PTPL 067: My EDC is a Mother Ship and a Compact Explorer Pod (Photos)

PLUS Using habit fields to program your surroundings for focused work

Aug 28, 2023

Plain text, Paper, Less (PTPL) Productivity Digest, text-based image by the Author

Welcome! I’m Ellane, and this is a once-a-week summary of things that are helping me to simplify and future-proof my digital-analog workflow.

Habit Fields: shape your environment so that it can shape you

Thanks to Josh Spector’s For The Interested newsletter, I’ve learned a new term for a phenomenon I’ve been aware of for years. Habit Fields are the behavioural associations we make with the things and places around us.

Great suggestion: don’t relax with social media in your work chair! Instead, deliberately get up and move to a designated down-time spot. This way you’ll be more successful at training yourself to stay focused when at your work station.

This somewhat obliquely reminds me of the time travel trick I use to help me get things done when I’m having trouble being motivated: rephrase the task as if it was already done.

This To Do List Hack Has My Rebellious Brain Actually Wanting to Get Things Done!

Ellane

August 25, 2023

Read full story

Hand writing my plain text is great therapy

I recently wrote about how I’m writing my morning pages in Nebo on my iPad (because I can’t justify the expense of a reMarkable 2), then exporting them to Drafts and from thence to my daily note. These daily notes do currently reside in an Obsidian vault, but I’ve changed my mindset to view them as independent files rather than Obsidian files.

Every Day Carry: paper and tech

Torso of a person wearing black trousers and a fluffy cream jacket, standing in front of some stairs. They are wearing a khaki-coloured, compact cross body bag, and holding a opened, pocket sized black notebook. — Photo of and by the Author

Since purchasing a small cross-body bag as my every day carry (I call it my Explorer Pod), I’ve started using the pocket sized Moleskine cahier as an on-the-go notebook. Really liking the constraints of the smaller size so far.

Also in this pouch is my minimalist wallet, keys, lip balm, pen, bandaids, tiny bottle of lavender oil (great first aid for mild burns), comb, glasses, hand cleaning sachet, and phone.

An open notebook with off-white pages and thick-ish dark grey ink (the pen is a Pilot Frixion). Two thirds of the text is written right side up, and the last third is upside down. Text reads: Habit Fields — James Cheng. Make strong associations with the types of behaviour you want to encourage in yourself, and the spaces and things associated with them. MOVE to a different space to that in which you want to focus on work, to relax with social media. Posca markers, water based. Domestika. — Image by Author

My trusty A5 Paper Saver recycled paper notebook is still going strong, living full time now in what I fondly refer to as The Mothership (my new portable office convertible backpack), alongside my 12 inch iPad Pro, 16 inch MacBook Pro, cable bag, double glasses case, and inflatable pillow.

A dark grey bag with a tan leather label is leaning against some steps. The handles are a lighter grey. A tan zipper pull can be seen on the left hand side of the front of the bag, and the author’s khaki cross-body pouch is poking out the top. — Image by the Author

I love seeing other people’s every day carry setups, so I may do a detailed what’s-in-my-bag at some point. Is this is something that would interest you? Let me know in the comments!

The Plain Text, Paper-Less Productivity Digest explores productivity through a future-proof, plain text mindset, with a soft spot for the paper that counts.

Click here for more things I’ve written about Obsidian, and here for past issues of this newsletter. Non-Medium members can access a selection of past PTPL editions for free, on my blog.

Download some free productivity goodies (including an Obsidian Planner demo vault) here.