PTPL 037: Analog: the (Very Cool) To-Do List Holder Used by Ali Abdaal and Shawn Blanc

Plus, separating capture and curation from content creation, and lessons from a physical Zettelkasten

Jan 30, 2023

Plain text, Paper, Less Productivity Digest 37 image by Author

This week —

Should capture and curation live in a space separate from content production? (Matt Giaro, Chuck Frey)
Lessons from a physical Zettelkasten (Herbert Lui)
Why I’ve removed the plain text Bible from my Obsidian vault
A cool to do list holder (Ali Abdaal and Shawn Blanc use it)

Productivity Tips and Inspiration

PKM is Sophisticated Procrastination, Says Sam Matla

Here’s my writeup and sketchnote of a 20-minute video that’s well worth the watch. It’s going to call you out big-time if you’re still justifying working on your productivity system more than you’re working in it.

Cropped image of a sketchnote of Sam Matla’s video. A large yellow oval in the middle contains white writing that reads: PKM: Sophisticated Procrastination? — Graphic by Author

Should Capture and Curation always be separate from Content Production?

Matt Giaro thinks we should separate our capture and curation process from content production. What do you think? I’m letting the idea settle for a while before I come to any conclusions.

I heard about this from an article by Chuck Frey, who treats Obsidian as a sacrosanct space for his writing. Here is Chuck’s affiliate link for Matt’s free email mini-course on the topic if you’re interested.

Lessons from a physical Zettelkasten

Herbert Lui moved his Zettelkasten from physical cards, to Notion. I won’t be following his lead (i.e. switching to Notion) because I want to stay in control of my data, but I did like the thinking behind his process.

He writes a new note almost everyday, and doesn’t worry about how important it is. Just dumps them all in together, and lets the clear thinking emerge over time.
He leverages the constraints of physical cards to avoid distraction, and keep his notes brief.
He spends just enough time working on the structure of his Zettelkasten to make it easier for forgotten notes to emerge at the right time.
As long as he can easily export all his cards, Herbert doesn’t mind which digital platform he used to work with his notes. Portability is king.
He has a regular review process for refining and linking new notes into existing notes.
He believes that the best Zettelkasten method is the one that works for you.

Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)

Bye-bye Bible

This week I removed the Bible from my Obsidian vault, to see if it would fix the issues I’d been having with the Obsidian iOS apps (synced via iCloud). Can’t say I was surprised to see that an extra 45K files really do make a difference!

Sigh.

iA Writer can handle something that breaks Obsidian’s mobile apps without breaking a sweat, almost certainly because of its simplicity. I’ll live without access to my plain text Bible for a while, and see whether or not it’s worth losing access to the Obsidian mobile apps.

Time to choose:

Bible + iA Writer on iOS

No Bible + Obsidian on iOS

In a perfect world, I’d have all the wisdom literature I could lay my hands on in my vault. Shakespeare, Stoic literature, everything. Maybe I just need to see things from a different perspective? What I want is to be able to link to anything, from anywhere. In other words, I want to live in a world where ubiquitous linking is built into the fabric of all our digital interactions.

Until that time, I’ll be strategic with what’s available.

A white desk with a walnut wooden stand on the right. A hand-sized card with a handwritten to do list stands upright at the front of the stand. Text on the left of the screen reads “Productivity has never been easier”. — Screenshot from Ugmonk

Super cool to-do list holder by Ugmonk Analog

This to-do list holder is very simple, and surprisingly popular. You’ll be scratching your head with one hand (it’s just a piece of paper for your to do’s, after all) while reaching for your wallet with the other.

My Paper Saver notebook holds my daily to do’s, and I’m happy to stick with it. Lest you think I’m not a fan of the sleek, wooden Analog, rest assured I’d be very happy to use it! …If it was a gift. But then, I’m also someone who’ll feel good about walking past Subway at lunch time to go home to curried baked beans on toast — with that $15 still in my pocket.

One of the video reviews for the Analog was left by someone I’d never heard of before, Chase Reeves. He’s an analog + Obsidian guy (yes! right up my alley), and has many insightful things to share. He’s a bit of a fan of gros mots (and I’m not), so here’s your language warning for the last half of the video.