using. It’s about the ideas that I’m thinking through and whether or not I can sort them out and shape them up in ways that make for a good piece of writing. Ideally, that does require some comfort — a space for sustained concentration. (I know better than to require an ideal set up in order to write. I’d never get anything done.)
Audrey Watters unpacks her workflow. As always, she takes the conversation around technology beyond the mere software or hardware to the technology as a system.
I could talk about how I lead my life, and how I like to balance doing leadership, doing creative work, interacting with people, and doing things that let me learn. I could talk about how I try to set things up so that what I’ve already built doesn’t keep me so busy I can’t start anything new. But instead what I’m going to focus on here is my more practical personal infrastructure: the technology and other things that help me live and work better, feel less busy, and be more productive every day.
There are many that document their workflow, but not many go to the depth and detail as Stephen Wolfram. What stands out to me is how deliberate he has been about everything and for so long. A useful reminder that there are always opportunities if we are willing.
Cory Doctorow
Jeremy Felt
Chris Aldrich