PTPL 028: Forget Productivity Hacks —Try Anti-Time Management Instead
Plus sketchnoting, 3 Obsidian plugins I've stopped using, and the monthly log experiment continues
Today I’ll be talking about —
Sketchnoting
Anti-Time Management, and how it can help with overwhelm
My monthly log experiment (it’s going well)
3 Obsidian plugins I’ve stopped using
Productivity Inspiration
Sketchnoting
I’m looking forward to improving my sketchnoting with this course from Eva-Lotta Lamm. It’s on special at the moment because of Black Friday, so if you’re reading this in time, I recommend picking it up. It’s still worth it at the usual price, but keep in mind that Domestika have regular sales. I’ve been following Eva-Lotta’s work for some time, and love her visual note taking skills. Note: the audio is in German, with subtitles in multiple languages including English.
Anti-Time Management
It’s common to feel productivity overwhelm, especially towards the end of another calendar year. The answer, according to Richie Norton’s book, “Anti-Time Management”, isn’t another productivity hack, but a complete rethink of what time management means.
When you’re putting in effort to things that aren’t leading to the place you want to go, it’s like you’re climbing a ladder that’s leaning against the wrong wall. Aristotle called it “Final cause”.
“Once you realize the final cause, you can change the decision tree around who you want to be and what you really want to do and set up from the dream instead of working endlessly toward it,” says Norton.
For example, you may want to create a table. You might make a design, hire a contractor, and build a table. “That’s great if the goal is to have an heirloom table, but what if the purpose was just to have dinner?” says Norton. “What does success look like after success? Once you understand that, you might realize you could have gotten UberEATS or gone to a food truck. In that process, steps disappear, and you get your time back because the steps weren’t necessary at all.”
While it’s good to begin with the dream in mind, I think it’s also fine to change the dream along the way if it’s no longer somewhere you want to go. You don’t need a perfect, finished dream before you begin; just start, and make any needed changes along the way.
I’m about to start week 4 of the Ness Labs Mindful Productivity course, and this concept melds well with what we’ve been learning.
It’s too late to join cohort 1, but I’d recommend anyone looking for a path to simplified productivity to sign up and take the course at your own pace. You’ll also have access to a great community, and other self-paced courses like From Collector to Creator. No affiliates here, I just really like what Anne-Laure and Ness Labs have to offer.
Productivity Tips
Keysmith is a good Keyboard Maestro alternative for simpler macros, for people who already have a Setapp subscription. Thanks to JG for telling me about it.
Here’s a vault from Wolfram Kläger you can download to see how he handles tasks in Obsidian. It’s a note first approach.
Adventures in Plain Text
The monthly log experiment is going well
For the past week, I’ve left my daily and weekly pages to gather dust after copying those existing notes into one monthly log. So far, so good! I like the simplicity of having 12 files for the year instead of 52 + 365. I can no longer see the need to keep daily and weekly notes in separate files.
Now that I have a full month of notes in one place, I can say with confidence that it’s not unwieldy at all! Obsidian’s outline pane makes it easy to navigate each monthly page, and iA Writer’s table of contents is a more than adequate workaround.
I did have one hair-raising scare when Obsidian somehow deleted the contents of that file, but fortunately I got it back thanks to Backblaze (affiliate link). I’d turned off my Dropbox backup plugins when I thought I’d be moving my vault back to Dropbox, and forgot to turn them back on. Very thankful for Backblaze working in the background!
FYI after completely uninstalling then reinstalling Obsidian, it’s back on its best behaviour.
Plus Minus Next Weekly Review
Here’s a free copy of the very simple Markdown weekly review template I’ve set up for myself to use in 2023. Expect an article on this soon.
Plus Minus Next - Weekly Reviews
This is my take on recording a year's worth of Plus Minus Next weekly reviews in a plain text app like Obsidian or iAWriter…miscellaneplans.gumroad.com
Obsidian plugins I’ve stopped using
I tried out the Make plugin, but didn’t like the way it took over the file list in the left sidebar. Might try again when it’s out of beta.
Another plugin I love, but have to turn off when working with narrow columns, is floating toc. Most of the time it’s lovely to use, but I repeatedly found myself accidentally activating it. That got annoying very quickly.
Various Complements is impressive and has the potential to be very helpful in creating links between notes, but I turned it off because I haven’t yet mastered how to keep typing at speed without links automatically inserting themselves. That’s a user issue, but this week I had typing-intensive work to get done so it didn’t feel like a great time to learn a new skill.