PTPL 029: Go Ahead and Build That Sarcophagus If You Want To
PTPL 029: Go Ahead and Build That Sarcophagus If You Want To
Plus slowing down when you need to, and how I'm keeping the wheels on my Obsidian monthly log
Today I’ll be talking about —
How it’s okay to slow down when you need to, and do things differently for a while
How a packet of Cheetos in a sarcophagus taught me it’s okay to have things in our productivity systems that don’t make sense to anyone else but us
How I thought the wheels were going to fall off my monthly log experiment this week, until I realised they weren’t actually loose
My Plus Minus Next weekly review template has been getting some internet love 💚
Productivity Inspiration
This week, my sleep has been on the awful side of its usual bad to middling, so the only productivity inspiration that’s standing out to me today is this:
Sometimes you just gotta slow down.
It’s okay to do things differently when your brain is feeling more like scrambled eggs than elegant leetle grey cells.
I had a piece started but not quite gelling from a few months ago, that I was able to pull together quickly on the weekend. Its message just needed to sit a-while, because now — with a few tweaks — it perfectly expresses what I want to say. And it was a great way to get my story quota in even though the tank was running on empty.
My dear dad, when he was with us, called this the Silly Season. I love this time of year, but can see why he named it that. Here’s the piece I pulled out of a hat (connected to my heart) this week, on how to turn the silly into serene:
Productivity Tips
There’s a benefit to taking notes even if you never revisit them, says Rick Mans
Here’s a totally random video of a guy building a crazy-heavy sarcophagus to house a packet of Cheetos for the next 10,000 years. Think of it as your reminder that not everything in your productivity system has to make sense to anyone else, or to be immediately practical. Sometimes it’s nice to do something just because you want to. (As long as you’re not using that crazy idea as an excuse to procrastinate the important stuff.)
Adventures in Plain Text
The monthly log experiment: time to give up?
It’s been 2 weeks now of keeping a monthly log instead of daily and weekly notes. That nearly changed on Thursday when I participated in a live presentation called Mindful Productivity in Obsidian, on Ness Labs (for members only). Haikal Kushahrin, the presenter, waved his sweetly scented daily notes before our eyes and I felt the pull back to the simplicity I was seeing.
I’d mentally decided to reinstate daily and weekly notes into my system, but when it came to actually doing it, my intuition said, What for? What benefit would all those itty bitty files (potentially 365 of them) give me, that my monthly log doesn’t?
Until I have an answer to that question, 12 logs per year it is.
Plus Minus Next Weekly Review
The Plus Minus Next weekly review is going great! Could it be those cute little season-colour-themed emojis representing each month? Or the fact that my entire year is laid out in advance? Or the way it’s simplified my previous permanently procrastinated weekly reviews? Yes, yes, and yes.
Feeling chuffed and a wee bit giddy that not only did Eleanor Konik mention my simple little template in her Obsidian Roundup newsletter, but Anne-Laure le Cunff will also be linking to it in next week’s Ness Labs newsletter. This learning in public is a whole heap of scary fun, I can tell you!