Podcasts about roam research

On this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, I, Stewart Alsop, sit down with Brendon Wong, the founder of Unize.org. We explore Brendon's work in knowledge management, touching on his recent talk at Nodes 2024 about using AI to generate knowledge graphs and trends in the field. Our conversation covers the evolution of personal and organizational knowledge management, the future of object-oriented systems, the integration of AI with knowledge graphs, and the challenges of autonomous agents. For more on Brendon's work, check out unize.org and his articles at web10.ai.Check out this GPT we trained on the conversation!Timestamps00:00 Introduction to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast00:35 Exploring Unise: A Knowledge Management App01:01 The Evolution of Knowledge Management02:32 Personal Knowledge Management Trends03:10 Object-Oriented Knowledge Management05:27 The Future of Knowledge Graphs and AI10:37 Challenges in Simulating the Human Mind22:04 Knowledge Management in Organizations26:57 The Role of Autonomous Agents30:00 Personal Experiences with Sleep Aids30:07 Unique Human Perceptions32:08 Knowledge Management Journey33:31 Personal Knowledge Management Systems34:36 Challenges in Knowledge Management35:26 Future of Knowledge Management with AI36:29 Melatonin and Sleep Patterns37:30 AI and the Future of the Internet43:39 Reasoning and AI Limitations48:33 The Future of AI and Human Reasoning52:43 Conclusion and Contact InformationKey InsightsThe Evolution of Knowledge Management: Brendon Wong highlights how knowledge management has evolved from personal note-taking systems to sophisticated, object-oriented models. He emphasizes the shift from traditional page-based structures, like those in Roam Research and Notion, to systems that treat information as interconnected objects with defined types and properties, enhancing both personal and organizational knowledge workflows.The Future Lies in Object-Oriented Knowledge Systems: Brendon introduces the concept of object-oriented knowledge management, where data is organized as distinct objects (e.g., books, restaurants, ideas) with specific attributes and relationships. This approach enables more dynamic organization, easier data retrieval, and better contextual understanding, setting the stage for future advancements in knowledge-based applications.AI and Knowledge Graphs Are a Powerful Combination: Brendon discusses the synergy between AI and knowledge graphs, explaining how AI can generate, maintain, and interact with complex knowledge structures. This integration enhances memory, reasoning, and information retrieval capabilities, allowing AI systems to support more nuanced and context-aware decision-making processes.The Limitations of Current AI Models: While AI models like LLMs have impressive capabilities, Brendon points out their limitations, particularly in reasoning and long-term memory. He notes that current models excel at pattern recognition but struggle with higher-level reasoning tasks, often producing hallucinations when faced with unfamiliar or niche topics.Challenges in Organizational Knowledge Management: Brendon and Stewart discuss the persistent challenges of implementing knowledge management in organizations. Despite its critical role, knowledge management is often underappreciated and the first to be cut during budget reductions. The conversation highlights the need for systems that are both intuitive and capable of reducing the manual burden on users.The Potential and Pitfalls of Autonomous Agents: The episode explores the growing interest in autonomous and semi-autonomous agents powered by AI. While these agents can perform tasks with minimal human intervention, Brendon notes that the technology is still in its infancy, with limited real-world applications and significant room for improvement, particularly in reliability and task generalization.Reimagining the Future of the Internet with Web 10: Brendon shares his vision for Web 10, an ambitious rethinking of the internet where knowledge is better structured, verified, and interconnected. This future internet would address current issues like misinformation and data fragmentation, creating a more reliable and meaningful digital ecosystem powered by AI-driven knowledge graphs.

Stephanie has a newfound interest in urban foraging for serviceberries in Chicago. Joël discusses how he uses AI tools like ChatGPT to generate creative Dungeons & Dragons character concepts and backstories, which sparks a broader conversation with Stephanie about AI's role in enhancing the creative process. Together, the hosts delve into professional growth and experience, specifically how to leverage everyday work to foster growth as a software developer. They discuss the importance of self-reflection, note-taking, and synthesizing information to enhance learning and professional development. Stephanie shares her strategies for capturing weekly learnings, while Joël talks about his experiences using tools like Obsidian's mind maps to process and synthesize new information. This leads to a broader conversation on the value of active learning and how structured reflection can turn routine work experiences into meaningful professional growth. Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/) Zettelkasten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten) Mindmaps in Mermaid.js (https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/mindmap.html) Module Docs episode (https://bikeshed.thoughtbot.com/417) Writing Quality Method docs blog post (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/writing-quality-method-docs) Notetaking for Developers episode (https://bikeshed.thoughtbot.com/357) Learning by Helping blog post (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/learning-by-helping) Transcript:  JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Joël Quenneville. STEPHANIE: And I'm Stephanie Minn. And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world? STEPHANIE: So, as of today, while we record this, it's early June, and I have started foraging a little bit for what's called serviceberries, which is a type of tree/shrub that is native to North America. And I feel like it's just one of those, like, things that more people should know about because it makes these little, tiny, you know, delicious fruit that you can just pick off of the tree and have a little snack. And what's really cool about this tree is that, like I said, it's native, at least to where I'm from, and it's a pretty common, like, landscaping tree. So, it has, like, really pretty white flowers in the spring and really beautiful, like, orange kind of foliage in the fall. So, they're everywhere, like, you can, at least where I'm at in Chicago, I see them a lot just out on the sidewalks. And whenever I'm taking a walk, I can just, yeah, like, grab a little fruit and have a little snack on them. It's such a delight. They are a really cool tree. They're great for birds. Birds love to eat the berries, too. And yeah, a lot of people ask my partner, who's an arborist, like, if they're kind of thinking about doing something new with the landscaping at their house, they're like, "Oh, like, what are some things that I should plant?" And serviceberry is his recommendation. And now I'm sharing it with all of our Bike Shed listeners. If you've ever wondered about [laughs] a cool and environmentally beneficial tree [laughs] to add to your front yard, highly recommend, yeah, looking out for them, looking up what they look like, and maybe you also can enjoy some June foraging. JOËL: That's interesting because it sounds like you're foraging in an urban environment, which is typically not what I associate with the idea of foraging. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's a great point because I live in a city. I don't know, I take what I can get [laughs]. And I forget that you can actually forage for real out in, you know, nature and where there's not raccoons and garbage [laughs]. But yeah, I think I should have prefaced by kind of sharing that this is a way if you do live in a city, to practice some urban foraging, but I'm sure that these trees are also out in the world, but yeah, have proved useful in an urban environment as well. JOËL: It's really fun that you don't have to, like, go out into the countryside to do this activity. It's a thing you can do in the environment that you live in. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that was one of the really cool things that I got into the past couple of years is seeing, even though I live in a city, there's little pieces of nature around me that I can engage with and picking fruit off of people's [inaudible 03:18] [laughs], like, not people's, but, like, parkway trees. Yeah, the serviceberry is also a pretty popular one here that's planted in the Chicago parks. So, yeah, it's just been like, I don't know, a little added delight to my days [laughs], especially, you know, just when you're least expecting it and you stumble upon it. It's very fun. JOËL: That is really fun. It's great to have a, I guess, a snack available wherever you go. STEPHANIE: Anyway, Joël, what is new in your world? JOËL: I've been intersecting two, I guess, hobbies of mine: D&D and AI. I've been playing a lot of one-shot games with friends, and that means that I need to constantly come up with new characters. And I've been exploring what AI can do to help me develop more interesting or compelling character concepts and backstories. And I've been pretty satisfied with the result. STEPHANIE: Cool. Yeah. I mean, if you're playing a lot and having to generate a lot of new ideas, it can be hard if you're, you know, just feeling a little empty [laughs] in terms of, you know, coming up with a whole character. And that reminds me of a conversation that you and I had in person, like, last month as we were talking about just how you've been, you know, experimenting with AI because you had used it to generate images for your RailsConf talk. And I think I connected it to the idea of, like, randomness [laughs] and how just injecting some of that can help spark some more, I think, creativity, or just help you think of things in a new way, especially if you're just, like, having a hard time coming up with stuff on your own. And even if you don't, like, take exactly what's kind of provided to you in a generative AI, it at least, I don't know, kind of presents you with something that you didn't see before, or yeah, it's just something to react to. JOËL: Yeah, it's a great tool for getting unstuck from that kind of writer's block or that, like, blank page feeling. And oftentimes, it'll give you a thing, and you're like, that's not really exactly what I wanted. But it sparks another idea, which is what I actually want. Or sometimes you can be like, "Hey, here's an idea I have. I'm not sure what direction to take it in. Give me a few options." And then, you see that, and you're like, "Oh, that's actually pretty interesting." One thing that I think is interesting is once I've come up with a little bit of the character concept, or maybe even, like, a backstory element...so, I'm using ChatGPT, and it has that concept of memory. And so, throughout the conversation, it keeps bringing it back. So, if I tell it, "Look, this is an element that's going to be core to the character," and then later on, I'm like, "Okay, help me brainstorm some potential character flaws for this character," it'll actually find things that connect back to my, like, core concept, or maybe an element of the backstory. And it'll give me like, you know, 5 or 10 different ideas, and some of them can be actually really good. So, I've really enjoyed doing that. It's not so much to just generate me a character so much as it is like a conversation back and forth of like, "Okay, help me come up with a vibe for it. Okay, now that I have a vibe or a backstory element or, like, a concept, help me workshop this thing. And what about that?" And if I want to say, "It's going to be this character class, what are maybe some ways I could develop it that are unusual?" and just sort of step by step kind of choose your own adventure. And it kind of walking me through the process has been really fun. STEPHANIE: Nice. Yeah, the way you're talking about it makes a lot of sense to me how asking it to help you, not necessarily do all of it, like, you know, kind of just spit out something that you're like, okay, like, that's what I'm going to use, approaching it as a tool, and yeah, that's really fun. Have you had good experiences then playing with those characters [chuckles]? JOËL: I have. I think it's also really great for sort of padding out some of the content. So, I had a character I played who was a washed-up politician. And at one point, I knew that I was going to have to make a campaign speech. And I asked ChatGPT, "Can you help me, like...here are the themes I want to hit. Give me a, like, classic, very politician-sounding speech that sounds inspiring but also says nothing at the same time." And it did a really good job of that. And you can tell it, "Oh, that's too long. That's too short. I want three sentences. I want five sentences." And that was great. So, I saved that, brought it to the table, and read out my campaign speech, and it was a hit. STEPHANIE: Amazing. That's really fun. I like that because, yeah, I don't think...I am so poor at just improvising things like that, even though, like, I want to really embody the character. So, that's cool that you found a way to help you be able to do that because that just feels like kind of what playing D&D can be about. JOËL: I've never DM'd, but I could imagine a situation where, because the DMs have to improv so much, and you know what the players do, I could imagine having a tool like that available behind the DM screen being really helpful. So, all of a sudden, someone's just like, "Oh, I went to a place," and, like, all of a sudden, you have to, like, sort of generate a village and, like, ten characters on the spot for people that you didn't expect, or an organization or something like that. I could imagine having a tool like that, especially if it's already primed with elements from your world that you've created, being something really helpful. That being said, I've never DM'd myself, so I have no idea what it actually is like to be on the other side of that screen. STEPHANIE: Cool. I mean, if you ever do try that or have a DM experience and you're like, hmm, I wonder kind of how I might be able to help me here, I bet that would be a very cool experience to share on the show. JOËL: I definitely have to report back here. Something that I've been thinking about a lot recently is the difference between sort of professional growth and experience, so the time that you put into doing work. Particularly maybe because, you know, we spend part of our week doing client work, and then we have part of the week that's dedicated to maybe more directly professional growth: our investment day. How do we grow from that, like, four days a week where we're doing client work? Because not all experience is created equal. Just because I put in the hours doesn't mean that I'm going to grow. And maybe I'm going to feel like I'm in a rut. So, how do I take those four days a week that I'm doing code and transform that into some sort of growth or expansion of my knowledge as a developer? Do you have any sort of tactics that you like to use or ways you try to be a little bit more mindful of that? STEPHANIE: Yeah, this is a fun question for me, and kind of reminds me of something we've talked a little bit about before. I can't remember if it was, like, on air or just separately, but, you know, we talk a lot about, like, different learning strategies on the show, I think, because that's just something you and I are very into. And we often, like, lean on, you know, our investment day, so our Fridays that we get to not do client work and kind of dedicate to professional development. But you and I also try to remember that, like, most people don't have that. And most people kind of are needing to maybe find ways to just grow from the day-to-day work that they do, and that is totally possible, I think. And some of the strategies that I have are, I guess, like, it is really...it can be really challenging to, like, you know, be like, okay, I spent 40 hours doing this, and like, what did I learn [chuckles]? Feeling like you have to have something to show for it or something to point to. And one thing that I've been really liking is these automated check-ins we have at the end of the week. And, you know, I suspect that this is not that uncommon for just, like, a workplace to be like, "Hey, like, how did your week go? Like, what are some ways that it was successful? Like, what are your challenges? Like, where do you need support or help?" And I think I've now started using that as both, like, space for giving an update on just, like, business-y things. Like, "Here's the status of this project," or, like, "Here's, you know, a roadblock that we faced that took some extra time," or whatever. Then also being like, oh, this is a great time to make this space for myself, especially because...I don't know about you, but whenever I have, like, performance review time and I have to write, like, a self-review, I'm just like, did I do anything in the last six months [laughs], or how have I grown in the last six months? It feels like such a big question, kind of like you were talking about that blank page syndrome a little bit. But if I have kind of just put in the 10 minutes during my Friday to be like, is there something that was kind of just for me that I can say in my check-in? I can go back and, yeah, just kind of start to see just, like, you know, pick out or just pay attention to how, like, my 40 hours is kind of serving me in growing in the ways that I want to and not just to deliver code [laughs]. JOËL: What you're describing there, that sort of weekly check-in and taking notes, reminds me of the practice of journaling. Is that something that you've ever tried to do in your, like, regular life? STEPHANIE: Oh yeah, very much so. But I'm not nearly as, like, routine about it in my personal life. But I suspect that the routine is helpful in more of a, like, workplace setting, at least for me, because I do have, like, more clear pathways of growth that I'm interested in or just, like, something that, I don't know, not that it's, like, expected of everyone, but if that is part of your goals or, like, part of your company's culture, I feel like I benefit from that structure. And yeah, I mean, I guess maybe that's kind of my way of integrating something that I already do in my personal life to an environment where, like I said, maybe there is, like, that is just part of the work and part of your career progression. JOËL: I'm curious about the frequency. You mentioned that you sort of do this once a week, sort of a check-in at the end of the week. Do you find that once a week is about the right frequency versus maybe something like daily? I know a lot of these sort of more modern note-taking systems, Roam Research, or Obsidian, or whatever, have this concept of, like, a daily note that's supposed to encourage something that's kind of like journaling. Have you ever tried something more on a daily basis, or do you feel like a week is about...or once a week is about the right cadence for you? STEPHANIE: Listen, I have, like, complicated feelings about this because I think the daily note is so aspirational for me [laughs] and just not how I work. And I have finally begrudgingly come to accept this no matter how much, like, I don't know, like, bullet journal inspirational content I consume on the internet [laughs]. I have tried and failed many a time to have more frequency in that way. But, I don't know, I think it almost just, like, sets me up for failure [laughs] because I have these expectations. And that's, like, the other thing. It's like, you can't force learning necessarily. I don't know if this is, like, a strategy, but I think there is some amount of, like, making sure that I'm in the right headspace for it and, you know, like, my environment, too, kind of is conducive to it. Like, I have, like, the time, right? If I'm trying to squeeze in, I don't know, maybe, like, in between meetings, 20 minutes to be like, what did I learn from this experience? Nothing's coming out [laughs]. That was another thing that I was kind of mulling over when he had this topic proposed is this idea of, like, mindset and environment being really important because you know when you are saying, like, not all time is created equal, and I suspect that if, you know, either you or, like, the people around you and the environment you're in is not also facilitating growth, and, like, how much can you really expect for it to be happening? JOËL: I mean, that's really interesting, right? The impact of sort of a broader company culture. And I think that definitely can act as a catalyst for growth, either to kind of propel you forward or to pull you back. I want to dig into a little bit something you were saying about being in the right headspace to capture ideas. And I think that there's sort of almost, like, two distinct phases. There's the, like, capturing data, and information, and experiences, and then, there's synthesizing it, turning information into learning. STEPHANIE: Yes. JOËL: And it sounds like you're making a distinction between those two things, specifically that synthesis step is something that has to happen separately. STEPHANIE: Ooh, I don't even...I don't know if I would necessarily say that I'm only talking about synthesis, but I do like that you kind of separated those categories because I do think that they are really important. And they kind of remind me a lot about the scientific method a little bit where, you know, you have the gathering data and, like, observations, and you have, you know, maybe some...whatever is precipitating learning that you're doing maybe differently or new. And that also takes time, I think, or intention at least, to be like, oh, do I have what I need to, like, get information about how this is going? And then, yeah, that synthesis step that I think I was talking about a little bit more. But I don't think either is just automatic. There is, I think, quite a bit of intention involved. JOËL: I think maybe the way I think about this is colored by reading some material on the Zettelkasten method of note-taking, which splits up the idea of fleeting notes and literature notes, which are sort of just, like, jotting down ideas, or things you've seen, things that you've learned, maybe a thought you had when you read a particular paragraph in a blog post, something like that. And then, the permanent notes, which are more, like, fully formed thoughts that arise out of the more fleeting ones. And so, the idea is that the fleeting ones maybe you're taking those in a notebook if you're doing it pen and paper. You could be doing it in some sort of, like, daily note, or something like that. And then, those are temporary. They were there to just capture information. Later on, you process that, and then you can throw them out if you need to. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. This has actually been a shift for me, where I used to rely a lot more on memory and perhaps, like, didn't have a great system for taking things like fleeting notes and, like, documenting kind of [inaudible 18:28] what I was saying earlier about how do I make sure that the information is recorded, you know, for me to synthesize later? And I have found a lot more success lately in that fleeting note style of operating. And thanks to Obsidian honestly, now it's so easy to be like, oh, I'm just going to open a quick new file. And I need as little friction as possible to, like, put stuff somewhere [laughs]. And, actually, I'm excited to talk a little bit more about this with you because I think you're a little bit different where you somehow find the time [laughs] and care to create your diagrams. I'm like, if I can, for some reason, even get an Obsidian file open, I'll tab to Slack. And I send myself a lot of notes in my just own personal DM space. In fact, it's actually kind of embarrassing because I use the Command+K shortcut to navigate to my own personal DMs, which you can get to by typing me, like, M-E. And sometimes I've accidentally just entered that into a channel chat [laughs], and then I have to delete it really quick later when I realize what I've done. So, yeah, like, I meant to navigate to my personal notes, and I just put in our team chat, "Me [laughs]." And, I don't know, I have no idea how that comes up [laughs], what people think is going on. But if anyone's listening to this podcast from thoughtbot and has seen that of me, that's what happened. JOËL: You may not be the only one who's done that. STEPHANIE: Thank you. Yeah [laughs], that's good to know. JOËL: I want to step back a little bit because we've been talking about, like, introspection, and synthesis, and finding moments to capture information. And I think we've sort of...there's an unspoken assumption here that a way to kind of turbocharge learning from day-to-day experience is some form of synthesis or self-reflection. Would you agree with that statement? STEPHANIE: Okay. This is another thing that I am perhaps, like, still trying to figure out, and we can figure it out together, which is separating, like, self-driven learning and, like, circumstance-driven learning. Because it's so much easier to want to reflect on something and find time to be, like, oh, like, how does this kind of help my goals or, like, what I want to be doing with my work? Versus when you are just asked to do something, and it could still be learning, right? It could still be new, and you need to go do some research or, you know, play around with a new tool. But there's less of that internal motivation or, like, kind of drive to integrate it. Like, do you have this distinction? JOËL: I've definitely noticed that when there is motivation, I get more out of every hour of work that I put in in terms of learning new things. The more interest, the more motivation, the more value I get per unit of effort I put in. STEPHANIE: Yeah. I think, for me, the other difference is, like, generative learning versus just kind of absorbing information that's already out there that someone else's...that is kind of, yeah, just absorbing rather than, like, creating something new from, like, those connections. JOËL: Ooh. STEPHANIE: Does that [chuckles] spark something for you? JOËL: The gears are turning in my head because I'm almost hearing that as, like, a passive versus active learning thing. But just sort of like, I'm going to let things happen to me, and I will come out of that with some experience, and something is going to happen. Versus an active, I am going to, like, try to move in a direction and learn from that and things like that. And I think this maybe connects back to the original question. Maybe this sort of, like, checking in at the end of the week, taking notes is a way to convert something that's a bit more of a passive experience, spending four days a week doing a project for a client, into something that's a little bit of a more active learning, where you say, "Okay, I did four weeks of this particular type of Rails work. What do I get out of it? What have I learned? What is something new that I've seen? What are some opinions I have formed, patterns I like or dislike?" STEPHANIE: Yeah, I like that distinction because, you know, a few weeks ago, we were at RailsConf. We had kind of recapped it in a previous episode. And I think we had talked about like, oh, do we, like, to sit in talks or participate in workshops? And I think that's also another example of, like, passive versus active, right? Because I 100%, like, don't have the same type of learning by just, you know, listening to a talk that I do with maybe then going to look up, like, other things this person has put out in the world, finding them to talk to them about it, like, doing something with the content, right? Otherwise, it's just like, oh yeah, I heard this talk. Maybe one day I'll remember it when the need arises [laughs]. I, like, have a pointer to it in my brain. But until then, it probably just kind of, like, sits there, and nothing's really happened with it. JOËL: I think maybe another thing that's interesting in that passive versus active distinction is that synthesis is inherently an act of creation. You are now creating new ideas of your own rather than just capturing information that is being thrown at you, either by sitting in a talk or by shipping tickets. The act of synthesizing and particularly, I think, making connections between ideas, either because something that, let's say you're in a talk, a speaker said that sparks an idea for yourself, or because you can connect something that speaker said with another idea that you already have or an idea that you've seen elsewhere. So, you're like, oh, the thing this person is saying connects to this thing I read in a book or something another speaker said in an earlier session, or something like that. All of a sudden, now you're creating these new bits of knowledge, new perspectives, maybe even new mental models. We talked about mental models last week. And so, knowledge is not just the facts that you absorb or memorize. A lot of it is building the connections between those facts. And those are things that are not always given to you. You have to create them yourself. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I am nodding my head a lot because that's resonating with, like, an experience that I'm having kind of coaching and mentoring a client developer on my team who is earlier in her career. And one thing that I've been really, like, working on with her is asking like, "Oh, like, what do you think of this?" Or like, "Have you seen this before? What are your reactions to this code, or, like this comment?" or whatever. And I get the sense that, like, not a lot of people have prompted her to, like, come up with answers for those kinds of questions. And I'm really, really hopeful that, like, that kind of will help her achieve some of the goals that she's, like, hoping for in terms of her technical growth, especially where she's felt like she's stagnated a little bit. And I think that calls back really well to what you said at the beginning of, like, you can spend years, right? Just kind of plugging away. But that's not the same as that really active growth. And, again, like, that's fine if that's where you're at or want to be at for a little while. But I suspect if anyone is kind of, like, wondering, like, where did that time go [laughs]...even for me, too, like, once someone started asking me those questions, I was like, oh, there's still so much to figure out or explore. And I think you're actually really good at doing that, asking questions of yourself. And then, another thing that I've picked up from you is you ask questions about, like, what are questions other people would have? And that's a skill that I feel like I still have yet to figure out. I'm [chuckles] curious what you think about that. JOËL: That's interesting because that kind of goes to another level. I often think of the questions other people would have from a more, like, pedagogical sense. So, I write a lot of blog posts. I write a lot of talks that I give. So, oftentimes when I'm creating that kind of material, there's a bit of an inner critic who's trying to, you know, sitting in the audience listening to myself speak, and who's going to maybe roll their eyes at certain points, or just get lost, or maybe raise their hand with a question. And that's who I try to address those things so that then when I go through it the next time, that inner critic is actually feeling engaged and paying attention. STEPHANIE: Do you find that you're able to do that because you've seen that happen enough times where you're like, oh, I can kind of predict maybe what someone might feel confused about? I'm curious, like, how you got from being, like, well, I know what I would be confused about to what would someone else be unsure or, like, want more information about. JOËL: Part of the answer there is that I'm a very harsh critic myself. STEPHANIE: [laughs] Yes. JOËL: So, I'm sitting in somebody else's talk, and there are probably parts where I'm rolling my eyes or being like, wait a minute, how did you get from this idea to this other thing? That doesn't follow. And so, I try to turn that back towards myself and use that as fuel to make my own work better. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's cool. I like that. Even if it's just framed as, like, a missed opportunity for people to have better or more comprehensive understanding. I know that's something that you're, like, very motivated to help kind of spread more of [laughs]. Understanding and learning is just important to you and to me. So, I think that's really cool that you're able to find ways to do that. JOËL: Well, you definitely want to, I think, to keep a sort of beginner's mindset for a lot of these things, and one of the best ways to do that is to work with beginners. So, I spent a lot of time, back in the day, for example, in the Elm language chat room, just helping people answer basic questions, looking up documentation, explaining sort of basic concepts. And that, I think, helped me get a sense of like, where were newcomers to the language getting stuck? And what were the explanations of those concepts that really connected? Which I could then translate into my work. And I think that that made me a better developer and helped me build this, like, really deep understanding of the underlying concepts in a way that I wouldn't have had just writing code on my own. STEPHANIE: Wow, forum question answering hero. I have never thought to do that or felt compelled to do that. But I remember my friend was telling me, she was like, "Yeah, sometimes I just want to feel good about myself. And I remember that I know things that other people, like, are wanting to find out," and she just will answer some easy questions on Stack Overflow, you know, about, like, basic Rails stuff or something. And she is like, "Yeah, and that's doing my good deed [laughs]." And yeah, I think that it also, you know, has the same benefits that you were just saying earlier about...because you want to be helpful, you figure out how to actually be helpful, right? JOËL: There's maybe a sense as well that helping others, once more, forces you into more of an active mindset for growth in the same way that interrogating yourself does, except now it's a beginner who's interrogating you. And so, it forces you to think a little bit more about those whys or those places where people get stuck. And you've just sort of assumed it's a certain way, but now you have to, like, explain it and really get into some of the concepts. STEPHANIE: So, on the show, we've talked a lot about the fun things you share in the dev channel in our Slack workspace. But I recently discovered that someone (Was it you?) created an Obsidian MD channel for our favorite note-taking software. And in it, you shared a really cool tool that is available in Obsidian called mind maps. JOËL: Yeah, so mind maps are a type of diagram. They're effectively a tree structure, but they don't really look like that when you draw them out. You start with a sort of topic in the center, and then you just keep drawing branches off of that, going every direction. And then, maybe branches off branches and keep going as you add more content. Turns out that Mermaid.js supports mind maps as a graph type, and Obsidian embeds Mermaid diagrams. So, you can use Mermaid's little language to express a mind map. And now, all of a sudden, you have mind mapping as a tool available for you within Obsidian. STEPHANIE: And how have you been using that to kind of process and experience or maybe, like, end up with some artifacts from, like, something that you're just doing in regular day-to-day work? JOËL: So, kind of like you, I think I have the aspiration of doing some kind of, like, daily note journaling thing and turning that into bigger ideas. In practice, I do not do that. Maybe that's the thing that I will eventually incorporate into my practice, but that's not something that I'm currently doing. Instead, a thing that I've done is a little bit more like you, but it's a little bit more thematically chunked. So, for example, recently, I did several weeks of work that involved doing a lot of documentation for module-level documentation. You know, I'd invested a lot of time learning about YARD, which is Ruby's documentation system, and trying to figure out, like, what exactly are docs that are going to be helpful for people? And I wanted that to not just be a thing I did once and then I kind of, like, move on and forget it. I wanted to figure out how can I sort of grow from that experience maximally? And so, the approach I took is to say, let's take some time after I've completed that experience and actually sort of almost interrogate it, ask myself a bunch of questions about that experience, which will then turn into more broad ideas. And so, what I ended up doing is taking a mind-mapping approach. So, I start that center circle is just a circle that says, "My experience writing docs," and then I kind of ring it with a series of questions. So, what are questions that might be interesting to ask someone who just recently had experience writing documentation? And so, I come up with 4,5,6 questions that could be interesting to ask of someone who had experience. And here I'm trying to step away from myself a little bit. And then, maybe I can start answering those questions, or maybe there are sub-questions that branch off of that. And maybe there are answers, or maybe there are answers that are interesting but that then trigger follow-up questions. And so I'm almost having a conversation with myself and using the mind map as a tool to facilitate that. But the first step is putting that experience in the center and then ringing it with questions, and then kind of seeing where those lead. STEPHANIE: Cool. Yeah, I am, like, surprised that you're still following that thread because the module docs experience was quite a little bit a while ago now. We even, you know, had an episode on it that I'll link in the show notes. How do you manage, like, learning new things all the time and knowing what to, like, invest energy and attention into and what to kind of maybe, like, consider just like, oh, like, I don't know, that was just an experience that I had, and I might not get around to doing anything with it? JOËL: I don't know that I have a great system. I think sometimes when I do, especially a more prolonged chunk of time doing a thing, I find it really worthwhile to say, hey, I don't want that to sort of just be a thing that was in my memory, and then it moves out. I'd like to pull out some more maybe practical or long-term ideas from it. Part of that is capture, but some of that is also synthesis. I just spent two weeks or I just spent a month using a particular technology or doing a new kind of task. What do I have to show for it? Are there any, like, bigger ideas that I have here? Does this connect with any other technologies I've done or any other ideas or theories? Did I come up with any opinions? Did I like this technology? Did I not? Are there elements that were inspirational? And then capturing some of that eventually with the idea of...so I do a sort of Zettelkasten-style permanent note collection, the idea to create at least a few of those based off of the experience that I can then connect to other things. And maybe it eventually turns into other content. Maybe it's something I hold onto for a while. In the case of the module docs, it turned into a Bike Shed episode. It also turned into a blog post that was published this past week. And so, it does have a way of coming back. STEPHANIE: Yeah. Yeah. One thing that sparked for me was that, you know, you and I spend a lot of time thinking about, like, the practice of writing software, you know, in the work we do as consultants, too. But I find that, like, you can also apply this to the actual just your work that you are getting paid for [laughs]. This was, I think, a nascent thought in the talk that I had given. But there's something to the idea of, like, you know, if you are working in some code, especially legacy code, for a long time, and you learn so much about it, and then what do you have to show for it [chuckles], you know? I have really struggled with feeling like all of that work and learning was useful if it just, like, remains in my memory and not necessarily shared with the team or, I don't know, just, like, knowing that if I leave, especially since I am a contractor, like, just recognizing that there's value in being like, oh, I spent an hour or, like, half a day sifting through this complex legacy code just to make, like, a small change. But that small change is not the full value of all of the work that I did. And I suspect that, like, just the mind mapping stuff would be really interesting to apply to more. It's not, like, just practical work, but, like, more mundane, I don't know, like, labor [laughs], if you will. JOËL: I can think of, like, sort of two types of knowledge that you can take out of something like that. Some of it is just understanding how this legacy system works, saying, oh, well, they have this user model that's connected to this old persona table, which is kind of unused, but we sometimes rely for in this legacy case. And you've got to have this permission flag turned on and, like, all those things that you had to just discover by reading the code and exploring. And that's going to be useful to you as long as you work in that legacy codebase, as long as you work through that path. But when you move on to another project, that knowledge probably doesn't serve you a whole lot. There are things that you did throughout that journey, though, that you can probably pull out that are going to be useful to you on other projects. And that might be maybe you came up with a new way of navigating the code or a new way of, like, finding how different pieces were connected. Maybe it was a diagramming tool; maybe it was some sort of gem. Maybe it was just a, oh, a heuristic, like, when I see a model, I like to follow the associations first. And I always go for the hasmanys over the belongstos because those generally lead me in the right direction. Like, that's really interesting insight, and that's something that might serve you on a following project. You can also pull out bigger things like, are there refactoring techniques that you experimented with or that you learned on this project that you would use again elsewhere? Are there ways of maybe quarantining scary code on a legacy project that are a thing that you would want to make more consistent part of your practice? Those are all great things to pull out of, just a like, oh yeah, I did some work on a, like, old legacy part of an app. And what do I have to show for it? I think you can actually have a lot to show for it. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's really cool. That sounds like a sure way of multiplying the learning. And I think I didn't really consider that when I was first talking about it, too. But yeah, there are, like, both of those things kind of available to you to, like, learn from. Yeah, it's like, that time is never just kind of, like, purely wasted. Oh, I don't know, sometimes it really feels like that [laughs] when you are debugging something really silly. But yeah, like, I would be interested in kind of thinking about it from both of those lenses because I think there's value in what you learn about that particular system in that moment of time, even if it might not translate to just future works or future projects. And, like, that's something that I think we would do better at kind of capturing, and also, there's so much stuff, too, kind of to that higher level growth that you were speaking to. JOËL: I think some of the distinctions we're talking about here is something that was explored in an older episode on note-taking with Amanda Beiner, where we sort of explored the difference between exploratory notes, debugging notes, idea notes, and how note-taking is not a single thing. It can serve many purposes, and they can have different lifespans. And those are all just ways to aid your thinking. But being maybe aware of the kind of thinking that you're trying to do, the kind of notes you're trying to take can help you make better use of that time. STEPHANIE: I have one last question for you before we wrap up, which is, do you find, like, the stuff we're talking about to be particularly true about software development, or it just happens to be the thing that you and I both do, and we also love to learn, and so, therefore, we are able to talk about this for, like, 50 minutes [laughs]? Are you able to make any kind of distinction there, or is it just kind of part of pedagogy in general? JOËL: I would say that that sort of active versus passive thing is a thing that's probably true, just about anything that you do. For example, I do a lot of bouldering. Just going spending a lot of time on the wall, climbing a lot; that's going to help me get better. But a classic way that people try to improve is filming themselves or having a friend film themselves, and then you can look at it, and then you evaluate, oh, that's what I did. This is where I was struggling to get the next hold. What if I try to do something different? So, building in an amount of, like, self-reflection into the loop all of a sudden catalyzes that learning and helps you grow at a rate that's much more than if you're just kind of mindlessly putting time into it. So, I would go so far as to say that self-reflection, synthesis—those are all things that are probably going to catalyze growth in most areas of your life if you're being a little bit more self-aware. But I've found that it's been particularly useful for me when it comes to trying to get better at the job that I do every week. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I think, for me, it's like, yeah, getting better at being a developer rather than being, you know, a software developer at X company. Like, not necessarily just getting better at working at that company but getting better at the skill itself. JOËL: And those two things have a way of sort of, like, folding back into themselves, right? If you're a better software developer in general, you will probably be a better developer at that company. Yes, you want domain knowledge and, like, a deep understanding of how the system works is going to make you a better developer at that company. But also, if you're able to find more generic approaches to onboard onto new things, or to debug more effectively, or to better read or understand unknown code of high complexity, those are all going to make you much better at being a developer at that company as well. And they're transferable skills, so they're all really good things to have. STEPHANIE: On that note. Shall we wrap up? JOËL: Let's wrap up. STEPHANIE: Show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. JOËL: This show has been produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPHANIE: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes. It really helps other folks find the show. JOËL: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @_bikeshed, or you can reach me @joelquen on Twitter. STEPHANIE: Or reach both of us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. JOËL: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeee!!!!!! AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed and frustrated when searching for relevant studies on PubMed for your medical writing projects? As a medical writer, you know that conducting a comprehensive literature review is crucial for delivering high-quality work to your clients and audiences. However, the process can be time-consuming and challenging, especially if you don't have a clear strategy. This episode of Monday Mentor will provide you with the tools and techniques you need to streamline your literature review process and find the most relevant, high-quality studies to inform your work. Listen in to gain: Best practices for efficiently searching databases like PubMed Steps to find the most relevant and high-quality sources. Tools and resources to stay organized and produce a rigorous literature review Tune in now to discover how you can elevate your literature review skills and deliver stronger, more valuable work to your clients and audiences! Takeaways 1. Defining your research question or objectives is crucial for guiding your search strategy and ensuring a focused, efficient literature review process. Before diving into your literature search, take the time to clearly articulate your research question or objectives using frameworks like PICO, SPIDER, or PEO. 2. Using a combination of keyword searches, subject heading/index term searches (like MeSH terms), and database filters can help you capture a wide range of potentially relevant sources while narrowing down your results. Familiarize yourself with the search functionalities and controlled vocabularies of databases like PubMed, and experiment with different combinations of keywords, subject headings, and filters to optimize your search results. 3. Leveraging citation management tools, note-taking techniques, and reporting guidelines can help you stay organized, maintain transparency, and produce a rigorous literature review. Explore and implement tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley for citation management, and develop a structured note-taking system (e.g., literature matrices or apps like Notion or Roam Research) to synthesize and report your findings effectively. Resources NYU Libraries Literature Search Template Literature Review Typologies  Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 01:47 Defining the research question 03:43 Establishing search terms 06:17 Exploring various databases 10:30 Grey literature sources 13:32 Additional search techniques 15:07 Tools and resources that can help you 20:28 The power of literature reviews Subscribe to the Write Medicine podcast! Subscribe to the Write Medicine podcast for more valuable insights on continuing medical education content for health professionals. Click the Follow button and subscribe on your favorite platform.

Justin Draeger, President and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, joins the ALP to share what colleagues in admissions, enrollment, student success, presidents' offices, etc. can do to support their financial aid colleagues, who are about to do 6 to 9 months of work in about 4 to 6 weeks. A deep thinker, reader, writer and speaker, Justin also shares a bunch of excellent leadership lessons, including how, as Bertrand Russell wrote, "Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people full of doubts." Special shout-out to the Lawrence University financial aid team, "the finest team in all the land."ReferencesWhy I Choose the Harder Commute, July 2020Finding Motivation in Tough Times, August 2020Off the Cuff, NASFAA's podcastRapid DescentWalkout song: Walk This Way, Run DMC and AerosmithBest recent read: Uncultured: A Memoir, Daniella Mestyanek Young and Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van PeltEager to read next: Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl (the cost of reading a new book is not rereading one of the best books you've already read) Favorite podcast: The Gray AreaFavorite thing to make in the kitchen: simple recipes with a chef's kiss, like fried eggs and bacon with a latte.Taking and keeping notes: a complex system of handwritten notes, Evernote and Roam Research.Memorable bit of advice: "Anyone who says he has finished a canvas is terribly arrogant. 'Finished' means 'complete, perfect.'" (Claude Monet)Bucket list: walk the Camino de Santiago.The ALP is supported by RHB. Music arranged by Ryan Anselment

En este episodio analizo: Roam Research. Obsidian. Logseq. Noteplan.

What are the three principles of taking and managing notes? Our guest today is Jorge Arango, an information architect, author, and educator. You'll learn about the evolution of knowledge management tools, how digital note-taking systems have extended our capabilities, why you should choose the right tools for different types of notes, and more.Podcast feed: subscribe to https://feeds.simplecast.com/4MvgQ73R in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts.Show NotesDuly Noted — Jorge's new bookWhat is a Mind Map?Figure It Out — a book by Steven Anderson and Karl FastObsidian, Roam Research — popular tools for connected note takingDrafts — a tool for temporary thinkingNotebookLM — a project by GoogleCheck out Jorge's websiteThe Informed Life — Jorge's podcastThis episode is brought to you by UC San Diego. Thinking about diving into the dynamic world of UX design, but not sure where to start? Explore UC San Diego Extended Studies' UX Design Certificate. Master essential skills to build a standout portfolio that will help you land your dream job. Enroll today in Principles of UX and get 10% off as our listener. Head over to DiscoverUX.ucsd.edu and use code DISCOVERUX to apply the discount.Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here.Leave a ReviewReviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. Here's how.

How Nat Eliason uses ChatGPT to write books: Nat Eliason is a shape-shifter. He's a writer with a book deal from Random House, a crypto trader, a Roam Research aficionado, a marketer, a book podcaster, a parent, and a seed oil iconoclast. He's amassed thousands of newsletter subscribers, 70,000 followers on X, and 110,000 on TikTok. His secret weapon for all of his exploring? ChatGPT. Nat took me through why he uses it every day for his work and his life. In this interview we talk about using ChatGPT for: Identifying his taste in writing. He uses ChatGPT to help him identify the kind of writing he likes, so that he can produce more of it. Finding new books to read for inspiration. ChatGPT helps him find writers and books that he never would've encountered through Googling or in his daily life. Generating story outlines and character descriptions. He uses ChatGPT to help him outline the sci-fi novel he's writing and learn how to create vivid descriptions. Settling bar bets. Air in the atmosphere contains carbon—which can technically be converted into diamond. So, how much air would be required to make a diamond? It's the kind of thing you might argue about over drinks with a friend—and exactly the kind of question ChatGPT is built to answer. Reading the news. Nat doesn't read the news. But every once in a while he wants to know what's going on about a particular topic. ChatGPT is the perfect news summarizer. Generating recipes. Nat is a frequent chef. ChatGPT is his recipe companion: surfacing ideas, and easily modifying them based on what he has at hand and his family's dietary preferences.

Jorge Arango is an Information architect, author, and educator, and he's written a new book, Duly Noted, about the age-old practice of notetaking. If you're like me, you've been taking notes since your school days. Back then, we used notebooks, a Trapper Keeper, and sticky notes – anything that could help us ace a test, remember important tidbits, and consolidate ideas. Notes are an extension of the mind. But it was always a headache to organize them, synthesize them, and recall them at the right time. Enter the digital age – which tried to improve on the humble art of notetaking, but apps like Notes and Stickies tried to replicate digitally what we were using in the real world. Newer apps like Obsidian let go of real-world metaphors by utilizing three principles: shorter notes, connecting your notes, and nurturing your notes to build a knowledge garden that will serve you for the rest of your life. If you bring value to the world through your thinking, you have the responsibility to look after your thinking apparatus. Duly Noted will augment, magnify, and extend your capacity to think well. Externalizing your mental processes is one of the most powerful means we have to think better. If used well, the humble note will help you be a better thinker and a more effective human. What you'll learn from this episode: - A history of notetaking tools - Why notetaking is a personal endeavor - How digital notetaking tools have evolved - About Jorge's new book and how, upon reading it, you just might become a better thinker and increase your effectiveness Quick Reference Guide [0:00:12] Introduction of Jorge and his books [0:01:18] Introduction of Jorge's new book on taking notes and creating a knowledge garden, Duly Noted [0:09:47] Books that will make you a better knowledge worker [0:14:14] Design in Product Conference [0:15:35] Managing knowledge with computers [0:26:03] Knowledge as a garden [0:28:09] On tools for nurturing a knowledge garden [0:33:08] How Jorge uses AI with Obsidian [0:36:37] Jorge's gift for listeners Resources and links from today's episode: Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango https://www.amazon.com/Information-Architecture-Beyond-Louis-Rosenfeld/dp/1491911689 Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places by Jorge Arango https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/living-in-information/ Duly Noted by Jorge Arango https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/duly-noted-extend-your-mind-through-connected-notes/ O'Reilly's book Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mind-hacks/0596007795/ Tools for Thought by Howard Rheingold www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/ Design in Product Conference, November 29 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/design-in-product/ Roam Research https://roamresearch.com/ Obsidian https://obsidian.md/ The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul https://anniemurphypaul.com/books/the-extended-mind/ Figure it Out: Getting from Information to Understanding by Karl Fast and Stephen Anderson https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Out-Getting-Information-Understanding-ebook/dp/B085412Q1X Build a PKG (Personal Knowledge Garden) Workshop https://buildapkg.com

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa Questions include: Is it worth moving to the USA from the UK/Europe to pursue a career in science, mathematics or engineering? What if one wants to change the world? - How long should one wait after college to start some startup in an area of their interest/expertise? - When you are thinking deeply about a problem, do you think "on paper" or on a computer or a tablet or...? Do you find one of them to be better than the others? - Can you tell a couple "stamp-licking" stories from the early days of starting Mathematica/Wolfram Research? - What are your thoughts on crypto and blockchain from a business perspective in general? - What do you think have been some of the most interesting and hard questions you've been asked here and elsewhere? - Can ChatGPT increase productivity? Is outsourcing writing skills beneficial or damaging? - "AI did my homework" is the inverse of "the dog ate my homework." You don't want to be in either situation! - Visual AI can produce amazing inspirations for jewelry and that sort of intricate art. - Do you drink caffeine sources like tea or coffee? How many per day? - What practices do you use to gauge and cultivate meaningful accountability as an individual and as part of a collective? - ​What was your revenue plan and time-to-revenue when starting your company? - We know that you use a hierarchical knowledge organization (files in folders) but did you ever try to use a networked knowledge organization (e.g. Logseq, Roam Research, Mem.ai, etc)? Thoughts on the best way to organize knowledge? - Wolfram documentation is amazing because it's connected (related functions). - I think the knowledge graph thesis is to give people epistemological tools and make it visual. But epistemology isn't something people worry about all the time while writing daily notes. - Have you "driven" a Tesla in Full Self-Driving mode? It's out now for beta testing and it's magical. It's so, so good. Purely a vision + neural net implementation. - Do you enjoy collecting and organizing physical books? Libraries are endless fun!

In his popular course and methodology, "Building a Second Brain," Tiago Forte explores several key personal knowledge management and productivity themes. These themes are designed to help individuals effectively capture, organize, and utilize their knowledge and ideas.Watch the Video of this Podcasthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9uqL3pJ60&ab_channel=MoonshotsPodcastBuy the book on Amazonhttps://geni.us/L5AVA4Get the summary via Blinkisthttps://blinkist.o6eiov.net/m5zmDZBecome a Moonshot Memberhttps://www.patreon.com/Moonshots Here are some of the prominent themes from "Building a Second Brain":1. Personal knowledge management: The course emphasizes actively managing and organizing your knowledge. It encourages participants to develop systems and structures to capture and store information in a way that is easily accessible and searchable.2. Digital note-taking: Forte emphasizes the power of digital note-taking as a tool for capturing and preserving information. He explores various methods and tools for effective note-taking, including using digital tools like Evernote, Notion, or Roam Research.3. Progressive summarization: This technique involves summarizing and condensing information over time. By progressively summarizing and curating your notes, you can distill them into more concise and actionable insights, making them more valuable and accessible in the long run.4. Building a personal knowledge library: Forte emphasizes the importance of developing a personal knowledge library as a repository for all your captured information and ideas. This library becomes a valuable resource that can be referenced and expanded upon over time.5. Knowledge curation: The course delves into knowledge curation, which involves actively selecting, organizing, and connecting different pieces of information to create meaningful relationships and insights. Forte explores strategies for effective curation and its benefits to personal growth and creativity.6. Productivity and creativity: "Building a Second Brain" recognizes the connection between productivity and creativity. By having a well-organized system for managing your knowledge, you can free up mental space and focus on generating new ideas and insights, leading to enhanced creativity and innovation.7. Knowledge sharing and collaboration: Forte emphasizes the importance of sharing and collaborating to leverage collective intelligence. He explores ways to effectively share and communicate your knowledge with others, fostering collaboration and creating opportunities for learning and growth.These themes collectively form the foundation of Tiago Forte's "Building a Second Brain" methodology, providing individuals with practical strategies and techniques to manage their knowledge and enhance their productivity and creativity.Chart of the Dayhttps://workflowy.com/systems/para-method/INTROTiago Forte on Bullet Journal discusses the importance of memory in a chaotic worldThe value of a second brain (4m37) WHAT IS Tiago talks at Google, and how to categorise your second brain with PARA (Projects, Areas of Improvement, Resources, Archive)Stacking ideas (2m19) PRACTICEProductivity Game gives us guidance on how to use Tiago's categorizationsOrganising notebooks with PARA (4m27) OUTROTiago closes the show with practical advice on working towards creating a projectStop Setting Goals. Do this instead (4m11) Watch the Video of this Podcasthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9uqL3pJ60&ab_channel=MoonshotsPodcastBuy the book on Amazonhttps://geni.us/L5AVA4Get the summary via Blinkisthttps://blinkist.o6eiov.net/m5zmDZBecome a Moonshot Memberhttps://www.patreon.com/Moonshots ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Read: https://www.latent.space/p/ai-interfaces-and-notionShow Notes* Linus on Twitter* Linus' personal blog* Notion* Notion AI* Notion Projects* AI UX Meetup RecapTimestamps* [00:03:30] Starting the AI / UX community* [00:10:01] Most knowledge work is not text generation* [00:16:21] Finding the right constraints and interface for AI* [00:19:06] Linus' journey to working at Notion* [00:23:29] The importance of notations and interfaces* [00:26:07] Setting interface defaults and standards* [00:32:36] The challenges of designing AI agents* [00:39:43] Notion deep dive: “Blocks”, AI, and more* [00:51:00] Prompt engineering at Notion* [01:02:00] Lightning RoundTranscriptAlessio: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO in residence at Decibel Partners. I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, writer and editor of Latent Space. [00:00:20]Swyx: And today we're not in our regular studio. We're actually at the Notion New York headquarters. Thanks to Linus. Welcome. [00:00:28]Linus: Thank you. Thanks for having me. [00:00:29]Swyx: Thanks for having us in your beautiful office. It is actually very startling how gorgeous the Notion offices are. And it's basically the same aesthetic. [00:00:38]Linus: It's a very consistent aesthetic. It's the same aesthetic in San Francisco and the other offices. It's been for many, many years. [00:00:46]Swyx: You take a lot of craft in everything that you guys do. Yeah. [00:00:50]Linus: I think we can, I'm sure, talk about this more later, but there is a consistent kind of focus on taste that I think flows down from Ivan and the founders into the product. [00:00:59]Swyx: So I'll introduce you a little bit, but also there's just, you're a very hard person to introduce because you do a lot of things. You got your BA in computer science at Berkeley. Even while you're at Berkeley, you're involved in a bunch of interesting things at Replit, CatalystX, Hack Club and Dorm Room Fund. I always love seeing people come out of Dorm Room Fund because they tend to be a very entrepreneurial. You're a product engineer at IdeaFlow, residence at Betaworks. You took a year off to do independent research and then you've finally found your home at Notion. What's one thing that people should know about you that's not on your typical LinkedIn profile? [00:01:39]Linus: Putting me on the spot. I think, I mean, just because I have so much work kind of out there, I feel like professionally, at least, anything that you would want to know about me, you can probably dig up, but I'm a big city person, but I don't come from the city. I went to school, I grew up in Indiana, in the middle of nowhere, near Purdue University, a little suburb. I only came out to the Bay for school and then I moved to New York afterwards, which is where I'm currently. I'm in Notion, New York. But I still carry within me a kind of love and affection for small town, Indiana, small town, flyover country. [00:02:10]Swyx: We do have a bit of indulgence in this. I'm from a small country and I think Alessio, you also kind of identified with this a little bit. Is there anything that people should know about Purdue, apart from the chickens? [00:02:24]Linus: Purdue has one of the largest international student populations in the country, which I don't know. I don't know exactly why, but because it's a state school, the focus is a lot on STEM topics. Purdue is well known for engineering and so we tend to have a lot of folks from abroad, which is particularly rare for a university in, I don't know, that's kind of like predominantly white American and kind of Midwestern state. That makes Purdue and the surrounding sort of area kind of like a younger, more diverse international island within the, I guess, broader world that is Indiana. [00:02:58]Swyx: Fair enough. We can always dive into sort of flyover country or, you know, small town insights later, but you and I, all three of us actually recently connected at AIUX SF, which is the first AIUX meetup, essentially which just came out of like a Twitter conversation. You and I have been involved in HCI Twitter is kind of how I think about it for a little bit and when I saw that you were in town, Geoffrey Litt was in town, Maggie Appleton in town, all on the same date, I was like, we have to have a meetup and that's how this thing was born. Well, what did it look like from your end? [00:03:30]Linus: From my end, it looked like you did all of the work and I... [00:03:33]Swyx: Well, you got us the Notion. Yeah, yeah. [00:03:36]Linus: It was also in the Notion office, it was in the San Francisco one and then thereafter there was a New York one that I decided I couldn't make. But yeah, from my end it was, and I'm sure you were too, but I was really surprised by both the mixture of people that we ended up getting and the number of people that we ended up getting. There was just a lot of attention on, obviously there was a lot of attention on the technology itself of GPT and language models and so on, but I was surprised by the interest specifically on trying to come up with interfaces that were outside of the box and the people that were interested in that topic. And so we ended up having a packed house and lots of interesting demos. I've heard multiple people comment on the event afterwards that they were positively surprised by the mixture of both the ML, AI-focused people at the event as well as the interface HCI-focused people. [00:04:24]Swyx: Yeah. I kind of see you as one of the leading, I guess, AI UX people, so I hope that we are maybe starting a new discipline, maybe. [00:04:33]Linus: Yeah, I mean, there is this kind of growing contingency of people interested in exploring the intersection of those things, so I'm excited for where that's going to go. [00:04:41]Swyx: I don't know if it's worth going through favorite demos. It was a little while ago, so I don't know if... [00:04:48]Alessio: There was, I forget who made it, but there was this new document writing tool where you could apply brushes to different paragraphs. [00:04:56]Linus: Oh, this was Amelia's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:04:58]Alessio: You could set a tone, both in terms of writer inspiration and then a tone that you wanted, and then you could drag and drop different tones into paragraphs and have the model rewrite them. It was the first time that it's not just auto-complete, there's more to it. And it's not asked in a prompt, it's this funny drag-an-emoji over it. [00:05:20]Linus: Right. [00:05:21]Swyx: I actually thought that you had done some kind of demo where you could select text and then augment it in different moods, but maybe it wasn't you, maybe it was just someone else [00:05:28]Linus: I had done something similar, with slightly different building blocks. I think Amelia's demo was, there was sort of a preset palette of brushes and you apply them to text. I had built something related last year, I prototyped a way to give people sliders for different semantic attributes of text. And so you could start with a sentence, and you had a slider for length and a slider for how philosophical the text is, and a slider for how positive or negative the sentiment in the text is, and you could adjust any of them in the language model, reproduce the text. Yeah, similar, but continuous control versus distinct brushes, I think is an interesting distinction there. [00:06:03]Swyx: I should add it for listeners, if you missed the meetup, which most people will have not seen it, we actually did a separate post with timestamps of each video, so you can look at that. [00:06:13]Alessio: Sorry, Linus, this is unrelated, but I think you build over a hundred side projects or something like that. A hundred? [00:06:20]Swyx: I think there's a lot of people... I know it's a hundred. [00:06:22]Alessio: I think it's a lot of them. [00:06:23]Swyx: A lot of them are kind of small. [00:06:25]Alessio: Yeah, well, I mean, it still counts. I think there's a lot of people that are excited about the technology and want to hack on things. Do you have any tips on how to box, what you want to build, how do you decide what goes into it? Because all of these things, you could build so many more things on top of it. Where do you decide when you're done? [00:06:44]Linus: So my projects actually tend to be... I think especially when people approach project building with a goal of learning, I think a common mistake is to be over-ambitious and sort of not scope things very tightly. And so a classic kind of failure mode is, you say, I'm really interested in learning how to use the GPT-4 API, and I'm also interested in vector databases, and I'm also interested in Next.js. And then you devise a project that's going to take many weeks, and you glue all these things together. And it could be a really cool idea, but then especially if you have a day job and other things that life throws you away, it's hard to actually get to a point where you can ship something. And so one of the things that I got really good at was saying, one, knowing exactly how quickly I could work, at least on the technologies that I knew well, and then only adding one new unknown thing to learn per project. So it may be that for this project, I'm going to learn how the embedding API works. Or for this project, I'm going to learn how to do vector stuff with PyTorch or something. And then I would scope things so that it fit in one chunk of time, like Friday night to Sunday night or something like that. And then I would scope the project so that I could ship something as much work as I could fit into a two-day period, so that at the end of that weekend, I could ship something. And then afterwards, if I want to add something, I have time to do it and a chance to do that. But it's already shipped, so there's already momentum, and people are using it, or I'm using it, and so there's a reason to continue building. So only adding one new unknown per project, I think, is a good trick. [00:08:14]Swyx: I first came across you, I think, because of Monocle, which is your personal search engine. And I got very excited about it, because I always wanted a personal search engine, until I found that it was in a language that I've never seen before. [00:08:25]Linus: Yeah, there's a towel tower of little tools and technologies that I built for myself. One of the other tricks to being really productive when you're building side projects is just to use a consistent set of tools that you know really, really well. For me, that's Go, and my language, and a couple other libraries that I've written that I know all the way down to the bottom of the stack. And then I barely have to look anything up, because I've just debugged every possible issue that could come up. And so I could get from start to finish without getting stuck in a weird bug that I've never seen before. But yeah, it's a weird stack. [00:08:58]Swyx: It also means that you probably are not aiming for, let's say, open source glory, or whatever. Because you're not publishing in the JavaScript ecosystem. Right, right. [00:09:06]Linus: I mean, I've written some libraries before, but a lot of my projects tend to be like, the way that I approach it is less about building something that other people are going to use en masse. And make yourself happy. Yeah, more about like, here's the thing that I built, if you want to, and often I learn something in the process of building that thing. So like with Monocle, I wrote a custom sort of full text search index. And I thought a lot of the parts of what I built was interesting. And so I just wanted other people to be able to look at it and see how it works and understand it. But the goal isn't necessarily for you to be able to replicate it and run it on your own. [00:09:36]Swyx: Well, we can kind of dive into your other AIUX thoughts. As you've been diving in, you tend to share a lot on Twitter. And I just kind of took out some of your greatest hits. This is relevant to the demo that you picked out, Alessio. And what we're talking about, which is, most knowledge work is not a text generation task. That's funny, because a lot of what Notion AI is, is text generation right now. Maybe you want to elaborate a little bit. Yeah. [00:10:01]Linus: I think the first time you look at something like GPT, the shape of the thing you see is like, oh, it's a thing that takes some input text and generates some output text. And so the easiest thing to build on top of that is a content generation tool. But I think there's a couple of other categories of things that you could build that are sort of progressively more useful and more interesting. And so besides content generation, which requires the minimum amount of wrapping around ChatGPT, the second tier up from that is things around knowledge, I think. So if you have, I mean, this is the hot thing with all these vector databases things going around. But if you have a lot of existing context around some knowledge about your company or about a field or all of the internet, you can use a language model as a way to search and understand things in it and combine and synthesize them. And that synthesis, I think, is useful. And at that point, I think the value that that unlocks, I think, is much greater than the value of content generation. Because most knowledge work, the artifact that you produce isn't actually about writing more words. Most knowledge work, the goal is to understand something, synthesize new things, or propose actions or other kinds of knowledge-to-knowledge tasks. And then the third category, I think, is automation. Which I think is sort of the thing that people are looking at most actively today, at least from my vantage point in the ecosystem. Things like the React prompting technique, and just in general, letting models propose actions or write code to accomplish tasks. That's also moving far beyond generating text to doing something more interesting. So much of the value of what humans sit down and do at work isn't actually in the words that they write. It's all the thinking that goes on before you write those words. So how can you get language models to contribute to those parts of work? [00:11:43]Alessio: I think when you first tweeted about this, I don't know if you already accepted the job, but you tweeted about this, and then the next one was like, this is a NotionAI subtweet. [00:11:53]Swyx: So I didn't realize that. [00:11:56]Alessio: The best thing that I see is when people complain, and then they're like, okay, I'm going to go and help make the thing better. So what are some of the things that you've been thinking about? I know you talked a lot about some of the flexibility versus intuitiveness of the product. The language is really flexible, because you can say anything. And it's funny, the models never ignore you. They always respond with something. So no matter what you write, something is going to come back. Sometimes you don't know how big the space of action is, how many things you can do. So as a product builder, how do you think about the trade-offs that you're willing to take for your users? Where like, okay, I'm not going to let you be as flexible, but I'm going to create this guardrails for you. What's the process to think about the guardrails, and how you want to funnel them to the right action? [00:12:46]Linus: Yeah, I think what this trade-off you mentioned around flexibility versus intuitiveness, I think, gets at one of the core design challenges for building products on top of language models. A lot of good interface design comes from tastefully adding the right constraints in place to guide the user towards actions that you want to take. As you add more guardrails, the obvious actions become more obvious. And one common way to make an interface more intuitive is to narrow the space of choices that the users have to make, and the number of choices that they have to make. And that intuitiveness, that source of intuitiveness from adding constraints, is kind of directly at odds with the reason that language models are so powerful and interesting, which is that they're so flexible and so general, and you can ask them to do literally anything, and they will always give you something. But most of the time, the answer isn't that high quality. And so there's kind of a distribution of, like, there are clumps of things in the action space of what a language model can do that the model's good at, and there's parts of the space where it's bad at. And so one sort of high-level framework that I have for thinking about designing with language models is, there are actions that the language model's good at, and actions that it's bad at. How do you add the right constraints carefully to guide the user and the system towards the things that the language model's good at? And then at the same time, how do you use those constraints to set the user expectations for what it's going to be good at and bad at? One way to do this is just literally to add those constraints and to set expectations. So a common example I use all the time is, if you have some AI system to answer questions from a knowledge base, there are a couple of different ways to surface that in a kind of a hypothetical product. One is, you could have a thing that looks like a chat window in a messaging app, and then you could tell the user, hey, this is for looking things up from a database. You can ask a question, then it'll look things up and give you an answer. But if something looks like a chat, and this is a lesson that's been learned over and over for anyone building chat interfaces since, like, 2014, 15, if you have anything that looks like a chat interface or a messaging app, people are going to put some, like, weird stuff in there that just don't look like the thing that you want the model to take in, because the expectation is, hey, I can use this like a messaging app, and people will send in, like, hi, hello, you know, weird questions, weird comments. Whereas if you take that same, literally the same input box, and put it in, like, a thing that looks like a search bar with, like, a search button, people are going to treat it more like a search window. And at that point, inputs look a lot more like keywords or a list of keywords or maybe questions. So the simple act of, like, contextualizing that input in different parts of an interface reset the user's expectations, which constrain the space of things that the model has to handle. And that you're kind of adding constraints, because you're really restricting your input to mostly things that look like keyword search. But because of that constraint, you can have the model fit the expectations better. You can tune the model to perform better in those settings. And it's also less confusing and perhaps more intuitive, because the user isn't stuck with this blank page syndrome problem of, okay, here's an input. What do I actually do with it? When we initially launched Notion AI, one of my common takeaways, personally, from talking to a lot of my friends who had tried it, obviously, there were a lot of people who were getting lots of value out of using it to automate writing emails or writing marketing copy. There were a ton of people who were using it to, like, write Instagram ads and then sort of paste it into the Instagram tool. But some of my friends who had tried it and did not use it as much, a frequently cited reason was, I tried it. It was cool. It was cool for the things that Notion AI was marketed for. But for my particular use case, I had a hard time figuring out exactly the way it was useful for my workflow. And I think that gets back at the problem of, it's such a general tool that just presented with a blank prompt box, it's hard to know exactly the way it could be useful to your particular use case. [00:16:21]Alessio: What do you think is the relationship between novelty and flexibility? I feel like we're in kind of like a prompting honeymoon phase where the tools are new and then everybody just wants to do whatever they want to do. And so it's good to give these interfaces because people can explore. But if I go forward in three years, ideally, I'm not prompting anything. The UX has been built for most products to already have the intuitive, kind of like a happy path built into it. Do you think there's merit in a way? If you think about ChatGPT, if it was limited, the reason why it got so viral is people were doing things that they didn't think a computer could do, like write poems and solve riddles and all these different things. How do you think about that, especially in Notion, where Notion AI is kind of like a new product in an existing thing? How much of it for you is letting that happen and seeing how people use it? And then at some point be like, okay, we know what people want to do. The flexibility is not, it was cool before, but now we just want you to do the right things with the right UX. [00:17:27]Linus: I think there's value in always having the most general input as an escape hatch for people who want to take advantage of that power. At this point, Notion AI has a couple of different manifestations in the product. There's the writer. There's a thing we called an AI block, which is a thing that you can always sort of re-update as a part of document. It's like a live, a little portal inside the document that an AI can write. We also have a relatively new thing called AI autofill, which lets an AI fill an entire column in a Notion database. In all of these things, speaking of adding constraints, we have a lot of suggested prompts that we've worked on and we've curated and we think work pretty well for things like summarization and writing drafts to blog posts and things. But we always leave a fully custom prompt for a few reasons. One is if you are actually a power user and you know how language models work, you can go in and write your custom prompt and if you're a power user, you want access to the power. The other is for us to be able to discover new use cases. And so one of the lovely things about working on a product like Notion is that there's such an enthusiastic and lively kind of community of ambassadors and people that are excited about trying different things and coming up with all these templates and new use cases. And having a fully custom action or prompt whenever we launch something new in AI lets those people really experiment and help us discover new ways to take advantage of AI. I think it's good in that way. There's also a sort of complement to that, which is if we wanted to use feedback data or learn from those things and help improve the way that we are prompting the model or the models that we're building, having access to that like fully diverse, fully general range of use cases helps us make sure that our models can handle the full generality of what people want to do. [00:19:06]Swyx: I feel like we've segway'd a lot into our Notion conversation and maybe I just wanted to bridge that a little bit with your personal journey into Notion before we go into Notion proper. You spent a year kind of on a sabbatical, kind of on your own self-guided research journey and then deciding to join Notion. I think a lot of engineers out there thinking about doing this maybe don't have the internal compass that you have or don't have the guts to basically make no money for a year. Maybe just share with people how you decided to basically go on your own independent journey and what got you to join Notion in the end. [00:19:42]Linus: Yeah, what happened? Um, yeah, so for a little bit of context for people who don't know me, I was working mostly at sort of seed stage startups as a web engineer. I actually didn't really do much AI at all for prior to my year off. And then I took all of 2022 off with less of a focus on it ended up sort of in retrospect becoming like a Linus Pivots to AI year, which was like beautifully well timed. But in the beginning of the year, there was kind of a one key motivation and then one key kind of question that I had. The motivation was that I think I was at a sort of a privileged and fortunate enough place where I felt like I had some money saved up that I had saved up explicitly to be able to take some time off and investigate my own kind of questions because I was already working on lots of side projects and I wanted to spend more time on it. I think I also at that point felt like I had enough security in the companies and folks that I knew that if I really needed a job on a short notice, I could go and I could find some work to do. So I wouldn't be completely on the streets. And so that security, I think, gave me the confidence to say, OK, let's try this kind of experiment.[00:20:52]Maybe it'll only be for six months. Maybe it'll be for a year. I had enough money saved up to last like a year and change. And so I had planned for a year off and I had one sort of big question that I wanted to explore. Having that single question, I think, actually was really helpful for focusing the effort instead of just being like, I'm going to side project for a year, which I think would have been less productive. And that big question was, how do we evolve text interfaces forward? So, so much of knowledge work is consuming walls of text and then producing more walls of text. And text is so ubiquitous, not just in software, but just in general in the world. They're like signages and menus and books. And it's ubiquitous, but it's not very ergonomic. There's a lot of things about text interfaces that could be better. And so I wanted to explore how we could make that better. A key part of that ended up being, as I discovered, taking advantage of this new technologies that let computers make sense of text information. And so that's how I ended up sort of sliding into AI. But the motivation in the beginning was less focused on learning a new technology and more just on exploring this general question space. [00:21:53]Swyx: Yeah. You have the quote, text is the lowest denominator, not the end game. Right, right. [00:21:58]Linus: I mean, I think if you look at any specific domain or discipline, whether it's medicine or mathematics or software engineering, in any specific discipline where there's a narrower set of abstractions for people to work with, there are custom notations. One of the first things that I wrote in this exploration year was this piece called Notational Intelligence, where I talk about this idea that so much of, as a total sidebar, there's a whole other fascinating conversation that I would love to have at some point, maybe today, maybe later, about how to evolve a budding scene of research into a fully-fledged field. So I think AI UX is kind of in this weird stage where there's a group of interesting people that are interested in exploring this space of how do you design for this newfangled technology, and how do you take that and go and build best practices and powerful methods and tools [00:22:48]Swyx: We should talk about that at some point. [00:22:49]Linus: OK. But in a lot of established fields, there are notations that people use that really help them work at a slightly higher level than just raw words. So notations for describing chemicals and notations for different areas of mathematics that let people work with higher-level concepts more easily. Logic, linguistics. [00:23:07]Swyx: Yeah. [00:23:07]Linus: And I think it's fair to say that some large part of human intelligence, especially in these more technical domains, comes from our ability to work with notations instead of work with just the raw ideas in our heads. And text is a kind of notation. It's the most general kind of notation, but it's also, because of its generality, not super high leverage if you want to go into these specific domains. And so I wanted to try to improve on that frontier. [00:23:29]Swyx: Yeah. You said in our show notes, one of my goals over the next few years is to ensure that we end up with interface metaphors and technical conventions that set us up for the best possible timeline for creativity and inventions ahead. So part of that is constraints. But I feel like that is one part of the equation, right? What's the other part that is more engenders creativity? [00:23:47]Linus: Tell me a little bit about that and what you're thinking there. [00:23:51]Swyx: It's just, I feel like, you know, we talked a little bit about how you do want to constrain, for example, the user interface to guide people towards things that language models are good at. And creative solutions do arise out of constraints. But I feel like that alone is not sufficient for people to invent things. [00:24:10]Linus: I mean, there's a lot of directions, I think, that could go from that. The origin of that thing that you're quoting is when I decided to come help work on AI at Notion, a bunch of my friends were actually quite surprised, I think, because they had expected that I would have gone and worked… [00:24:29]Swyx: You did switch. I was eyeing that for you. [00:24:31]Linus: I mean, I worked at a lab or at my own company or something like that. But one of the core motivations for me joining an existing company and one that has lots of users already is this exact thing where in the aftermath of a new foundational technology emerging, there's kind of a period of a few years where the winners in the market get to decide what the default interface paradigm for the technology is. So, like, mini computers, personal computers, the winners of that market got to decide Windows are and how scrolling works and what a mouse cursor is and how text is edited. Similar with mobile, the concept of a home screen and apps and things like that, the winners of the market got to decide. And that has profound, like, I think it's difficult to understate the importance of, in those few critical years, the winning companies in the market choosing the right abstractions and the right metaphors. And AI, to me, seemed like it's at that pivotal moment where it's a technology that lots of companies are adopting. There is this well-recognized need for interface best practices. And Notion seemed like a company that had this interesting balance of it could still move quickly enough and ship and prototype quickly enough to try interesting interface ideas. But it also had enough presence in the ecosystem that if we came up with the right solution or one that we felt was right, we could push it out and learn from real users and iterate and hopefully be a part of that story of setting the defaults and setting what the dominant patterns are. [00:26:07]Swyx: Yeah, it's a special opportunity. One of my favorite stories or facts is it was like a team of 10 people that designed the original iPhone. And so all the UX that was created there is essentially what we use as smartphones today, including predictive text, because people were finding that people were kind of missing the right letters. So they just enhanced the hit area for certain letters based on what you're typing. [00:26:28]Linus: I mean, even just the idea of like, we should use QWERTY keyboards on tiny smartphone screens. Like that's a weird idea, right? [00:26:36]Swyx: Yeah, QWERTY is another one. So I have RSI. So this actually affects me. QWERTY was specifically chosen to maximize travel distance, right? Like it's actually not ergonomic by design because you wanted the keyboard, the key type writers to not stick. But we don't have that anymore. We're still sticking to QWERTY. I'm still sticking to QWERTY. I could switch to the other ones. I forget. QORAC or QOMAC anytime, but I don't just because of inertia. I have another thing like this. [00:27:02]Linus: So going even farther back, people don't really think enough about where this concept of buttons come from, right? So the concept of a push button as a thing where you press it and it activates some binary switch. I mean, buttons have existed for, like mechanical buttons have existed for a long time. But really, like this modern concept of a button that activates a binary switch really gets like popularized by the popular advent of electricity. Before the electricity, if you had a button that did something, you would have to construct a mechanical system where if you press down on a thing, it affects some other lever system that affects as like the final action. And this modern idea of a button that is just a binary switch gets popularized electricity. And at that point, a button has to work in the way that it does in like an alarm clock, because when you press down on it, there's like a spring that makes sure that the button comes back up and that it completes the circuit. And so that's the way the button works. And then when we started writing graphical interfaces, we just took that idea of a thing that could be depressed to activate a switch. All the modern buttons that we have today in software interfaces are like simulating electronic push buttons where you like press down to complete a circuit, except there's actually no circuit being completed. It's just like a square on a screen. [00:28:11]Swyx: It's all virtualized. Right. [00:28:12]Linus: And then you control the simulation of a button by clicking a physical button on a mouse. Except if you're on a trackpad, it's not even a physical button anymore. It's like a simulated button hardware that controls a simulated button in software. And it's also just this cascade of like conceptual backwards compatibility that gets us here. I think buttons are interesting. [00:28:32]Alessio: Where are you on the skeuomorphic design love-hate spectrum? There's people that have like high nostalgia for like the original, you know, the YouTube icon on the iPhone with like the knobs on the TV. [00:28:42]Linus: I think a big part of that is at least the aesthetic part of it is fashion. Like fashion taken very literally, like in the same way that like the like early like Y2K 90s aesthetic comes and goes. I think skeuomorphism as expressed in like the early iPhone or like Windows XP comes and goes. There's another aspect of this, which is the part of skeuomorphism that helps people understand and intuit software, which has less to do with skeuomorphism making things easier to understand per se and more about like, like a slightly more general version of skeuomorphism is like, there should be a consistent mental model behind an interface that is easy to grok. And then once the user has the mental model, even if it's not the full model of exactly how that system works, there should be a simplified model that the user can easily understand and then sort of like adopt and use. One of my favorite examples of this is how volume controls that are designed well often work. Like on an iPhone, when you make your iPhone volume twice as loud, the sound that comes out isn't actually like at a physical level twice as loud. It's on a log scale. When you push the volume slider up on an iPhone, the speaker uses like four times more energy, but humans perceive it as twice as loud. And so the mental model that we're working with is, okay, if I make this, this volume control slider have two times more value, it's going to sound two times louder, even though actually the underlying physics is like on a log scale. But what actually happens physically is not actually what matters. What matters is how humans perceive it in the model that I have in my head. And there, I think there are a lot of other instances where the skeuomorphism isn't actually the thing. The thing is just that there should be a consistent mental model. And often the easy, consistent mental model to reach for is the models that already exist in reality, but not always. [00:30:23]Alessio: I think the other big topic, maybe before we dive into Notion is agents. I think that's one of the toughest interfaces to crack, mostly because, you know, the text box, everybody understands that the agent is kind of like, it's like human-like feeling, you know, where it's like, okay, I'm kind of delegating something to a human, right? I think, like, Sean, you made the example of like a Calendly, like a savvy Cal, it's like an agent, because it's scheduling on your behalf for something. [00:30:51]Linus: That's actually a really interesting example, because it's a kind of a, it's a pretty deterministic, like there's no real AI to it, but it is agent in the sense that you're like delegating it and automate something. [00:31:01]Swyx: Yeah, it does work without me. It's great. [00:31:03]Alessio: So that one, we figured out. Like, we know what the scheduling interface is like. [00:31:07]Swyx: Well, that's the state of the art now. But, you know, for example, the person I'm corresponding with still has to pick a time from my calendar, which some people dislike. Sam Lesson famously says it's a sign of disrespect. I disagree with him, but, you know, it's a point of view. There could be some intermediate AI agents that would send emails back and forth like a human person to give the other person who feels slighted that sense of respect or a personalized touch that they want. So there's always ways to push it. [00:31:39]Alessio: Yeah, I think for me, you know, other stuff that I think about, so we were doing prep for another episode and had an agent and asked it to do like a, you know, background prep on like the background of the person. And it just couldn't quite get the format that I wanted it to be, you know, but I kept to have the only way to prompt that it's like, give it text, give a text example, give a text example. What do you think, like the interface between human and agents in the future will be like, do you still think agents are like this open ended thing that are like objective driven where you say, Hey, this is what I want to achieve versus I only trust this agent to do X. And like, this is how X is done. I'm curious because that kind of seems like a lot of mental overhead, you know, to remember each agent for each task versus like if you have an executive assistant, like they'll do a random set of tasks and you can trust them because they're a human. But I feel like with agents, we're not quite there. [00:32:36]Swyx: Agents are hard. [00:32:36]Linus: The design space is just so vast. Since all of the like early agent stuff came out around auto GPT, I've tried to develop some kind of a thesis around it. And I think it's just difficult because there's so many variables. One framework that I usually apply to sort of like existing chat based prompting kind of things that I think also applies just as well to agents is this duality between what you might call like trust and control. So you just now you brought up this example of you had an agent try to write some write up some prep document for an episode and it couldn't quite get the format right. And one way you could describe that is you could say, Oh, the, the agent didn't exactly do what I meant and what I had in my head. So I can't trust it to do the right job. But a different way to describe it is I have a hard time controlling exactly the output of the model and I have a hard time communicating exactly what's in my head to the model. And they're kind of two sides of the same coin. I think if you, if you can somehow provide a way to with less effort, communicate and control and constrain the model output a little bit more and constrain the behavior a little bit more, I think that would alleviate the pressure for the model to be this like fully trusted thing because there's no need for trust anymore. There's just kind of guardrails that ensure that the model does the right thing. So developing ways and interfaces for these agents to be a little more constrained in its output or maybe for the human to control its output a little bit more or behavior a little bit more, I think is a productive path. Another sort of more, more recent revelation that I had while working on this and autofill thing inside notion is the importance of zones of influence for AI agents, especially in collaborative settings. So having worked on lots of interfaces for independent work on my year off, one of the surprising lessons that I learned early on when I joined notion was that if you build a collaboration permeates everything, which is great for notion because collaborating with an AI, you reuse a lot of the same metaphors for collaborating with humans. So one nice thing about this autofill thing that also kind of applies to AI blocks, which is another thing that we have, is that you don't alleviate this problem of having to ask questions like, oh, is this document written by an AI or is this written by a human? Like this need for auditability, because the part that's written by the AI is just in like the autofilled cell or in the AI block. And you can, you can tell that's written by the AI and things outside of it, you can kind of reasonably assume that it was written by you. I think anytime you have sort of an unbounded action space for, for models like agents, it's especially important to be able to answer those questions easily and to have some sense of security that in the same way that you want to know whether your like coworker or collaborator has access to a document or has modified a document, you want to know whether an AI has permissions to access something. And if it's modified something or made some edit, you want to know that it did it. And so as a compliment to constraining the model's action space proactively, I think it's also important to communicate, have the user have an easy understanding of like, what exactly did the model do here? And I think that helps build trust as well. [00:35:39]Swyx: Yeah. I think for auto GPT and those kinds of agents in particular, anything that is destructive, you need to prompt for, I guess, or like check with, check in with the user. I know it's overloaded now. I can't say that. You have to confirm with the user. You confirm to the user. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:56]Linus: That's tough too though, because you, you don't want to stop. [00:35:59]Swyx: Yeah. [00:35:59]Linus: One of the, one of the benefits of automating these things that you can sort of like, in theory, you can scale them out arbitrarily. I can have like a hundred different agents working for me, but if that means I'm just spending my entire day in a deluge of notifications, that's not ideal either. [00:36:12]Swyx: Yeah. So then it could be like a reversible, destructive thing with some kind of timeouts, a time limit. So you could reverse it within some window. I don't know. Yeah. I've been thinking about this a little bit because I've been working on a small developer agent. Right. Right. [00:36:27]Linus: Or maybe you could like batch a group of changes and can sort of like summarize them with another AI and improve them in bulk or something. [00:36:33]Swyx: Which is surprisingly similar to the collaboration problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. [00:36:39]Linus: I'm telling you, the collaboration, a lot of the problems with collaborating with humans also apply to collaborating with AI. There's a potential pitfall to that as well, which is that there are a lot of things that some of the core advantages of AI end up missing out on if you just fully anthropomorphize them into like human-like collaborators. [00:36:56]Swyx: But yeah. Do you have a strong opinion on that? Like, do you refer to it as it? Oh yeah. [00:37:00]Linus: I'm an it person, at least for now, in 2023. Yeah. [00:37:05]Swyx: So that leads us nicely into introducing what Notion and Notion AI is today. Do you have a pet answer as to what is Notion? I've heard it introduced as a database, a WordPress killer, a knowledge base, a collaboration tool. What is it? Yeah. [00:37:19]Linus: I mean, the official answer is that a Notion is a connected workspace. It has a space for your company docs, meeting notes, a wiki for all of your company notes. You can also use it to orchestrate your workflows if you're managing a project, if you have an engineering team, if you have a sales team. You can put all of those in a single Notion database. And the benefit of Notion is that all of them live in a single space where you can link to your wiki pages from your, I don't know, like onboarding docs. Or you can link to a GitHub issue through a task from your documentation on your engineering system. And all of this existing in a single place in this kind of like unified, yeah, like single workspace, I think has lots of benefits. [00:37:58]Swyx: That's the official line. [00:37:59]Linus: There's an asterisk that I usually enjoy diving deeper into, which is that the whole reason that this connected workspace is possible is because underlying all of this is this really cool abstraction of blocks. In Notion, everything is a block. A paragraph is a block. A bullet point is a block. But also a page is a block. And the way that Notion databases work is that a database is just a collection of pages, which are really blocks. And you can like take a paragraph and drag it into a database and it'll become a page. You can take a page inside a database and pull it out and it'll just become a link to that page. And so this core abstraction of a block that can also be a page, that can also be a row in a database, like an Excel sheet, that fluidity and this like shared abstraction across all these different areas inside Notion, I think is what really makes Notion powerful. This Lego theme, this like Lego building block theme permeates a lot of different parts of Notion. Some fans of Notion might know that when you, or when you join Notion, you get a little Lego minifigure, which has Lego building blocks for workflows. And then every year you're at Notion, you get a new block that says like you've been here for a year, you've been here for two years. And then Simon, our co-founder and CTO, has a whole crate of Lego blocks on his desk that he just likes to mess with because, you know, he's been around for a long time. But this Lego building block thing, this like shared sort of all-encompassing single abstraction that you can combine to build various different kinds of workflows, I think is really what makes Notion powerful. And one of the sort of background questions that I have for Notion AI is like, what is that kind of building block for AI? [00:39:30]Swyx: Well, we can dive into that. So what is Notion AI? Like, so I kind of view it as like a startup within the startup. Could you describe the Notion AI team? Is this like, how seriously is Notion taking the AI wave? [00:39:43]Linus: The most seriously? The way that Notion AI came about, as I understand it, because I joined a bit later, I think it was around October last year, all of Notion team had a little offsite. And as a part of that, Ivan and Simon kind of went into a little kind of hack weekend. And the thing that they ended up hacking on inside Notion was the very, very early prototype of Notion AI. They saw this GPT-3 thing. The early, early motivation for starting Notion, building Notion in the first place for them, was sort of grounded in this utopian end-user programming vision where software is so powerful, but there are only so many people in the world that can write programs. But everyone can benefit from having a little workspace or a little program or a little workflow tool that's programmed to just fit their use case. And so how can we build a tool that lets people customize their software tools that they use every day for their use case? And I think to them, seemed like such a critical part of facilitating that, bridging the gap between people who can code and people who need software. And so they saw that, they tried to build an initial prototype that ended up becoming the first version of Notion AI. They had a prototype in, I think, late October, early November, before Chachapiti came out and sort of evolved it over the few months. But what ended up launching was sort of in line with the initial vision, I think, of what they ended up building. And then once they had it, I think they wanted to keep pushing it. And so at this point, AI is a really key part of Notion strategy. And what we see Notion becoming going forward, in the same way that blocks and databases are a core part of Notion that helps enable workflow automation and all these important parts of running a team or collaborating with people or running your life, we think that AI is going to become an equally critical part of what Notion is. And it won't be, Notion is a cool connected workspace app, and it also has AI. It'll be that what Notion is, is databases, it has pages, it has space for your docs, and it also has this sort of comprehensive suite of AI tools that permeate everything. And one of the challenges of the AI team, which is, as you said, kind of a startup within a startup right now, is to figure out exactly what that all-permeating kind of abstraction means, which is a fascinating and difficult open problem. [00:41:57]Alessio: How do you think about what people expect of Notion versus what you want to build in Notion? A lot of this AI technology kind of changes, you know, we talked about the relationship between text and human and how human collaborates. Do you put any constraints on yourself when it's like, okay, people expect Notion to work this way with these blocks. So maybe I have this crazy idea and I cannot really pursue it because it's there. I think it's a classic innovator's dilemma kind of thing. And I think a lot of founders out there that are in a similar position where it's like, you know, series C, series D company, it's like, you're not quite yet the super established one, you're still moving forward, but you have an existing kind of following and something that Notion stands for. How do you kind of wrangle with that? [00:42:43]Linus: Yeah, that is in some ways a challenge and that Notion already is a kind of a thing. And so we can't just scrap everything and start over. But I think it's also, there's a blessing side of it too, in that because there are so many people using Notion in so many different ways, we understand all of the things that people want to use Notion for very well. And then so we already have a really well-defined space of problems that we want to help people solve. And that helps us. We have it with the existing Notion product and we also have it by sort of rolling out these AI things early and then watching, learning from the community what people want to do [00:43:17]Swyx: with them. [00:43:17]Linus: And so based on those learnings, I think it actually sort of helps us constrain the space of things we think we need to build because otherwise the design space is just so large with whatever we can do with AI and knowledge work. And so watching what people have been using Notion for and what they want to use Notion for, I think helps us constrain that space a little bit and make the problem of building AI things inside Notion a little more tractable. [00:43:36]Swyx: I think also just observing what they naturally use things for, and it sounds like you do a bunch of user interviews where you hear people running into issues and, or describe them as, the way that I describe myself actually is, I feel like the problem is with me, that I'm not creative enough to come up with use cases to use Notion AI or any other AI. [00:43:57]Linus: Which isn't necessarily on you, right? [00:43:59]Swyx: Exactly. [00:43:59]Linus: Again, like it goes way back to the early, the thing we touched on early in the conversation around like, if you have too much generality, there's not enough, there are not enough guardrails to obviously point to use cases. Blank piece of paper. [00:44:10]Swyx: I don't know what to do with this. So I think a lot of people judge Notion AI based on what they originally saw, which is write me a blog post or do a summary or do action items. Which, fun fact, for latent space, my very, very first Hacker News hit was reverse engineering Notion AI. I actually don't know if I got it exactly right. I think I got the easy ones right. And then apparently I got the action items one really wrong. So there's some art into doing that. But also you've since launched a bunch of other products and maybe you've already hinted at AI Autofill. Maybe we can just talk a little bit about what does the scope or suite of Notion AI products have been so far and what you're launching this week? Yeah. [00:44:53]Linus: So we have, I think, three main facets of Notion AI and Notion at the moment. We have sort of the first thing that ever launched with Notion AI, which I think that helps you write. It's, going back to earlier in the conversation, it's kind of a writing, kind of a content generation tool. If you have a document and you want to generate a summary, it helps you generate a summary, pull out action items, you can draft a blog post, you can help it improve, it's helped to improve your writings, it can help fix grammar and spelling mistakes. But under the hood, it's a fairly lightweight, a thick layer of prompts. But otherwise, it's a pretty straightforward use case of language models, right? And so there's that, a tool that helps you write documents. There's a thing called an AI block, which is a slightly more constrained version of that where one common way that we use it inside Notion is we take all of our meeting notes inside Notion. And frequently when you have a meeting and you want other people to be able to go back to it and reference it, it's nice to have a summary of that meeting. So all of our meeting notes templates, at least on the AI team, have an AI block at the top that automatically summarizes the contents of that page. And so whenever we're done with a meeting, we just press a button and it'll re-summarize that, including things like what are the core action items for every person in the meeting. And so that block, as I said before, is nice because it's a constrained space for the AI to work in, and we don't have to prompt it every single time. And then the newest member of this AI collection of features is AI autofill, which brings Notion AI to databases. So if you have a whole database of user interviews and you want to pull out what are the companies, core pain points, what are their core features, maybe what are their competitor products they use, you can just make columns. And in the same way that you write Excel formulas, you can write a little AI formula, basically, where the AI will look at the contents of the page and pull out each of these key pieces of information. The slightly new thing that autofill introduces is this idea of a more automated background [00:46:43]Swyx: AI thing. [00:46:44]Linus: So with Writer, the AI in your document product and the AI block, you have to always ask it to update. You have to always ask it to rewrite. But if you have a column in a database, in a Notion database, or a property in a Notion database, it would be nice if you, whenever someone went back and changed the contents of the meeting node or something updated about the page, or maybe it's a list of tasks that you have to do and the status of the task changes, you might want the summary of that task or detail of the task to update. And so anytime that you can set up an autofilled Notion property so that anytime something on that database row or page changes, the AI will go back and sort of auto-update the autofilled value. And that, I think, is a really interesting part that we might continue leading into of like, even though there's AI now tied to this particular page, it's sort of doing its own thing in the background to help automate and alleviate some of that pain of automating these things. But yeah, Writer, Blocks, and Autofill are the three sort of cornerstones we have today. [00:47:42]Alessio: You know, there used to be this glorious time where like, Roam Research was like the hottest knowledge company out there, and then Notion built Backlinks. I don't know if we are to blame for that. No, no, but how do Backlinks play into some of this? You know, I think most AI use cases today are kind of like a single page, right? Kind of like this document. I'm helping with this. Do you see some of these tools expanding to do changes across things? So we just had Itamar from Codium on the podcast, and he talked about how agents can tie in specs for features, tests for features, and the code for the feature. So like the three entities are tied together. Like, do you see some Backlinks help AI navigate through knowledge basis of companies where like, you might have the document the product uses, but you also have the document that marketing uses to then announce it? And as you make changes, the AI can work through different pieces of it? [00:48:41]Swyx: Definitely. [00:48:41]Linus: If I may get a little theoretical from that. One of my favorite ideas from my last year of hacking around building text augmentations with AI for documents is this realization that, you know, when you look at code in a code editor, what it is at a very lowest level is just text files. A code file is a text file, and there are maybe functions inside of it, and it's a list of functions, but it's a text file. But the way that you understand it is not as a file, like a Word document, it's a kind of a graph.[00:49:10]Linus: Like you have a function, you have call sites to that function, there are places where you call that function, there's a place where that function is tested, many different definitions for that function. Maybe there's a type definition that's tied to that function. So it's a kind of a graph. And if you want to understand that function, there's advantages to be able to traverse that whole graph and fully contextualize where that function is used. Same with types and same with variables. And so even though its code is represented as text files, it's actually kind of a graph. And a lot of the, of what, all of the key interfaces, interface innovations behind IDEs is helping surface that graph structure in the context of a text file. So like things like go to definition or VS Code's little window view when you like look at references. And interesting idea that I explored last year was what if you bring that to text documents? So text documents are a little more unstructured, so there's a less, there's a more fuzzy kind of graph idea. But if you're reading a textbook, if there's a new term, there's actually other places where the term is mentioned. There's probably a few places where that's defined. Maybe there's some figures that reference that term. If you have an idea, there are other parts of the document where the document might disagree with that idea or cite that idea. So there's still kind of a graph structure. It's a little more fuzzy, but there's a graph structure that ties together like a body of knowledge. And it would be cool if you had some kind of a text editor or some kind of knowledge tool that let you explore that whole graph. Or maybe if an AI could explore that whole graph. And so back to your point, I think taking advantage of not just the backlinks. Backlinks is a part of it. But the fact that all of these inside Notion, all of these pages exist in a single workspace and it's a shared context. It's a connected workspace. And you can take any idea and look up anywhere to fully contextualize what a part of your engineering system design means. Or what we know about our pitching their customer at a company. Or if I wrote down a book, what are other places where that book has been mentioned? All these graph following things, I think, are really important for contextualizing knowledge. [00:51:02]Swyx: Part of your job at Notion is prompt engineering. You are maybe one of the more advanced prompt engineers that I know out there. And you've always commented on the state of prompt ops tooling. What is your process today? What do you wish for? There's a lot here. [00:51:19]Linus: I mean, the prompts that are inside Notion right now, they're not complex in the sense that agent prompts are complex. But they're complex in the sense that there is even a problem as simple as summarize a [00:51:31]Swyx: page. [00:51:31]Linus: A page could contain anything from no information, if it's a fresh document, to a fully fledged news article. Maybe it's a meeting note. Maybe it's a bug filed by somebody at a company. The range of possible documents is huge. And then you have to distill all of it down to always generate a summary. And so describing that task to AI comprehensively is pretty hard. There are a few things that I think I ended up leaning on, as a team we ended up leaning on, for the prompt engineering part of it. I think one of the early transitions that we made was that the initial prototype for Notion AI was built on instruction following, the sort of classic instruction following models, TextWG003, and so on. And then at some point, we all switched to chat-based models, like Claude and the new ChatGPT Turbo and these models. And so that was an interesting transition. It actually kind of made few-shot prompting a little bit easier, I think, in that you could give the few-shot examples as sort of previous turns in a conversation. And then you could ask the real question as the next follow-up turn. I've come to appreciate few-shot prompting a lot more because it's difficult to fully comprehensively explain a particular task in words, but it's pretty easy to demonstrate like four or five different edge cases that you want the model to handle. And a lot of times, if there's an edge case that you want a model to handle, I think few-shot prompting is just the easiest, most reliable tool to reach for. One challenge in prompt engineering that Notion has to contend with often is we want to support all the different languages that Notion supports. And so all of our prompts have to be multilingual or compatible, which is kind of tricky because our prompts are written, our instructions are written in English. And so if you just have a naive approach, then the model tends to output in English, even when the document that you want to translate or summarize is in French. And so one way you could try to attack that problem is to tell the model, answering the language of the user's query. But it's actually a lot more effective to just give it examples of not just English documents, but maybe summarizing an English document, maybe summarize a ticket filed in French, summarize an empty document where the document's supposed to be in Korean. And so a lot of our few-shot prompt-included prompts in Notion AI tend to be very multilingual, and that helps support our non-English-speaking users. The other big part of prompt engineering is evaluation. The prompts that you exfiltrated out of Notion AI many weeks ago, surprisingly pretty spot-on, at least for the prompts that we had then, especially things like summary. But they're also outdated because we've evolved them a lot more, and we have a lot more examples. And some of our prompts are just really, really long. They're like thousands of tokens long. And so every time we go back and add an example or modify the instruction, we want to make sure that we don't regress any of the previous use cases that we've supported. And so we put a lot of effort, and we're increasingly building out internal tooling infrastructure for things like what you might call unit tests and regression tests for prompts with handwritten test cases, as well as tests that are driven more by feedback from Notion users that have chosen to share their feedback with us. [00:54:31]Swyx: You just have a hand-rolled testing framework or use Jest or whatever, and nothing custom out there. You basically said you've looked at so many prompt ops tools and you're sold on none of them. [00:54:42]Linus: So that tweet was from a while ago. I think there are a couple of interesting tools these days. But I think at the moment, Notion uses pretty hand-rolled tools. Nothing too heavy, but it's basically a for loop over a list of test cases. We do do quite a bit of using language models to evaluate language models. So our unit test descriptions are kind of funny because the test is literally just an input document and a query, and then we expect the model to say something. And then our qualification for whether that test passes or not is just ask the language model again, whether it looks like a reasonable summary or whether it's in the right language. [00:55:19]Swyx: Do you have the same model? Do you have entropic-criticized OpenAI or OpenAI-criticized entropic? That's a good question. Do you worry about models being biased towards its own self? [00:55:29]Linus: Oh, no, that's not a worry that we have. I actually don't know exactly if we use different models. If you have a fixed budget for running these tests, I think it would make sense to use more expensive models for evaluation rather than generation. But yeah, I don't remember exactly what we do there. [00:55:44]Swyx: And then one more follow-up on, you mentioned some of your prompts are thousands of tokens. That takes away from my budget as a user. Isn't that a trade-off that's a concern? So there's a limited context window, right? Some of that is taken by you as the app designer, product designer, deciding what system prompt to provide. And then the

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We try out the most secure messaging app in the world, and Wes' new note system that's so great you'll want to abandon your current one.

Do you love learning new things but struggle to retain the information you'd like to remember for later use? This problem is an ever-present obstacle in my nerdy quest to accumulate knowledge. The good news? I've found something that works for me, and I'm sharing it in today's show. Join me to learn more.This is a solo episode about building a second brain. You may or may not have heard of this concept, but it has revolutionized my life. As I stick to my commitment of setting aside two hours every day to learn new things, I find that I can grow as a business owner, gain knowledge and expertise, become more proficient in offering valuable products and services, and improve my physical and mental health. The problem is that I can't always remember everything I read, hear, and think. That's where the magic of the second brain comes in to help. Let's dive in. You'll Learn:● How note-taking helps me remember things and stay organized● How I was introduced to the “second brain concept” through the work of Ali Abdaal, a physician in England● The basics of the second brain: Instead of feeling pressure to store accumulated knowledge in my brain, I can store it online in a digital brain● How the second brain principles of productivity were developed by world-renowned productivity expert Tiago Forte, who has a free 10-part podcast on the topic (see Resources)● Ten Principles in Building a Second Brain:○ Borrowed creativity○ The capture habit○ Idea recycling○ Projects over categories○ Slow burns○ Start with abundance○ Intermediate packets○ You only know what you make○ Make things easier for your future self○ Keep your ideas moving ● “The key is not to just consume content, but to personalize and recycle it.”Resources mentioned:Ali AbdaalForte Labs Find the 10-part podcast series on Building a Second Brain at Forte LabsApps and tools recommended by Melvin:For live transcription of Mastermind groups: OtterFor pulling highlights from Kindle books: Readwise For capturing snippets of podcasts: Airr For pulling highlights from blog posts: Instapaper To use a central repository for information: Notion or Evernote or Roam Research.com Transcript:Melvin:Hey friends, welcome to session 264 of Selling the Couch, I hope that you are having a wonderful day. So today's episode is a solo one. And I wanted to start this episode by sharing a story or rather a scenario. As you may have figured out

In this week's edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Katharina von Dürckheim, leader of Wildlife Free to Roam research programme at Stellenbosch University about her research into the African elephant's extraordinary sense of smell.

If you enjoy this interview please help us grow by subscribing to the podcast and sharing it with your friends! Rob Haisfield is a behavioral strategist and gamification designer who rose to prominence with his popular 'Roam tours' video series, in which he would talk to different users of Roam Research about how they use tools for thought to manage their workflows and generate insights. Today he thinks about issues in knowledge management, interface design, and collaborative synthesis. #toolsforthought #tana #roamresearch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a lot of sweary words in this one, headphones in!Inger brought a sword to work and Jason is back on the mats at Brazillian Ju Jitsu (BJJ) so it's business as usual at On The Reg. Big shout out to Jason's wife Cath, who has nearly finished her course, which somehow leads to a long discussion of Jason's first experience of removing unwanted body hair. In other words, the usual catch up, but if you want to skip it, go straight to 24:32, where Siobhan calls in on Speakpipe to ask Inger if she's read 'How to take smart notes' by Sonke Ahrens. Siobhan's call is a great segue into Inger and Jason's discussion, starting at 28:58, about 'Building a Second Brain: a proven method to organise your digital life and unlock your creative potential' by Tiago Forte of Forte Labs. Inger LOVED this book and spends an hour telling Jason all about it, which caused Jason to spend yet more money on books and software. There's a lot of talk about the relative merits of (and how to integrate) Pocket, Evernote, Obsidian, Roam Research, Notion and the #bujo (Leave us a message on www.speakpipe.com/thesiswhisperer. Email Inger, she's easy to find. You will not be able to find Jason's email (he likes it that way).Talk to us on BlueSky by following @thesiswhisperer and @drjd. Inger is sadly addicted to Threads, but cannot convince JD to join. You can find her there, and on all the Socials actually, as @thesiswhisperer. You can read her stuff on www.thesiswhisperer.com. You can support the pod by buying our Text Expander guide for academics from the Thesis Whisperer website.

A renaissance is happening in productivity tools—and that goes beyond the software itself and into online gathering places for users passionate about those tools. Ramses is the community manager for Logseq, and he joins Mark and Adam to discuss language learning communities and the great flashcard debate; platform options like Discord, Discourse, and Circle; why people join communities in the first place, and why they stick around in the longer term. Plus: why community is not a moat. @MuseAppHQ hello@museapp.com Show notes Ramses Oudt (@rroudt) Think Stack Club Spaced repetition Flashcard Duolingo, Anki Outliner Logseq, Emacs, Workflowy, Dynalist, Roam Research, Obsidian Knowledge graph Readwise r/puppy101 Logseq's forum, Craft's community Discourse, Circle Loom Logseq’s Github

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: $1,000 Squiggle Experimentation Challenge, published by Ozzie Gooen on August 4, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Motivation The team at QURI has recently released Squiggle, a very new and experimental programming language for probabilistic estimation. We're curious about what promising use cases it could enable, and we are launching a prize to incentivize people to find this out. Prize We offer a $600 first-place prize, a $300 second-place prize, and a $100 third-place prize. The prize will be paid for by the Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute (QURI). Rules To enter, first make a public post online between now and September 1, 2022. We encourage you to either post directly or make a link post to either the EA Forum or to LessWrong. Second, complete this form, also before September 1, 2022.We'll aim to make decisions by October 1, 2022. Support & Feedback If you'd like feedback or would like to discuss possible projects, please reach out! (via direct message or email.) We'll invite you to our Slack and can give feedback and advice. Also, feel free to file issues or comments/questions/suggestions on the Squiggle Github page. Judges The judges will be Nuño Sempere, Ozzie Gooen, and Quinn Dougherty. The rest of the Squiggle team will also consult. We'll select winners for their importance, novelty, and presentation. Ideas Some ideas, any of which could be taken from the recent post: Software Ideas Build integrations with other tools. Google Docs, Airtable, Roam Research, Obsidian, Python, other forecasting platforms, etc. Integrate Squiggle in other software platforms or tools. Maybe use it to power an online calculator to return probability distributions instead of numbers. Make open-source React components around probability distributions better visualize the outputs of Squiggle models. Build neat tools on top of Squiggle. For example, Squiggle could help power a node-based graphical editor or a calendar-based time estimation tool. Users might not need to know anything about Squiggle; it would just be used for internal math. Make Observable dashboards that take in real-time data from the web, and use Squiggle to do some simple math on them and return probability distributions or functions. (For instance, see this post that uses Squiggle in Observable.) Research Ideas Estimate the entire value of the far future over time. Estimate EA funding over time. Convert several of the AI timelines estimates into Squiggle, then use Squiggle to help aggregate them, e.g. Cotra's report, or Carlsmith's. Carlsmith's report mostly uses probabilities, but one could try to use distributions over probabilities representing the range of expert opinion instead. Some existing tools that use Squiggle (for inspiration) This tool converts Guesstimate models into Squiggle models, by Lorenzo. Google Sheets integration by Nuño Sempere An API to interact with Squiggle by Nuño Sempere A work-in-progress interactive tool for making hierarchical estimates by Nuño Sempere An experimental Squiggle CLI for allowing imports, by QURI. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Today's guest is Julian Weisser, who is one of the core contributors to the legendary ConstitutionDAO. In this episode, we will talk about ConstitutionDAO, fractionalized ownership of assets, web3 talent sourcing, workplace, shifting of talents, and many more. Julian is also the Co-Founder of On Deck, which is a growing community of the world's top talents and this is where investors, founders, career leaders, creatives, and vertical-change makers connect. As a leader at On Deck, Julian works with talented people to explore various ideas for new businesses and products. Prior to On Deck, he went to music school in Boston, dropped out, and then built some healthcare startups. He is an angel investor in 70+ startups including Roam Research, Levels, MainStreet, Clubhouse, Stir, and Atmos. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/city-dao-podcast/message

He grew up breathing Kannada literature -- and he also embraced the globalised world. Sugata Srinivasaraju joins Amit Varma in episode 277 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss this confluence of the old and the new, the near and the far, his society and the world.  Also check out: 1. Sugata Srinivasaraju in Outlook, ToI/Mumbai Mirror, New Indian Express, The Wire, Mint, Twitter and his own website. 2. Furrows in a Field -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 3. Pickles from Home: The Worlds of a Bilingual -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 4. Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 5. Sugata Srinivasaraju on his father, Chi Srinivasaraju: 1, 2, 3. 6. Maharashtra Politics Unscrambled -- Episode 151 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sujata Anandan). 7. Dodda Alada Mara (Big Banyan Tree). 8. GP Rajarathnam, AR Krishnashastry, P Lankesh and KS Nissar Ahmed on Wikipedia. 9. The Tell Me Why series of encyclopedias -- Arkady Leokum. 10. Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo and Charles Baudelaire on Amazon. 11. Rayaru Bandaru Mavana Manege -- The KS Narasimhaswamy poem Sugata translated. 12. Phoenix and Four Other Mime Plays -- Chi Srinivasaraju (translated by Sugata Srinivasaraju, who tweeted about it here.). 13. Ahobala Shankara, V Seetharamaiah, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, KV Narayana, Noam Chomsky, DR Nagaraj, Jorge Luis Borges and Tejaswini Niranjana. 14. Lawrence Weschler on how Akumal Ramachander discovered Harold Shapinsky. 15. AK Ramanujan and Gopalakrishna Adiga. 16. The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse -- Edited by Alan Bold. 17. Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921-22 -- Shahid Amin. 18. Kraurya -- Girish Kasaravalli. 19. Deconstructing Derrida -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 20. Yaava Mohana Murali -- Gopalakrishna Adiga's poem turned into a song. 21. Ram Guha Reflects on His Life -- Episode 266 of The Seen and the Unseen. 22. Understanding Gandhi. Part 1: Mohandas — Episode 104 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ram Guha). 23. Understanding Gandhi. Part 2: Mahatma — Episode 105 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ram Guha). 24. Modern South India: A History from the 17th Century to our Times -- Rajmohan Gandhi. 25. Ki Ram Nagaraja at Book Brahma. 26. A Map of Misreading -- Harold Bloom. 27. The Singer of Tales -- Albert Lord and David Elmer. 28. ಪಂಪ ಭಾರತ ದೀಪಿಕೆ: Pampa Bharatha Deepike -- DL Narasimhachar. 29. The Open Eyes: A Journey Through Karnakata -- Dom Moraes. 30. Dom Moraes on DR Bendre's love for numbers. 31. DR Bendre, Kuvempu, Shamba Joshi, MM Kalburgi, Shivaram Karanth, VK Gokak and Chandrashekhar Patil. 32. Da Baa Kulkarni, Sriranga, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Bhisham Sahni, Kartar Singh Duggal and HY Sharada Prasad. 33. His Will Was His God -- Sugata Srinivasaraju on HY Sharada Prasad. 34. Jeremy Seabrook on Amazon. 35. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope -- Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen. 36. The Rise and Fall of the Bilingual Intellectual — Ramachandra Guha. 37. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande -- Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen. 38. Sara Rai Inhales Literature -- Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 39. The Art of Translation -- Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 40. Negotiating Two Worlds, Bilingualism As A Cultural Idea -- Sugata Srinivasaraju delivers the HY Sharada Prasad Memorial Lecture. 41. Karunaalu Baa Belake -- A Kannada version of 'Lead, Kindly Light'. 42. Liberal impulses of our regional languages -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 43. Why Resisting Hindi is No Longer Enough -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 44, The Indianness of Indian Food -- Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 45. Steven Van Zandt: Springsteen, the death of rock and Van Morrison on Covid — Richard Purden. 46. Roam Research and Zettelkasten. 47. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh. 48. The First Assault on Our Constitution — Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 49. Nehru's Debates -- Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain). 50. Speaking of Siva -- Ak Ramanujan's translations of the Vacanas. 51. Not Waving but Drowning -- Stevie Smith. 52. Pictures on a Page -- Harold Evans. 53. Notes From Another India -- Jeremy Seabrook. 54. Good Times, Bad Times -- Harold Evans. 55. John Pilger on Amazon. 56. Sugata Srinivasaraju's pieces in Outlook in 2005 on the Infosys land scam: 1, 2. 57. ‘Bellary Is Mine' -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 58. Deca Log: 1995-2005. A history in ten-and-a-half chapters, through the eyes of Outlook -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 59. The Sanjay Story: From Anand Bhavan To Amethi -- Vinod Mehta. 60. Lucknow Boy: A Memoir -- Vinod Mehta. 61. Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker -- Ved Mehta. 62. Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary -- Ajith Pillai. 63. A Town Offers Its Shoulder -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 64. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 65. Dhanya Rajendran Fights the Gaze -- Episode 267 of The Seen and the Unseen. 66. The Story of an Income Tax Search — Dhanya Rajendran on Instagram. 67. George Plimpton, 76; 'Paper Lion' author, longtime literary editor, amateur athlete -- David Mehegan. 68. Does The Paris Review Get a Second Act? -- Charles McGrath on literary magazines as "showcases of idealism." 69. My Father's Suitcase -- Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize lecture. 70. Gandhi's Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India -- Dhirendra K Jha. 71. Harmony in the Boudoir -- Mark Strand. 72. Of Human Bondage -- W Somerset Maugham. 73. Man's Worldly Goods -- Leo Huberman. 74. Autobiography -- Bertrand Russell. 75. Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens and George Orwell on Amazon. 76. Madame Bovary -- Gustave Flaubert. 77. Reflections on Gandhi -- George Orwell. 78. The Tyranny of Merit -- Michael Sandel. 79. Home in the World: A Memoir -- Amartya Sen. 80. Living to Tell the Tale -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 81. Ayodhya - The Dark Night and Ascetic Games by Dhirendra Jha. 82. Team of Rivals -- Doris Kearns Goodwin. 83. My Last Sigh -- Luis Bunuel. 84. Interview with History -- Oriana Fallaci. 85. Ryszard Kapuscinski on Amazon. 86. Journalism as Literature -- Salman Rushdie on Ryszard Kapuscinski. 87. Mallikarjun Mansur, Bhimsen Joshi and Kumar Gandharva on Spotify. 88. Vachanas sung by Mallikarjun Mansur and Basavaraja Rajguru. 89. Outlander, Knightfall and Money Heist on Netflix. 90. Sugata Srinivasaraju's Twitter thread on the songs of DR Bendre. This episode is sponsored by The Desi Crime Podcast. You'll find them on all podcast apps. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! The illustration for this episode is by Nishant Jain aka Sneaky Artist. Check out his work on Twitter, Instagram and Substack.

Links: → Tiago on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fortelabs→ Tiago on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TiagoForte/featured→ Building A Second Brain: https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/→ Free to Learn: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Reliant-ebook/dp/B00B3M3KZG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BJXM4NZUUD6C&keywords=free+to+learn&qid=1651184165&sprefix=free+to+learn%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-1 Special Thanks To Our Sponsor, espresso Displays:Espresso Displays are the thinnest portable touch screen monitor in the world. Recently recognized as one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2021, espresso Displays give us the power of two screens anywhere we go and seriously improve our portable productivity. Learn more about espresso here: http://espres.so?utm_source=D2C&utm_medium=Podcast-Email&utm_campaign=Louis&utm_id=Channels&utm_term=Louis&utm_content=LouisHelp The Louis and Kyle Show:If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a review!→ Leave a review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-louis-and-kyle-show/id1504333834→ Reach out on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisKyleShow→ Drop us an email: LouisandKyleShow@gmail.com→ Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louiskyleshow/→ Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/65567567/→ Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb6qBiV1HAYcep87nKJmGhA→ Get email updates: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/LouisandKyle?via=twitter-profile-webview

It's time to narrow my focus so I can deliver a high quality content stream for the annual ICT in Education Conference. That means drilling down into activity streams of teachers and then harvesting interesting ideas through Notion that can be shared during the conference and on https://ictedu.ie/ict-in-education-blogI'm thinking about a routine that we're trying to choreograph for the ICT in education conference. It's an annual event. And we're late getting the proceedings underway this year, for May 14 2022, in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland. And although that's top of my mind, what's actually as important is a series of conversations that I've had with Greg Dickson, in Alberta, Canada. Where I sit in County Tipperary, Ireland, I'm always trying to figure out a way to get stuff done--you know, better focus, accomplishment--activities that actually have collaborative value. That's my focus. That's my measure of merit. And I just want to say that, with all the little technologies that I have, and all the information that's distracting and yet helpful, I have zeroed in on a knowledge management information management method that involves Notion, plus Roam Research, and blogging in a photo stream. If everything works out the way it should, on Saturday, the 14th of May, I'll explain the process to teachers and university lecturers who attend the ICT in Education Conference. The big win today is being able to use the little Chrome extensions for the processes I just mentioned. Thanks for listening to my short little Topgold Audio Clip. I'll be back tomorrow with another. Bye for now.

Offering some thoughts arising after a Twitter thread with @gregbd. There's a public page on Notion with background info at https://bit.ly/notionpkmI'm scraping through COVID. And I have some PKM ideas I'd like to share. The motivation comes from Greg Dixon in Alberta, Canada. As you can tell, Greg, if you're listening, my voice is not back to normal. As I recover, I am prodded to think about how artificial intelligence and machine learning and maybe neuro linguistic programming can help evolve the workplace, or help improve my workflow. And I'm thinking about this stuff, because I believe it's a long line of thought that you were asking about Greg, about, like, what's the big leap forward that, that me that Bernie Goldbach might see, in this space where artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the workplace coexist. I'm a big fan of trying to keep the stuff that I discover, especially eureka moments, in places where I can find them. And what I know it's sometimes difficult to annotate them, or to categorize them. But they're valuable throwaway moments. They would be thrown away if they couldn't be discovered or resurface later. So about a year and a half ago, I started using Roam Research, because you can just throw stuff into its system. And it has a flat text searching capability that finds everything. If you add hierarchial commands to the information--headings or hypertext links or hashtags--it's easier to surface the material and give some structure to it. But it's an unstructured database of thoughts. And over about the 18-20 month period, I've been using it. I've been able to rediscover stuff that I didn't know I thought about and didn't know I wrote about and didn't know I talked about, but there there there, there it is, the stuff is there. Now, this is all relevant, because in the workplace, you'd like to come to the table, or be in a meeting and present thoughts that are relevant, timely, and maybe earth shaking, you know, very important, would provide a leap of capability to your team. And if the preliminary research you've done, in our case, it'd be like desktop research on a company or deep research on student trends or evolutions of different textbooks. At meetings that we have at the university level, it's good to know we can bring this information to the table. And maybe you could get the information you need to hand within just a few minutes of a meeting happening because of the way your personal knowledge management system is set up. My Roam Research does that. And in fact, in the description of this audio clip, I'll leave a link to another more visually appealing database. It's run by Notion. And it surfaced a blog post I wrote a while back about this whole idea that I'm talking about right now. And because I wrote it in such a way that it showed up in an RSS feed, the RSS feed inside of a service called Feedly had an AI that was looking at the word PKM letters PKM, or the words personal knowledge management. It flagged that and then it pushed it into both Roam and into notion all by itself. Since I have subscriptions--paying for Roam and paying for Notion and paying for Feedly-- I have those things running in the background. It helps surface things I need in the foreground. It be in the APIs of those systems. It be in the web hooks of the services. And then what I want to do is make all those things part of a daily process where I can leverage them. And that's what I see the big leaps between now and 2025 being where companies are going to figure this out. I'm enslaved by Microsoft Teams. So I'm watching Azure services, the cognitive sciences part of Microsoft's Office 365, do a lot of this stuff in the background for me. I like to have it do more. So when I get a calendar alert for a meeting, I would like to know that maybe dynamically based on the words in the agenda attached to the calendar meeting, that there'll be these block links, links to blocks of text, or database links, that when the notification came to my desktop, to my Outlook, or to my Microsoft Surface Book, that Roam or Notion would pick up key terms, and all of a sudden suggest 1,2,3,4 or 5 relevant things are to look at, before the meeting starts. That behind the scenes, the AI would do this for me. I wish that the the AI could do a sentiment analysis of the people who are listed to be part of the meeting. So maybe harvesting something from their social feed or from news items that they shared or from strings of email text. I know that the thing I'm doing right now, which is I'm making a podcast that's going to go to Spreaker, that if I was making this podcast, inside my desktop, I could turn on otter.ai at the same time, and I'd have a transcript dynamically in front of me, before I even posted the audio clip. This podcast will generate an audio clip based on how I have a surface set up behind Spreaker. And maybe there'll be a small headline right on that it'll pop out through an app that's running on the back of Spreaker as well. Something about the AI will determine what's the most relevant part of the thing I'm talking about, and then pop it that I could share on social. I've written everything I've written the main points of what I'm talking about today, already. And they've been harvested already by PKM systems of Roam and Notion. I'm planning to put a link to this audio clip inside my Notion and Roam databases. And I've already put a link to the Notion database up on a Twitter thread, where Greg Dixon and I are talking. If you're listening to this in a podcatcher, and things are working the way I think they do, you should be able to scroll down and see a link going into the notion database. I asked for it to be public, so click it. And you'd see the Notion database with some people at the top of it, which would include Patrick and John Collison. Patrick's major investor doing a $10 million investment in Roam Research so he sees the value of this. Okay, I'm explaining what we're doing with what I'm talking about here to a group of postgraduate students starting in October 2022. They're interested in digital transformation. Personal knowledge management is part of that. I am surfacing a little teaser about this to a bunch of teachers on the 14th of May at the ICT and Education Conference in Thurles, County Tipperary Ireland. If you want to catch up with me, you might know where to find me. I'm topical Bernie, on all good social networks. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.Connect with Bernie https://twitter.com/topgold

In this episode, Ariana Friedlander shares how to distinguish your inner critic and inner genius and why she recommends co-creating with clients. We also hear about how she applies the neuroscience of conversation in consulting. She then goes on to talk about her enthusiasm for journaling and breaking free of limiting patterns and self sabotage. Mentioned on the episode: https://www.invoca.com/ebooks/ultimate-guide-to-conversation-intelligence-for-marketers?utm_source=paid_search&utm_medium=adwords_gs&utm_content=ebook&utm_campaign=the_ultimate_guide_to_conversation_intelligence_for_marketers&ppc_campaign=conversation_intelligence&adgroup=cconversation_intelligence&utm_term=conversation%20intelligence&_bt=489967803255&_bm=p&_bn=g (Conversational Intelligence) https://roamresearch.com/ (Roam Research) https://joebalcom.blog/12-favorite-problems/ (12 Favorite Problems) Connect with Ariana on https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianafriedlander/ (LinkedIn), https://twitter.com/arianaf (Twitter), and https://www.facebook.com/RosabellaConsulting (Facebook) Her company https://www.rosabellaconsulting.com/ (website)

About Eva KeiffenheimEva Keiffenheim left teaching in Summer 2020 to become an EDUpreneur. Her life's mission is to make education fairer and better for as many learners as possible. She is a writer, and helps research, consult, and implement education projects. She also co-founded Speed Up, Buddy!, an NGO to support first-gen students. She shares in her weekly newsletter of +3K subscribers, Learn Letter, where she shares useful tools and resources.Key takeaways:Eva shares the three things that organisations can do to help their employees become lifelong learners:Provide opportunities for continuous learning. This might be a formal learning pathway that is made up of courses or collections of resources. It could be structured stretch projects, peer groups or suggested workplace learning activities.Leverage from powerful technologies. Studies have shown low completion rates come from limited engagement, e.g. just watching videos, and there are plenty of EdTech solutions that help provide more active learning, for example Maven, a cohort-based course (CBC) platform. Ultimately, adopt technologies that can help facilitate ways of engagement, e.g. testing, leaderboards and immediate feedback.Make space and time to learn and practice. It helps learners get into the flow of absorbing information, and gets them out of the ‘content consumption' trap. The main thing is to make sure that learners have enough time to repeatedly practice what they're learning.The human brain's ability to recall information diminishes, and it's no flaw of human memory, so include this fact in your corporate learning designs. E.g. revisit the topics, don't just lecture!Good grades alone don't reflect acquired learning. Having just a visual dashboard and tracking time spent are not enough. Consider accountability systems and ways to embed motivation within your learning platform.Encourage learning exchange and the concept of learning in public through feedback and connections. For example, share your notes or internal blogging.Segmented time stamps:[02:50] The three things organisations can do to help their employees become lifelong learners[05:41] Why it's important to schedule in time for learning[07:47] Key strategies to practise new skills in the corporate environment[09:12] Leveraging technology to acquire new skills[13:36] The role of dashboards and measuring real progress[20:28] How to make the most out of note taking[22:27] Applying cognitive science to your learning design[27:22] Eva's key advice to L&D expertsLinks from the podcast:Connect with Eva on LinkedInEva's WebsiteFollow Eva on MediumFind more about Roam Research  Read the book Make It StickRead the book Atomic HabitsDo a course on MavenDo the course Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects with Barbara Oakley

Join me for the Productivity mini-series - Part II:   How to master our time, and make tools for time accessible for everyone?   We all feel the challenge of managing our time in an effective way. So much content to consume, so many things to learn in order to optimize and grow in our various life aspects. As a founder that needs to manage so many projects at the same time - below are few hacks that you should consider implementing: Time boxing is a very efficient way to manage our calendar.  We begin with dividing our work into 2 buckets - (1) Deep work, which requires deep concentration (e.g  - prep a board PPT). It requires a higher cognitive intent. The rule of thumb for this kind of work is a 2-hours block. (2) Shallow work - a work that doesn't require too much concentration, like posting on SM. The idea - is to block our calendar in order to avoid a situation where the shallow work is minimizing our deep work time.    How can we avoid it? By designing the next week at the end of the previous week, and block 2 hours every day, usually at the same time (9-11am) to work on the 1 meaningful task that we have defined. That's exactly how the Eisenhower Matrix Method is designed. All meetings can take place after lunch time, and that way the mornings are free for creative & deep work time. Make sure to close your email, and spend 20 min, 3 times a day, on your inbox processing. Try to avoid task switching - it takes our mind 16-23 minutes to recover from distractions. If you really need external help - Simplify helps you put constraints on your email and FB lite does the same for FB. The idea is not to delete the services - but to modify them to your own needs. Remember - being a founder/ employer/ parent/ single - you are the same human being, personally and professionally wise. Hence, your calendars need to be synced, so that you will have a holistic reflection of the way you invest your time.     Matt Mochary, a CEO Coach and the author of The Great CEO Within, speaks about Calender Audit. At the end of the year - you go to your calendar and print 52 weeks of the last year and take a few markers. You mark and circle in green (e.g) the events that boosted your energy. Then, you try to put in buckets all the other events that you didn't circle - as they didn't raise your energy, according to certain patterns. First of all - you see the % of the events that weren't in a green circle - try to minimize that percentage. Then, you check what kind of substitutes you can offer to those tasks - that won't take your energy. E.g - commuting doesn't serve you well - so you work remotely >> more time in your calendar for things you love.  You have to see that you create the right categories that are shown in your calendar: family, network, IR, hirings, inbox processing, health… Each one and what is important to them.   Our brain can't remember it all, and we can't do everything we want in 24 hours minus sleeping. That's why we need to create an artificial brain - a second brain that documents information and helps us make decisions and save us precious time. Tools like Notion, clay, Roam Research (a note-taking tool for networked thought, easy to use as a document & as powerful as a graph database), mailbrew (create beautiful, automated newsletters with content from the sites and apps you love), readwise (grow wiser and retain books better: Readwise sends you a daily email resurfacing your best highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, iBooks, and more) and others - help in managing and saving our time by capturing, containing, indexing and pulling the right data/info we need for a specific task/decision. It works on the same logic of compound interest - the interest on interest. It is the result of reinvesting interest, rather than paying it out, so that interest in the next period is then earned on the principal sum plus previously accumulated interest. The same goes for the time you save and the knowledge you gain. Learning and implementing methods like Space Repetition can help boost our productivity and ability to remember.    Well, there are so many productivity and time management tools, and that is exactly the problem. How can we reduce the noise? Is there a one tool that syncs everything together? How can we create this ONE tool that is bettering our own productivity methods and techniques?    That was one of the reasons why Tommy founded Supertools - a community that aims to expose its members to various tools with the purpose of extending & optimizing their time. Just like we have superfood - we all need a supertool. That brings another major question - how much technology should we consume? Are we managing the technology, or it manages us? Technology is not good or bad - it's neutral. It simplifies our life - providing us with measurements (like apple watch), or stress and readiness levels (like Oura Ring) - but that's not enough. We need the insights, the recommendations, in order to deal with decision fatigue. It's a question of how we manage the relationship with technology tools.  We need to care about our time. The problem with calendars is that they are broken. Their purpose is being our RSVP platform - but what we actually need, is a gatekeeper, not a bookkeeper - to minimize our bad time-decisions. The only way to become time billionaires, is to change our mindsets, put systems in place and become our own Chief of Time. In order to create a huge impact - there is a need to create software - and that's what Tommy is working on now at Magical.

There was a time when our leaders dived into the public discourse and embraced the world of ideas. Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain join Amit Varma in episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe four debates that Jawaharlal Nehru entered with Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sardar Patel and Syama Prasad Mookerjee. These old debates matter today, because those ideas are still being contested. Also check out: 1. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India -- Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain. 2. Sixteen Stormy Days -- Tripurdaman Singh. 3. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 4. Jawaharlal Nehru on Amazon. 5. Shruti Rajagopalan's talk on the many amendments in our constitution. 6. Karl May on Amazon. 7. Christopher Bayly on Amazon. 8. Violent Fraternity -- Shruti Kapila. 9. Amit Varma's tweet about books read, a snarky response, and a, um, weird comment. 10. Jürgen Habermas on Amazon and Wikipedia. 11. Where Have All the Leaders Gone? -- Amit Varma. 12. On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians -- Vladimir Putin. 13. Roam Research -- and Zettelkasten. 14. Niklas Luhmann and his use of Zettelkasten. 15. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi: Volumes 1 to 98. 16. Emily Hahn on Amazon. 17. Ramachandra Guha on Amazon. 18. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen featuring Ramachandra Guha: 1, 2, 3, 4. 19. Nehru: The Invention of India -- Shashi Tharoor. 20. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Ep 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah). 21. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah. 22. William Hazlitt on Amazon. 23. Ernst Cassirer. 24. The Last Mughal -- William Dalrymple. 25. Zygmunt Bauman and Perry Anderson on Amazon. 26. The Clash of Economic Ideas -- Lawrence H White. 27. Hind Swaraj -- MK Gandhi. 28. Meghnad Desai on Amazon. 29. Nehru: A Contemporary's Estimate -- Walter Crocker. 30. Ayodhya - The Dark Night -- Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K Jha. 31. India's Greatest Civil Servant -- Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Narayani Basu, on VP Menon). 32. Being Muslim in India -- Episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ghazala Wahab). 33. The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence -- Faisal Devji. 34. Creating a New Medina -- Venkar Dhulipala. 35. Swami Shraddhanand. 36. Modi's Domination - What We Often Overlook -- Keshava Guha. 37. Selected episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on China: 1, 2, 3, 4. 38. China's Good War -- Rana Mitter. 39. Sturgeon's Law. 40. Characters of Shakespeare's Plays -- William Hazlitt. 41. Preface to Shakespeare -- Samuel Johnson. 42. The Soong Sisters -- Emily Hahn. 43. Empire of Pain -- Patrick Radden Keefe. 44. Kings of Shanghai -- Jonathan Kaufman. 45. Collected Works of Ram Manohar Lohia. 46. Liquid Modernity -- Zygmunt Bauman. 47. The Anarchy -- William Dalrymple. 48. The Silent Coup: A History of India's Deep State — Josy Joseph. 49. India's Security State -- Episode 242 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Josy Joseph). 50. Great Expectations -- Charles Dickens. 51. The Rabbit and the Squirrel: A Love Story about Friendship -- Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

I may jump from Roam Research to Notion, based largely on the assuredness one of my interaction design students has expressed about the app.

What we mean by art has changed in modern times -- and there has never been a better time to be an artist. Nishant Jain aka Sneaky Artist joins Amit Varma in episode 260 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his journey, and to share his insights on the creator economy. Also check out: 1. The Sneaky Artist -- Nishant Jain's website. 2. The Sneaky Art Post -- Nishant Jain's newsletter. 3. The Sneaky Art Podcast on Apple and Spotify. 4. Nishant Jain on Twitter, Instagram and Linktree. 5. Earlier episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra, Snehal Pradhan and Chuck Gopal. 6. The Story of Art -- EH Gombrich. 7. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 8. The Time a Stiff Caught Fire — Keith Yates. 9. Random BOOMER Journalist Says WHAT About Paul Simon??? — Rick Beato's magnificent rant. 10. Puneet Superstar interviewed on Dostcast. 11. Only Fans. 12. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 13. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 14. XKCD -- Webcomic by Randall Munroe. 15. Objects Speak to Annapurna Garimella -- Episode 257 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. Roam Research. 17. Zettelkasten on Wikipedia. 18. PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie on Amazon. 19. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 20. Kashmir and Article 370 -- Episode 134 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 21. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 22. The Importance of Being Earnest -- Nishant Jain. 23. Shantaram -- Gregory David Roberts. 24. Supermen of Malegaon. 25. The Existentialism of Tiny People -- Nishant Jain. 26. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. 27. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 28. Reddit Gets Drawn. 29. Imaginary Number -- Vijay Seshadri. 30. A path to infinity, and beyond -- Nishant Jain. 31. Art is for everyone -- Nishant Jain. 32. At The Existentialist Café -- Sarah Bakewell. 33. Levon Aronian interviewed by Sagar Shah. 34. After the End of Art -- Arthur Danto. 35. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte -- Georges Seurat 36. Kya Surat Hai -- Bombay Vikings. 37. Fountain -- Marcel Duchamp. 38. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. 39. Cat's Cradle -- Kurt Vonnegut. 40. Who Broke Our Republic? — Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 41. The Multitudes of Our Maharajahs -- Episode 244 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 42. The Life and Times of Abhinandan Sekhri -- Episode 254 of The Seen and the Unseen. 43. r/vancouver, r/mildlyinteresting and r/interestingasfuck. 44. Some Reddit posts by Nishant Jain: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 45. David Letterman and Bill Gates talk about the Internet. 46. Exhalation -- Ted Chiang. 47. Kurt Vonnegut on Amazon. 48. Catch 22 -- Joseph Heller. 49. V for Vendetta -- Alan Moore and David Lloyd. 50. Watchmen -- Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. 51. Alan Moore on Amazon. 52. Identity -- Francis Fukuyama. 53. The Anarchy -- William Dalrymple. 54. Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar -- Tom Holland. 55. The Origins of Political Order -- Francis Fukuyama. 56. Political Order and Political Decay -- Francis Fukuyama. 57. Bluebird -- Charles Bukowsky. Check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

Boon Yew Chew is a strategic designer at Elsevier and a leader in IxDA, the Interaction Design Association. In this conversation, we delve into Roam Research, which Boon uses to take notes and tame “an ever-evolving multi-dimensional beast of knowledge.”If you're enjoying the show, please rate or review it in Apple's Podcasts directory: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-informed-life/id1450117117?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200Show notesBoon Yew Chew on LinkedInBoon Yew Chew on Medium@BoonYCH on TwitterElsevierIxDAIxDA London MeetupInteraction Conference 2022Adding life back to my notes: Roam after 4 months by Boon Yew ChewRoam ResearchOmniOutliner The Informed Life episode 43: Rob Haisfield on RoamThe Informed Life episode 54: Kourosh Dini on DEVONthinkEvernoteOneNoteSome show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

There has never been a better time to be a creator -- but you need to be productive to make use of it! Deepak Gopalakrishnan aka Chuck Gopal joins Amit Varma in episode 258 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his journey, and to share his learnings on creation and productivity. Also check out: 1. Earlier episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra and Snehal Pradhan. 2. Chuck Gopal on Twitter, Instagram, LinkTree and his own website. 3. Chuck's podcasts: Simblified, The Origin of Things and Getting Meta. 4. Chuck's newsletter: Things of Internet. 5. Chuck on Spotify where he shares his playlists. 6. Agency Trash Talk -- Instagram account c-authored by Chuck that used cat pictures to make fun of advertising. 7. The Telegram Channel where Chuck and Berty Ashley share a song every day. 8. Chucks comics for Pagalguy. 9. Some of Chuck's writing on Music: a) Making live-streamed concerts better b) The therapy that is Blackstratblues c) The story & evolution of Pink Floyd: A playlist d) Underrated Tracks by Legendary Bands e) Stream of consciousness: Dream Theater live! 10. Chuck's Medium post recommending podcasts and newsletters. 11. Chuck's legendary Twitter thread on freelancing. 12. Episode 1 of Getting Meta (w Amit Varma). 13. Episode 2 of Getting Meta (w Rohan Joshi). 14. Episode 4 of Getting Meta (w Utsav Mamoria). 15. The Beatles: Get Back. 16. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band -- The Beatles. 17. The Dark Side of the Moon -- Pink Floyd. 18. Steven Van Zandt: Springsteen, the death of rock and Van Morrison on Covid — Richard Purden. 19. Ne Obliviscaris on Spotify, Bandcamp, Instagram, Twitter, Wikipedia and Patreon. 20. Ongoing History of New Music -- Podcast by Alan Cross. 21. DivyaG's YouTube channel. (She's the Nepali graphic designer mentioned by Chuck). 22. Girl With The Dogs -- The YouTube channel of the pet groomer mentioned by Chuck). 23. Yesterday, the film. 24. Ed Sheeran on the Van Morrison influence on 'Thinking Out Loud'. 25. Dave Gilmour performs Sonnet 18. 26. Hip-Hop and Shakespeare -- Akala at TEDxAldeburgh. 27. The New Basement Tapes on Spotify. 28. Kansas City -- Marcus Mumford for The New Basement Tapes. 29. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 30. The Pocket Gods on Spotify. (This is the band Chuck mentioned that does songs just over 30 seconds.) 31. Video games have replaced music as the most important aspect of youth culture -- Sean Monahan. 32. Roblox. 33. How I Gained 1 MILLION Subscribers — Ali Abdaal. 34. My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring YouTubers — Ali Abdaal. 35. The Bugle. 36. Freakonomics Radio. 37. Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman. 38. Miss Excel on Instagram and TikTok. 39. How an Excel Tiktoker Manifested Her Way to Making Six Figures a Day -- Nilay Patel. 40. Galaxy Brain -- Charlie Warzen's newsletter. 41. The Life and Times of Abhinandan Sekhri -- Episode 254 of The Seen and the Unseen. 42. Persuasion -- Founded by Yascha Mounk. 43. Faye D'Souza on Instagram. And also on YouTube and Twitter. 44. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 45. Bad Thinking Requires Bad Writing -- Amit Varma. 46. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Parameswaran). 47. Blackstratblues and Zero on Spotify. 48. Anuva's Sky -- Blackstratblues. 49. Son of Bosey -- Anand Ramachandran. 50. Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure. 51. Marketing Management: A South Asian Perspective -- Philip Kotler, Abraham Koshy & others. 52. Louie -- Louis CK. 53. George Carlin at his website and on YouTube. 54. Zakir Khan on YouTube. 55. Gaurav Kapoor's vlog. 56. Star Boyz, with Kenny Sebastian, Naveen Richard and Mani Prasad. 57. Alchemy -- Rory Sutherland. 58. Irresistible -- Adam Alter. 59. How We Are Enslaved -- Amit Varma. 60. Disregard Work, Acquire Hobbies -- Krish Ashok's TEDx talk. 61. Roam Research. 62. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World -- Fareed Zakaria. 63. Scott Galloway: No Mercy/No Malice, Pivot and The Prof G Pod. 64. Rest of World. 65. This is Your Brain on Music -- Daniel J Levitin. 66. Sum: Tales from the Afterlives -- David Eagleman. 67. The Complete Asterix Box set -- René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. 68. Sapiens -- Yuval Noah Harari. (Also, the graphic adaptation: 1, 2.) 69. The Blank Slate -- Steven Pinker. 70. Cosmicomics -- Italo Calvino. 71. Narendra Shenoy and Mr Narendra Shenoy -- Episode 250 of The Seen and the Unseen. Check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

In this final episode of the year, I share some of the productivity techniques and habits I tried in 2021 and what I learned from them. I talk about my experience using a dumb phone, why I'm quitting Roam Research, and some of the habits and goals I've set for the new year. Links How to Plan Your 2022 for God's Glory Workshop and workbook Check out my new book: A Student's Guide to Gaming Come try Redeeming Productivity Academy free for the rest of December. The Bible reading plan I'm using in 2022 More from Redeeming Productivity Join the Redeeming Productivity Patreon Donate Get my weekly newsletter, Reagan's Roundup

In this final episode of the year, I share some of the productivity techniques and habits I tried in 2021 and what I learned from them. I talk about my experience using a dumb phone, why I'm quitting Roam Research, and some of the habits and goals I've set for the new year. Links How to Plan Your 2022 for God's Glory Workshop and workbookCheck out my new book: A Student's Guide to GamingCome try Redeeming Productivity Academy free for the rest of December.The Bible reading plan I'm using in 2022 More from Redeeming Productivity Join the Redeeming Productivity PatreonDonateGet my weekly newsletter, Reagan's Roundup

In this final episode of the year, I share some of the productivity techniques and habits I tried in 2021 and what I learned from them. I talk about my experience using a dumb phone, why I'm quitting Roam Research, and some of the habits and goals I've set for the new year. Links How to Plan Your 2022 for God's Glory Workshop and workbookCheck out my new book: A Student's Guide to GamingCome try Redeeming Productivity Academy free for the rest of December.The Bible reading plan I'm using in 2022 More from Redeeming Productivity Join the Redeeming Productivity PatreonDonateGet my weekly newsletter, Reagan's Roundup

*Newsletter Contenuti*Programmi 100% gratuiti per creare newsletter che ti suggerisco di prendere in considerazione:a) Substack.comb) Getrevue.comc) Medium.comd) Tinyletter.comMa dove trovare i contenuti?Impossibile trovarli nel momento che devi scrivere e pubblicare la tua newsletter.Per avere contenuti utili per la tua newsletter è indispensabile raccogliere e mettere da parte notizie, risorse, storie interessanti, giorno dopo giorno. Ogni volta che incontri, leggi o ricevi qualcosa di interessante, è necessario metterlo da parte e classificarlo.Il problema principale però è che la maggior parte delle persone si nutre in generale di notizie e informazioni di poco spessore che incontra in maniera del tutto casuale sfogliando i social media. Ciò che è necessario è invece l'abilità di individuare nel tempo fonti ufficiali (riviste, giornali di settore, blog) e autori indipendenti che pubblicano periodicamente una loro newsletter e abbonarsi a queste fonti. Questo deve essere un lavoro svolto con costanza nel tempo, perché per trovare fonti di qualità sarà inevitabile il doversi inizialmente abbonare a molte newsletter di scarso spessore. Una volta che si comincia ad avere un discreto numero di fonti autorevoli da cui ricevere sistematicamente contenuti e idee interessanti, diventa molto più semplice il compito di assemblare una newsletter ricca di contenuti utili.Il *workflow* per creare una newsletter editoriale di spessore è più o meno questo:1) Salva e metti da parte ogni notizia, risorsa o dato interessante che incontri durante il tuo lavoro. Fallo sul momento. Appena lo trovi e ne apprezzi il valore.2) Per mettere da parte queste "scoperte" puoi usare il tool che preferisci. Da Word a Google Doc, da Notion a Roam Research, oppure usando apps come Google Keep.3) Quando metti da parte fai in modo di includere uno stralcio del contenuto che è particolarmente rilevante oppure un'immagine che contenga l'essenza del materiale in questione.4) Classifica la nota che metti da parte, indicando a quale argomento si rifà e ove possibile, annota la specifica rilevanza per il tuo pubblico in una breve frase.5) Periodicamente attingi a quanto hai messo da parte e trasferisci le scoperte interessanti che hai fatto nella bozza della tua newsletter. 6) Suddividi la newsletter in tante sezioni quanti sono gli argomenti/temi chiave che girano intorno al tuo fuoco principale.7) Continua ad iscriverti a nuove newsletter, fonti ed autori, man mano che ne scopri di nuovi. Sii altrettanto pro-attivo nel cancellarti da quelle che dopo averne letto 3-4 numeri non dimostrano di essere fonti utili e rilevanti.8) Dai un cappello ad ogni elemento che inserisci nella bozza della newsletter introducendolo, dando contesto e spiegandone la rilevanza.9) Ogni volta possibile estrai l'essenza di ciò che le persone troverebbero seguendo i link presenti nella tua newsletter, invece che costringerle a cliccare ogni link per poter comprendere di più.10) Spiega sempre qual è il valore della risorsa che stai condividendo.11) Dai sempre credito agli autori e alle fonti, idealmente includendo link diretti ad entrambi.-------------Info Utili• Ottieni feedback, ricevi consigli sul tuo progetto online Entra nella comunità di imprenditori indipendenti di Robin Goodhttps://robingood.it • Musica di questa puntata: "Ocean" by Joakim Karud - disponibile su Bandcamp:https://joakimkarud.bandcamp.com/track/ocean• Dammi feedback:critiche, commenti, suggerimenti, idee e domande unendoti al gruppo Telegram https://t.me/@RobinGoodPodcastFeedback• Ascolta e condividi questo podcast:https://gopod.me/RobinGood• Nuove newsletterTRUST-able newsletter ENGhttps://robingood.substack.comTRUST-able newsletter ITAhttps://robingoodita.substack.comSocial Media Videohttps://robertoferranti.substack.comSocial Media per Artigianihttps://enricabandini.substack.com• Seguimi su Telegram:https://t.me/RobinGoodItalia (tutti i miei contenuti, immagini, audio e video in un solo canale)oppuresu Facebook:https://facebook.com/RobinGoodItalia/ su Instagram:https://instagram.com/RobinGoodItaliasu LinkedIN:https://linkedin.com/in/RobinGood • Per info e richieste:mailto: Ludovica.Scarfiotti@robingood.it

I think I’ve always wanted to be a more anal person than I actually am. I’ve tried to be the person who puts every task immediately into an app, schedules it, and adds the perfect emoji (the important part.) I allowed myself to obsess over minimalism and Marie Kondo, trying to transform my home into the clean white soulless void of an Apple store. I feel in love with the ideas of Zettlekasten and Roam Research where every fart and hiccup in my brain is meticulously connected to all the others like a perfect meth-smoking spider’s web. I wanna meditate every day, take clod showers, get in my reps, nail my macros, and hustle hustle hustle. I want to use footnotes. But honestly, I just don’t give that much of a fuck about any of it. My real life is a maelstrom of monotony and chaos. I spend my days reading books, scribbly sloppy notes on paper, and hoping I can read them when I sit down to right one of these posts. I count days by how many clean pairs of underwear I have left until I’m forced to do laundry. My living space leans more towards piles than it does toward organization. My analytical mind is easily distracted by emotion, novelty, cartoons, and hormones.Oh well. That’s who I am. I improve what I can, and move along with the rest.As I write this I’m watching the screen saver on my Apple TV as it shows slow-motion drone footage of people on a beach and carnival rides on a pier (likely Santa Monica.) I hate the way it makes me feel. I look at it and I don’t see tomorrow. I don’t think “I can’t wait to go to the beach again.” I look at it and I see the past. I see something lost. I see a world that feels like something we may never make our way back to. I’m sure you feel it too. It’s not every day, but it’s there: the part of our brain that wonders if hugging, and crowded festivals, and movie theaters will ever feel normal again. Or will the trepidation and caution forever follow us?Oh well. That’s life. Improve what we can, and move along with the rest.“there’s a gun in the room”I’m sure you noticed the audio file above. I’m sure some of you thought it was a podcast. I wonder how many of you were unable to scroll onward without clicking it first. I would have.I’ve been playing my guitar a lot recently, and have been sending 1-2 minute little pieces to my friend Johnny (who will probably be the first person to open this and read it. Hi Jon.) I went down a rabbit hole for an hour the other day looking at looping pedals until it hit me: “I have an iPhone.” So I’ve been screwing around with laying guitar pieces in Garageband for iOS.The audio above is one of those pieces. I like playing with dissonance—which can come across as jazz. I think to some degree it does here, which is why I tried to play with the timing in each guitar line (of which there are five,) and make it feel a little broken and discombobulating. In the lead line, I even threw in a bend (which is more blues than jazz.) And the keys for each line are different. I wanted to see how they would weave together, going in and out of harmony.All of this was going through my head but don’t get the idea that I was sitting and planning out every note. I’ve always been more instinctual than technical. I think the reason I’ve never been the kind of guitar player who can sit down and strum an Eagles song or solo like Slash is that music is more of an experiment for me. “What happens is if do this and do this?” This often leads to awful results (the song above might be an example of that to you.) It’s not about writing songs, it’s about exploration. It’s curiosity not product. Charlie Kaufman not Aaron Sorkin.Almost everybody knows by now how much I love the Rolling Stones, but I’ve never been interested in making music that sounds like the Stones (in fact I’ve never even bothered to learn how to play any of their songs.) My own music always veers more towards Sonic Youth, John Cage, Captain Beefheart, Harry Partch, everything post-punk, and The Velvet Underground. Somehow, even I forgot about that.I intend to explore my weirdo nature more. Expect more broken music.the velvet undergroundSpeaking of music, I finally sat down and watched the Apple TV+ documentary on The Velvet Underground. I loved it. It’s exactly what I needed. I’m glad Todd Haynes was the one who directed this. The standard music documentary format would have been very un-Velvet Underground. I can think of no better director than Haynes whose first film was the Karen Carpenter story told via Barbie dolls. His use of split-screen here makes sure that nothing ever feels standard or boring (especially at the beginning where he uses Warhol’s copious footage of the band members staring non-stop into the camera.)La Monte Young & John Cale were creating drones (referring to long musical notes, not the flying quad-copters that watch you when you’re naked in the swimming pool.)We found that the most stable thing we could tune to was the 60 cycle hum of the refrigerator because 60 cycle hum was, to us, the drone of western civilization. — John CaleI’ve long been fascinated by the drone of the microwave often harmonizing my voice to it as I waited for something to cook.I looked up La Monte Young but couldn’t find any recordings of him. I did find Noël Akchoté playing guitar arrangements of some of his compositions.The bass line for “The Ostrich” by The Primitives (basically Lou Reed, John Cale, and some friends) sounded really familiar.Then I placed it. It seems Sebadoh borrowed it for “Flame.”christineI read Christine by Stephen King. I’m a latecomer when it comes to King. Before this year the only thing by him I had ever read was On Writing. Having read The Shining earlier this year and now having read Christine, I think I’ve discovered what makes King such a tremendous writer. He does the work. Stephen King comes up with the most ridiculous concepts (teenage nerd falls in love with a dilapidated car which over time possesses him,) yet rather than descending into camp, he accepts the concepts. He doesn’t criticize the ideas, he embraces them and embodies them. “If this was real, what would it look like.” He fills the books with so much character and detail that even the most absurd concepts become legitimate.the righteous mindI read The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Here are some key points:People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.We have intuition (the elephant) and reasoning (the rider.) The rider is not in control like a pilot is over a plane; the rider serves mostly to understand the actions of the elephant. Our reason writes the story of our intuitive action. Rather than appealing to someone’s reasoning (as we normally do,) we should find a way to appeal to their intuition. Lead the elephant and the rider comes along.The foundations of morality:care/harmliberty/oppressionfairness/cheatingloyalty/betrayalauthority/subversionsanctity/degradationThe liberal foundation favors care, liberty, and fairness with care being the most favored. The libertarian foundation favors liberty & fairness with liberty being the most favored. The conservative foundation favors all six equally.Nonetheless, if you are trying to change an organization or a society and you do not consider the effects of your changes on moral capital, you’re asking for trouble. This, I believe, is the fundamental blind spot of the left. It explains why liberal reforms so often backfire, and why communist revolutions usually end up in despotism. It is the reason I believe that liberalism—which has done so much to bring about freedom and equal opportunity—is not sufficient as a governing philosophy. It tends to overreach, change too many things too quickly, and reduce the stock of moral capital inadvertently. Conversely, while conservatives do a better job of preserving moral capital, they often fail to notice certain classes of victims, fail to limit the predations of certain powerful interests, and fail to see the need to change or update institutions as times change.media biasAfter reading all of these political books I’ve been thinking a lot about the inherent biases of our media sources. In the process, I discovered this tremendous website called Media Bias / Fact Check. You can look up any media source and it will show you it fits on the left/right spectrum as well as the factual/not factual spectrum.Personally, I like to get differing perspectives (without dipping into extremism and outright falsehoods.) Some of my favorite media sources are: Reuters: least biased / very high factualThe Economist: least biased / high factualThe Christian Science Monitor: least biased / high factual Newsweek: left-center / high factual Business Insider: left-center / high factual Texas Monthly: left-center / high factual The Wall Street Journal: right-center / mostly factualThe Spectator World: right-center / mostly factualReason: right-center (libertarian) / high factualbtwI had intended to write a bunch more but this is so long already. I think I will post a supplemental in a few days. If I continue writing as much as I have been lately, then this may become ongoing (no promises.)debatable ideasDebatable Ideas is a weekly curation of the ideas that stand out to me from the week. That can mean something I see truth in, something worth contemplating, something questionable, something I'm bothered by, something ridiculous, something that I think is false, or something that will make you shake your phone like you caught a snake while waiting in line at Starbucks. It's up to you to decide what you think—and politely discuss in the comments.The ideas are numbered for easy reference. addition, if you run across any fascinating, horrifying, insane, bonkers, and entertaining ideas, please direct me to them in the comments.Judaism was the foundation of my childhood. As a child, I attended Jewish day school and Jewish summer camp and regularly celebrated Shabbat and the Jewish holidays. Some of my most enduring childhood memories are at the Shabbat dinner table, where my parents and their friends would discuss world affairs and important societal issues. There were always multiple viewpoints expressed. My mother is a rabbi, and my parents always taught us that such disagreements were the essence of living Jewishly—to argue, as the rabbis taught, for the sake of heaven. Jew vs. JewInformation vacuums are common in breaking-news events in the social-media era. In the early moments after a mass shooting or a natural disaster, or in the unknown moments after the polls close but before votes are tabulated in an election, there is a higher demand for definitive information than there is supply. These moments offer propagandists, trolls, pundits, politicians, journalists, and anyone else with an internet connection the opportunity to fill that vacuum with … something. It’s a treacherous situation, where rumor, speculation, and disinformation have the power to outpace verified information. Traditional breaking-news events tend to have a short half-life but, as we’ve found with COVID coverage, information gaps can last weeks or months. Sometimes, the definitive information we want (when will the pandemic end?) is basically unknowable, or too hard to pin down. The Omicron Information VacuumThe collapse is inevitable: Virtually every world power that ever existed has eventually declined, failed, and disappeared. The Soviet Union had survived for nearly 70 years, the British Empire for more than 400, and ancient Egypt for almost 30 centuries. But even though the land of the pharaohs was long crowned with success, its decline and destruction were unstoppable. History tells us it’s not a question of whether a world power will eventually be destroyed but rather a question of when. Secrets and Lies That Brought Down Empires // Ideas and Discovery Magazine - Dec 2021In other words, pretty minimal changes to get a tractor working on Mars. So if you want to imagine the future in ten years, picture a big Martian construction site busy with people in spacesuits driving John Deere tractors around. It is, in other words, frontier work. The aesthetics of human space colonization is Firefly, or the grit of the original Star Wars, not the sleek bureaucratic competence of Star Trek. NASA and SpaceX are establishing the first Martian city by 2030 Get full access to Graphorrhea at cahall.substack.com/subscribe

本期节目我们邀请到了B站Up主：@草帽sMao 同学，他制作了一系列 Figma 教程很受欢迎。这一期 Justin 临时有事，来听听 @自力和@草帽的对口相声吧~ 时间轴 00:00 嘉宾介绍 05:56 Figma 令人心动的功能 11:15 FigJam 白板怎么样 13:12 Figma 在国内的发展 15:31 插件管理工具：FigmaEX 17:18 中国特供版？ 19:07 Figma 的社区生态 21:10 Roam Research 和双链接 23:29 “我在B站磨刀的视频火了” 26:44 开发者和产品经理怎么看？ 29:33 Sketch 迁移 Figma 32:25 多人协作会上瘾 42:27 Figma 会被收购吗？ 44:02 还没上手？试一下吧！ 45:55 片尾曲：信心花舍 - 陈奕迅 话题征集 欢迎各位听众朋友们通过以下方式联系我们： 微信听友群：加fyfyFM进群 填写听众反馈表单 也可发送邮件到 hi@fyfy.fm 相关信息 主播: 枫影 Justin Yan | 微博 主播: 自力 hzlzh | 微博 嘉宾: @草帽sMao | 微博 剪辑: 自力 hzlzh 听众反馈: hi@fyfy.fm 片尾曲: 信心花舍 - 陈奕迅 Figma 插件管理: FigmaEX 笔记应用: Roam Research 草帽的其他视频: 从零到入门磨刀系列教程 救火用的铜草帽出处：岳云鹏/孙越《当行论》 谐星聊天会：《胖是可爱的最高点！》 节目收听方式 推荐使用小宇宙等泛用型播客客户端搜索“枫言枫语”来订阅收听本节目。 荔枝FM，喜马拉雅，蜻蜓FM等平台亦有同步。 小宇宙 - 枫言枫语 直接订阅 Feed URL Apple iTunes Podcast - 枫言枫语 The post Vol. 52 和草帽来一段对口相声 Fígma~ first appeared on 枫言枫语.

In der heutigen Episode stelle ich Dir die 5 besten Notizapps für Solopreneure und Selbstständige vor. Du erfährst die Vor- und Nachteile der einzelnen Apps, und natürlich auch, warum sie uns den unternehmerischen Alltag bei der Entwicklung von kreativen Ideen, Produkten und Inhalten so ungemein erleichtern können. Die Links der Episode: ___ Readwise (60 Tage frei statt 30): https://readwise.io/i/ilja0 Instapaper: https://www.instapaper.com/u Evernote: http://evernote.com/ Notion: notion.so Craft: https://www.craft.do/ Roam Research: https://roamresearch.com/ Obsidian: https://obsidian.md/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ilja-gee-show/message

Jeff is the Founder and Managing Partner of Chapter One, an early-stage venture capital fund with a focus on product. He previously served as the VP of Product and Revenue at Tinder as it became the #1 top grossing app in the App Store and one of the top grossing products in mobile history. Jeff's investments have included Cameo, Compound, Dapper Labs, Lambda School, Lyft, Mercury, Pipe, Ro, Roam Research, Superhuman, and many others. Follow him on Twitter @jmj. [2:18] - How Jeff's early career moves led him to discover his passion for products [6:32] - The art of asking for what you want in life [12:45] - Finding the right startups to join or invest in [16:34] - Transitioning from a world of physical serendipity to digital serendipity [20:11] - Jeff's takeaways from beginning his career in Kansas City [24:21] - Jeff's love for writing [27:07] - The pros and cons of building in public and having an online presence [35:36] - The importance of overcoming rejection and leaning into the underdog role [39:15] - How Jeff discovered crypto in 2013 and his current perspective on the space [43:03] - Why Dapper Labs and ENS domains are interesting [50:04] - Chapter One's investment approach and the future of the fund --- Support the show by checking out my sponsors: Join Levels and get personalized insights to learn about your metabolic health. Go to https://levels.link/jake. --- https://homeofjake.com

Ankur Nagpal is the Founding Partner @ Vibe Capital, today announcing his new $70M solo GP fund and with a track record that includes the likes of Roam Research, Eight Sleep, Circle, Hone Health and Maven to name a few. Prior to entering venture, Ankur was the Founder and CEO @ Teachable, a platform where educators can create and sell their own online courses. Ankur led the company until their reported $250M acquisition to Hotmart in 2020. In Today's Episode with Ankur Nagpal You Will Learn: 1.) How Ankur made his way into the world of venture investing having founded and exited Teachable for over $250M having raised just $13M in venture funding? 2.) From Angel to Fund: How did Ankur's mindset change with the transition from angel to institutional VC? How does Ankur feel about the rise of party rounds? What does Ankur advise founders trying to get brand names on cap tables? 3.) Portfolio Construction: With the new fund, how does Ankur think through portfolio construction? What is his required level of ownership? How does Ankur feel about optionality checks to get data and information for a larger check down the road? Does Ankur feel it is possible to build ownership in your best companies? 4.) The Future of Venture: Why does Ankur feel that largely, VCs detract value when they invest in a company? Base level, what is Ankur's promise to founders he invests in? From his time as a founder, what does founders most want in their cap table? Will we see a generation of operator-led funds? Will this be a game of the 1%? How will the large funds respond to this? 5.) Emerging Markets: What are the 3 core characteristics that make emerging markets so attractive for Ankur? What elements concern Ankur when investing in emerging markets? How does he screen for integrity with more granularity? How does Ankur analyse the progression of emerging markets in terms of their own hype cycles? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Ankur Nagpal Ankur's Favourite Book: Losing my Virignity

Tasshin talks with Michael Curzi (@michaelcurzi) about vibe reels, ideologies, being ingroup pope and the recent Roam Research drama, auteurs, Kanye West, Walt Disney, prayer, God, and more. Curzi on Twitter Curzi's Substack Curzi's YouTube Channel COURTESY SPEED MAMMON On Vibe Reels Michelangelo's shelter Improving Your God Concept If you enjoyed this episode, consider supporting Tasshin and the Reach Truth Podcast on Patreon.

From Mayrhofen, Austria... A tech tip about using the Obsidian app for creating, organizing, and utilizing your notes in a way that mimics how your brain works (or Roam Research if that one works better for the way you think). Some concise advice about why you're probably charging less than you should and how to price yourself so you're earning what you're worth.

The Thing PKM People, and Sönke Ahrens, and Roam Research, and Obsidian Get Wrong About Niklas Luhmann's Antinet Zettelkasten

What is writing if not expression? Get ready to hear a bold perspective that would have writing redefined as something beyond just scribbling words or typing letters on sheets of paper. Frustrated by her inability to type her thoughts efficiently in a writing exercise, Samantha Postman thought of doing something unique that would lead her to an epiphany about the art and action of expression. Struck by the profoundness of these realizations, Samantha gets bravely vulnerable in sharing her journal with us in this episode. A journal is private and sacred, but Samantha believes that this one has something to teach all of us. Listen in and be inspired to take your expression to the next level. Look up Roam Research to learn more about the app she uses to journal. Skip to 12:28 to hear just the audio journaling.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Transcripts available @ http://samanthapostman.comJoin the Samantha's Community today:Samantha Postman TwitterSamantha Postman LinkedinSamantha Postman YouTubeLife-Changing Writing Course Ship 30 for 30(Promo: $100 off enrollment with this link)

44bits 팟캐스트 115번째 로그에서는 AWS 새 CEO, 일본 라인 해외 서버 저장 논란, Roam Research에 대해서 이야기를 나누었습니다. AWS 새 CEO 새 AWS CEO…

如果喜欢我们的节目，欢迎通过爱发电打赏支持：https://afdian.net/@pythonhunter 上一期的节目中我们和佳圆讨论了如何获取知识，如何预处理知识。在本期的节目中我们主要讨论如何将这些知识转化成自己理解的东西，介绍了一些内化的工具和方法，如何更有效率地复习自己的知识等。 如果您喜欢本期节目，欢迎关注捕蛇者说，我们本系列下一期节目将介绍如何将知识输出。 本系列导航 Ep 23. 个人知识管理体系系列 - 输入篇 Ep 24. 个人知识管理体系系列 - 内化篇（本期） Ep 25. 个人知识管理体系系列 - 输出篇 嘉宾 张佳圆 主播 小白 laike9m laixintao 时间轴 00:30 开场 01:36 什么是内化？ 03:04 工具介绍 05:20 笔记和内化的区别是什么？ 10:00 平时做“内化”部分的流程 20:22 Filter 的功能 24:00 如何将知识转化成自己的东西？ 27:40 给完全不懂的人讲解自己的知识 33:40 Ted Nelson 有关“链接”的理解 36:00 这些知识的标签如何设定？ 40:38 使用anki来复习 42:00 Evernote 的迁移问题 43:00 如果没有 Roam Research 怎么做知识内化？ 46:40 对于复述的看法？ 相关链接 03:04 Devonthink 作为主要的 reference 工具 10:00 做笔记的流程，主要参考 How to Take Smart Notes 这本书，具体的流程如下： Draft Notes：草稿笔记，例如上面阅读过程中在 Apple Notes 中记录的笔记、Highlights 等都是草稿笔记，需要进行进一步处理 Literature Notes：可以理解为阅读过程中记录的笔记，由草稿笔记整理而来，在 Roam Research 中的一个例子： Permanent Notes，翻译成永久笔记？基于 literature notes 得来的笔记，这种类型的笔记有几个特点： atomic self contained linked 例子： 10:00 中提到过得图片： 26:25 提到的论文：Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology 34:10 obsidian 33:40 Ted Nelson Project Xanadu 40:38 anki

如果喜欢我们的节目，欢迎通过爱发电打赏支持：https://afdian.net/@pythonhunter 本系列导航 Ep 23. 个人知识管理体系系列 - 输入篇（本期） Ep 24. 个人知识管理体系系列 - 内化篇 Ep 25. 个人知识管理体系系列 - 输出篇 嘉宾 张佳圆 主播 小白 laike9m laixintao 时间轴 00:00:30 开场 00:01:08 嘉宾介绍 00:01:55 知识主要输入途径 00:05:31 Github Star 的一些延伸探讨 00:09:37 如何挑选专业类书籍 00:11:58 原版还是译版 00:12:38 如何粗读一本书 00:15:10 佳圆的 3wh2t 阅读分析法 00:17:53 实体书还是电子书？ 00:25:20 笔记整理相关讨论 00:34:44 各自认为最“恐怖”的一本书 00:41:51 在什么样的场景会同时阅读多本书以及如何同时阅读多本书 00:44:02 如何阅读技术类书籍 00:49:47 获取文章的途径 00:55:22 有关如何系统性学习某一知识的讨论 01:01:41 文章整理相关方法讨论 01:04:07 关于 OCR 全文搜索的简短描述 01:09:33 其他的获取知识的途径 相关链接 00:10:52 The Pragmatic Programmer 00:11:03 Twttier: Anthony Shaw 00:11:09 cpython internals 00:13:45 如何阅读一本书 00:15:30 Twitter-Jiayuan：3wh2t 阅读分析法 00:20:59 Antilibrary 00:21:15 Twitter-Jiayuan：Anti Library 00:24:18 XODO PDF Reader 00:29:43 Roam Research 00:30:57 GTD 维基百科 | 百度百科 00:39:35 曼昆：经济学原理 00:40:18 科学素养文库·科学元典丛书 00:45:00 MIT CS 006 00:47:41 程序员修炼之道-从小工到专家 | The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master 00:49:09 软技能：代码之外的生存指南 00:50:02 Reeder 00:50:12 Instapaper 00:50:32 Hacker News 00:50:36 Feedly 00:52:32 Inoreader 01:02:59 DEVONthink for Mac and iOS 01:06:38 OneTab 浏览器插件 01:17:22 [Porter.io]: Hacker News Personalized And Delivered 01:18:59 Listen Notes 几个搜索 GitHub stars 的小工具 alfred-github-stars：如果是 Mac 用户，强烈推荐！ github-star-search

Rock and Roll roadie turned entrepreneur Richard Mulholland, is the Public Speaker's Public Speaker. Having spoken in over 30 countries on six continents, Richard knows first-hand the impact that memorable presentations can make. That's why he works with executives and speakers around the world, helping them deliver unforgettable presentations that activate audiences and generate income.He's the founder of presentation powerhouse Missing Link, as well as the co-founder of 21Tanks, HumanWrit.es and The Sales Department. He has written three books, Legacide, Boredom Slayer, and Story Seller.He was voted top 40 under 40, and top 300 South Africans to take to lunch. Join us as we explore:Why normal is overrated!How to be a prolific imposterThe choice between being a knowledge hunter vs. a knowledge gathererThe basics for presenting onlineWhy COVID hasn't changed anyone but rather shone a light on true characterNew Day Resolutions, To Do Better lists and how good living requires scaffoldingHow to Lead LoudWhy it's important to come to terms with your relative insignificance on the planetHow to stake your claim on the corner of the planet of ideasThe tool through which Rich activates his second brainRich's morning routine and more!Join our community:Facebook MadeToThriveZA; SteveStavsZAInstagram SteveStavsZAMentionsBook, 1000 True Fans: Use Kevin Kelly's Simple Idea to Earn A Living Doing What You Love by Kevin Kellyhttps://www.amazon.com/1000-True-Fans-Kellys-Simple-ebook/dp/B01N9P9O4GProduct Hunthttps://www.producthunt.com/Roam Research www.roamresearch.comRoam InvestorsTim Ferrisshttps://tim.blog/Patrick Collison from Stripehttps://patrickcollison.com/about https://stripe.com/Conor White- Sullivanhttps://twitter.com/Conaw?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EauthorTim Ferriss Quote: “Win the morning, win the day”https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/5-morning-rituals-that-help-me-win-the-day-july2018.pdfBook, A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Selected from the World's Sacred Texts by Leo Tolstoyhttps://www.amazon.com/Calendar-Wisdom-Thoughts-Nourish-Selected/dp/0684837935Book, Acta Non Verba: The playbook for creating, achieving and performing at your highest level by Erik Kruger https://www.amazon.com/Acta-Non-Verba-achieving-performing-ebook/dp/B07JZHTY63Book, Train Naked by Pierre du Plessishttps://thisispierreduplessis.com/train-nakedBook, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holidayhttps://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-signed-editionReadwise https://readwise.io/Monkiihttps://monkii.co/Book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walkerhttps://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316Book,  Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollanhttps://www.amazon.com/Caffeine-How-Created-Modern-World/dp/B083MYJXZTBook, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clearhttps://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299Contact Richard Mulhollandgetrich.afstorytostage.cohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/richardmulholland/

In this episode, we talk about the joy of reading, note taking, Roam Research vs. Notion, and applying note taking techniques to writing and idea creation. Links Episode 55 - Bible Notetaking Systems with Matthew EverhardRelearning the Joy of Reading (Blog)How to Take Smart Notes by **Sönke AhrensTrack book series for students – Track is a series of books designed to disciple the next generation in the areas of culture, doctrine, & the Christian life. While the topics addressed aren't always simple, they are communicated in a manner that is. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Time Stamps 01:42 Relearning the Joy of Reading 02:17 How to Take Smart Notes 04:39 Trying Roam Research (Again) 06:53 Roam Research vs. Notion 09:44 Applying Smart Note to My Book Project 14:17 Smart Notes for Idea Creation Transcript Hello, and welcome to the redeeming productivity show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done, and get it done like Christians. And I'm your host, Reagan Rose. Well, I am on vacation this week in Florida with my family. So if you hear some background noise, that's probably my son screaming, or my wife cooking dinner right now, we're having fish tacos. So this episode, I'm going to do kind of a little bit more of what my friend Daryl Harrison calls a freestyle episode. And basically, I'm just going to be talking about a few things that I've been thinking about learning and reading about that have application to personal productivity. And it's not super structured, it's not super outlined. But hopefully, it'll be super fun. I just didn't want to go two weeks without giving you guys an episode. So here we are, we're gonna be talking about I guess we'll be talking really about note taking, which I know I've talked about a lot with my interview with Matthew everhard. And some of the other episodes. In recent history, we're talking about the Citadel, Kazakhstan, you know, and and knowledge management systems. But it's something I just keep digging deeper and deeper into. And the more I think about it, the more I think that if if we could kind of come up with a better way to organize our thinking, organize our notes. And as we're reading and stuff, and I think it's a worthy endeavor, to try to find a good better way of taking notes. In fact, if you haven't seen the blog post I posted last week on relearning the joy of reading, you should check that out I in that I talk a little bit about how one of the things that's helped me regained kind of a love for reading, in recent days, has been trying to get better at taking notes and retaining what I'm reading in a way that doesn't get in the way of the reading process, but actually, helps make it a bit more fun, actually. And so, as I've been thinking about that, and trying to get better at that, I bought a book that I'd been hearing a lot about, called How to take smart notes, by some K, Aaron's and this is a great, great read, if you have any interest at all in research and writing or any of that kind of stuff. This is a book that is worth your time checking out. It's called How to take smart notes. And I have been implementing already. And in fact, kind of ironically, a little Inception wise, I've been implementing some of the ways of taking notes that the book talks about, as I'm reading the book. So in the notes on the book, but basically, what how to take smart notes is about is it's about writing and thinking and the fact that those processes can be improved through a more organized note taking system. And they kind of flip the the traditional idea of how you would go about writing something on its head. So instead of what we're kind of taught in school of starting by starting writing a project based on choosing a topic, and then going and finding all the resources, you know, and then doing all your research and then writing on that topic. Basically, the goal of this smart note taking system is that you have already written about a bunch of different things as as you've read, and as you've thought about those things. And you've just organized those into a system. And then when a writing assignment comes up, or an idea for maybe a blog post or my case, like a podcast episode, or even a book, something like that comes up, then what you're doing is you're basically pulling together things you've already written on, and it becomes more of an editing job. And it's actually really fascinating way of going about it. And as I mentioned in a previous episode, the Zettelkastan method, that's basically what this book is about. So definitely worth checking out. And it's it's just an interesting approach to note taking. And so I've been trying to do that, as I haven't read that book. I've been trying to do that with some of the articles I've been reading and trying to get better at that. And in that vein, I have taken another swing at the software program roam research, and I've actually heard from a number of you who have asked me if I like Chrome or if I've tried using it or all that and I I am more convinced now than I was maybe a month or two ago when I first mentioned it Roam if You don't know what it is, it's a basically an approach to it's a software program, a subscription that has a really interesting way of taking notes in it. And when you first use it, it can be pretty daunting. Because it's not like a traditional thing where you just have pages and pages of individual notes. Now they're all cross reference to each other, every little block, every paragraph, every bullet point sort of thing is cross referenced. And it has a bunch of other more powerful features to where anything could be a to do list item, anything could be all these different types of content. And it's, like I said, it's a little bit daunting. So I have committed myself to giving it another month, and really pouring myself into trying to use Rome research to organize my note taking. And so this can be everything from my daily journal is in here, too, as I'm reading articles, and I want to take notes on them. That those come from Instapaper, where I save my articles, or even like I mentioned, book notes, everything goes in here. Any ideas I have, for a blog post, any ideas I have about this would be a cool thing to write on. I'm just dumping them in here, trying to cross reference them with other things and build out this sort of knowledge management system, and see if it actually bears fruit for me. Now, I talk about software and systems on here a lot. And a lot of you guys if you've been listening for a while know that I am a huge fan of notion, notion n o t IO n. And I have really put my life into notion over the last year or so. And so much so that that is probably the biggest barrier I have right now to trying to switch things over to using Rome research for note taking and knowledge management. So the question I think is going to be a win win, do I put something to notion when do I put it in research, because I don't think Rome can actually replace everything that notion can do in some kind of experimenting with that. But here's, here's kind of my working hypothesis right now. So if you if you're still with me, on this kind of much more nerding out episode of the podcast, here, here's my kind of grid for how I'm thinking I'll use notion and research together. I think that I'll be using Rome research for note taking, and knowledge management. So as I'm, like I said, if I'm reading a book, all my highlights are getting dumped into there, I'm taking I'm summarizing chapters of the book, I if I have an idea for I just want to write on the same I'm reading first john, and I'm like, hey, I want to write some insights. I'm thinking about how Dec could apply this in life. And I don't know, is that going to be a blog post someday? Is that gonna be part of a book? I have no idea. I'm just gonna dump it all in there. But I'm gonna keep using notion for project management, which is primarily most days what I'm using it for. And that is kind of deciding on what, what episodes of the podcast am I going to do next? If I'm doing a video, what things do I need to do to shoot that? A lot of things like that, that I just feel like it's better at because of its table system. And it's like databases, and that you can do can ban boards in there. I know you can do them in Rome and the Rome, people are gonna get mad at me for saying this. But I just I think it's easier. And I think notions more built for those sort of things. But I do totally see that, that Rome is a better place to just dump ideas as you have them and build out sort of this network of thought. So if you if you don't use Rome or notion, you probably have no idea what I was taught what I'm talking about right now. But I do recommend both of those to you notion is totally free. Rome research is daunting $15 a month, but they do have a 31 day trial. And, man, I'm liking it, I I'll be honest with you, I think it's, I think I'm probably gonna end up sticking with him. So we'll see, I'll keep you posted. But in my kind of quest to really pour myself into Rome, and really take it seriously and try to go as deep as I can with it so that if I decide not to use it in the future, I will have given it a fair shake. Here's the project I'm working on. I'm building a book in Rome. So that's kind of the that's I'm doing a lot of stuff at the same time. But I'm trying to apply what I've been reading in how to take smart notes, which is where you basically take all these different notes and then you arrange them later into a work. So in my case, a book. And I'm trying to do that using Rome as my kind of my slip box, as they call it in the book. So what's the book I'm working on? Well, I'm actually working on a book for a series that Christian Focus, it's called the Track series, and it's edited by John Perritt of reform youth ministries, and they are, but there's a bunch of these books, in fact, I recommend to you, especially if you're a pastor is your great little books for students on a variety of just very practical issues. Like there's one by ligand Duncan on sanctification. There's one by Ed Welch. JOHN parrot, the the editor they mentioned he did one that's really good on technology. And it's geared towards middle school, high school and college students. And it's not puff, I mean, it is it is solidly grounded in the Word of God, you know, which, unfortunately, a lot of student resources are not. But I would encourage you check out the track series from Christian focus. And especially check it out since I'm, I'll be contributing to it in the next little while. So I'm working on a little book for that series. And I'm trying to approach this in a smart way. So I have mountains and mountains of research that I have done on the topic of video games and video game addiction, which is what my book is about when you're like, what are you doing video games with me and productivity? Well, that's another passion of mine, not video games, but I'm helping Christians to understand the addictive nature of video games that are created to be addictive, and that we need to not that they're bad, but we need to approach them with a certain degree of caution. And so I'm going to be writing about that. And I already have written a ton about it, I think I have something like 50,000 words, with references to research I've written I've read tons and tons of books and articles on the subject. But when I was working on it, over the last few years, I have been writing all for more like an academic research work. For some reason, I didn't really know who the audiences be, I just kept writing stuff as as I was reading amount of thinking about it. So now I have all these notes on different sort of topics on the subject of video games and, and different history, things or illustrations, but they're all these different kind of atomized little notes. And so I'm trying to apply the principles from this book, smart notes, where I'm in do this in Rome, where I basically have a chapter list that I'm trying to do in for this book, and I'm going through and rereading all the notes I've ever taken. And I'm importing them into Rome as individual notes. And then I'm cross referencing them to the video game books project, and to the individual chapter they think that they'll best fit with. And my thought is, if, if this book is to be believed, that when all those are done, I'll basically have a bunch of research all in context that I can look at. And then I can some parts that I can copy and paste and basically start to build out the structure for the chapter. After obviously, right new material and stuff connected all together, or some parts, I'll need to totally rewrite because a different audience. And hopefully, it will turn this giant daunting process of write a book into, basically take all the things I've already done, and turn them into something much better that will finally hopefully, finally, see the light of day and someone will actually read it. So that's my my project before me. And that's how I'm trying to apply how to take smart notes by some gay Aaron's, and I'm doing it in Rome research. So I don't know if you guys care at all about this, but I always find it helpful. And I always ask guests when I have them on here about what tools they use and what methods and so I thought I'd just share with you what I'm doing right now, in lieu of a more reserved or formal episode. So that's what I'm doing. And I'm excited about it. So far, I've been having a lot of fun doing it. It's It's nice to be on vacation, you know, and kind of let the mind relax and just work on projects you want to work on. And so that's what I'm doing. And I'm enjoying it. And again, yeah, I'll keep you posted. I also am hopeful that this will bear more fruit in terms of ideas for podcast episodes and blog posts and videos. Because I do think that if you're reading, why not also capture the ideas that you're reading spawns in your mind, right if you already consuming something, why not have a way of capturing what those thoughts that come off of that in a place where you can maybe eventually use them for something else. So that's what this book, how to take smart notes helps you to do. And that's probably enough rambling for now. I'm gonna get back to my vacation. And some fish tacos which I could smell in the other room. But I appreciate you guys listening. I'll have a more polished maybe maybe episode next week. But until I see you again, remember this that in whatever you do, do it well and do it all for the glory of God Transcribed by https://otter.ai