PTPL 035 : The Japanese-Inspired Paper Calendar Template That's Keeping Me Focused
Plus, The bravery of destroying childhood journals, and corralling the wild inboxes of my life
Today I’ll be talking about —
How one brave individual torched their childhood journals, and felt better for it
The Hyphenation plugin
Using Glasp and AI to summarise long podcasts
Taming the wild inboxes of my life
Planning my month in three different locations
Productivity Inspiration
This article by Kai X Fenix tugged on my nostalgic, journal-keeping heartstrings.
Kai came to the conclusion that keeping the journals that had served as an outlet for much childhood venting, wasn’t doing them or anyone else any good.
While journaling is cathartic, destroying all of my childhood journals after honoring all they were able to provide me with was freeing
My newly renovated bedroom looks nice, except for the massive box of journals from years past. I strongly suspect it’s time to digitise the highlights, then ditch the originals. It’s time to take back the pieces of my heart I’ve stored in there, or, more accurately, to embrace the truth that my heart is and always was whole, and right where it should be.
Productivity Tips
≣ The Hyphenation plugin can justify your text in Obsidian and add hyphenation when needed. I tried it out while writing this newsletter, but quickly returned to range left. Justification is something I typically stay away from, but it can be useful for seeing your work through a slightly different lens or for using blocks of text as a design element.
In this article (part 1 of a 2-part series) Ric Raftis shares how he uses Glasp to auto-generate transcripts of YouTube videos, then sets AI the task of creating a summary of it. He finds it especially handy for super long podcasts, like the Huberman Lab, where podcast episodes can last up to four hours each.
I’ve been using the new Arc browser for just over a month now. So far I’ve learned that the term browser in no way does it justice, and that it’s refined my productivity so much, I’d sorely miss it if it were gone. Read more.
Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)
Corralling the wild inboxes of my life
The issues I’ve been having with my plain text task management system have more to do with my poor habits than with the system itself.
Habit 1 — Inboxes
This week I’ll be working on taming some rogue inboxes that have popped up without me noticing. David Allen has it right: too many inboxes make it harder to get things done.
1 🟢 = Keep;
2 🟠 = Danger: easy to lose track;
3 🔴 = Stop! Pass these to another inbox
Must and Should folders in Obsidian 🟢 (1)
Drafts inbox 🟢–🟠 (1–2)
Reminders 🟢 (1)
Pinned emails 🔴 (3)
Paper notebook 🟢–🟠 (1–2)
Habit 2 — Daily Inbox Review
The daily review is something past-me did naturally, and was therefore very good at it. Present-me is determined to regain that strength.
Strategy: set an alarm to go off during my usual early morning reading time, and press snooze rather than stop until I’ve perused every inbox. I’ll put a tick in the corner of each day (in my paper calendar) I get it done.
Planning on a paper calendar — who even does that any more??
Week three of using paper to plan my month, using this updated template:
My favourite thing about it thus far is the way my handwriting brings to mind what I was thinking about as I wrote each entry. It’s crazy that it can do that! Or maybe I’m crazy for seeing a window to the hopes and aspirations I’d had when writing. Whatever the origin of the crazy, if it works, it’s staying.
The inefficiency of maintaining three month-view calendars (digital, wall, paper notebook) is, ironically, a key part of what’s making it work well for me. Writing down my (admittedly few) appointments three times has a strangely soothing affect on my pleasantly twisted, introverted soul, as does seeing the same information laid out in three different contexts.
In this article I go into detail about the Australian made, architect-designed Paper Saver notebook, which is where I’m keeping my calendar sheets. I also describe the cheeky hack I use to digitise them.
In brief, Paper Saver is an empty notebook cover, with a thin, vertical metal bar going down the inside centre to keep loose pages in place. The premise is that many people waste standard sized paper that has only been printed on one side. Oh Paper Saver, where have you been all my life!