It's been a long journey for me in finding the right mix of tools to aid my study of scripture. It started with Olive Tree's Bible Study app, eventually moved to Ulysses [https://thesweetsetup.com/how-to-use-ulysses-for-long-term-research/], and now, thanks to my exposure to the Zettelkasten system, Obsidian is now the home of my notes. This is one of those topics where each individual could have a slightly different setup than the next person. But tools like Roam Research [https://thesweetset…
It's been interesting to watch Buffer move to a four-day workweek and share their results. > The four-day work week resulted in sustained productivity levels and a better sense of work-life balance. These were the exact results we’d hoped to see, and they helped us challenge the notion that we need to work the typical ‘nine-to-five,’ five days a week. It’s worth noting that though we’ve seen sustained productivity levels, we’ve been gauging that based on teammate feedback and not company-wide g…
In a tool like Obsidian, direct, manually created links are the best way to connect your thinking across notes. This is the default behaviour of the Zettelkasten, and I appreciate the emphasis [https://zettelkasten.de/posts/backlinks-are-bad-links/] it's given by the folks at Zettelkasten.de [https://zettelkasten.de]. However, I'm also not against using other forms of linking notes together. There's value to being able to see connections across topics, and for that use case, tags work well. Bu…
Yeah, I don't normally link to Wikipedia here. But I came across this recently when looking something up and it really sucked me in. Having spent 25+ years of my life reading this series, some of the books 5–10 times, I consider myself to have a fairly intimate knowledge of the story. But the Wikipedia entry introduced some concepts that were new to me right from the start: > The series is set in an unnamed world that, due to the cyclical nature of time as depicted in the series, is simultaneo…
Here's a a topic that make me feel old. Despite the title (we're likely nowhere near the "last word" on Bitcoin), this article challenges a few of the ideas I've had about cryptocurrencies. I've long held the view that anything related to blockchain technology is negative — the environmental impact is simply too high. But I confess I barely understand how this stuff all works. Nic Carter makes a few points that challenge the common assumptions and got me thinking about this once more: > Anothe…
I enjoyed this article from Zakk Fleischmann. In it, he talks about how spending $5 for a Starbucks coffee is a "leak" and how this trickles into other areas of life. > Poker players have this concept called a leak: a blind spot that causes you to consistently make an error. As an example, a very common rookie leak is to only raise (put in more money) when you have a good hand. You can see why this would be problematic: after a few rounds, an observant opponent will be able to tell when you hav…
As the year has rolled along and the days are starting to get a little longer up here in the north, I've been enjoying my use of Obsidian more and more. As I mentioned in the past about Roam, these tools are additive. The more you use them, the more valuable they feel. This isn't by accident — you have to make meaningful connections between your notes (as I mentioned here). But as you make those connections, you experience the feeling of building. Your base of knowledge matures a little more.…
William Van Hecke has an interesting idea for how to use his time. Based on a concept he read in a Neal Stephenson novel, he organizes his time in ten day periods: > Time is divided into ten-day decades. (We commonly use the word “decade” to mean ten years, nowadays, but prior to the 16th century, it could mean any collection of ten things, including days.) I love my desynchronized rhythms; the 10-day decade and the 7-day week create a healthy polymeter that drifts in and out of sync over time.…