Exploring Productivity Through Obsidian and New Writing Techniques
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Chapter 1: Your Connections Matter More Than Your Graph
Welcome to a weekly digest where I share insights that have been beneficial in my journey toward a straightforward, future-proof digital and analog workflow. The essential connections you establish—not the layout of your Obsidian graph—serve as your true guide.
I seldom check my Obsidian graph, but when I do, I prefer it to resemble this:
What happens when you mix a dad joke with contemporary art? You get “Kandinsky’s map of my PKM” by Alex Qwxlea! It’s a delightful take on personal knowledge management.
While I don’t engage in the eye-rolling critiques that some enthusiasts face when they share their PKM maps, I do appreciate some lighthearted banter about it. Occasionally, I glance at my graph—by “occasionally,” I mean about once a year—for a casual overview of my notes. However, it doesn't serve as a guiding star for my vault, nor do I feel compelled to compare it with others’.
If the graph view isn’t your guiding light to personal knowledge management success, what is? The key lies in the meaningful connections you forge between your notes, which emerge when you need them most. These connections are the best indicators that you’re progressing toward a truly functional set of notes. Your graph may be visually appealing yet lack the necessary connections that work for you, or it may appear chaotic but still serve you well in your current context.
Do you find the graph view in Obsidian beneficial? If so, that’s great! Feel free to connect with me on Mastodon to share your most amusing memes on this subject.
Chapter 2: Mastering Horizontal Rules in Markdown
Recently, I discovered something valuable about Markdown: using three asterisks or three dashes with spaces creates horizontal rules without turning the preceding line into a header. Now, I prefer three asterisks for these rules. I’ve configured a hotkey in Keyboard Maestro, making it easier to use than Shift+888. By pressing Option + Delete, Keyboard Maestro automatically inserts three asterisks followed by a blank line.
Chapter 3: Habit Stacking for Phonetic Writing
A few years back, I authored an article about the secret codes I cherished as a child, and one of those codes remains in use today. This week, I learned that Shavian, a phonetic writing system and the original variant of Quikscript, is the only one that’s compatible with Unicode. This compatibility significantly enhances online sharing.
Challenge accepted! ?????? ????????!
There are numerous parallels between these writing systems, so I plan to tackle this challenge using James Clear’s principle of habit stacking:
- Leverage what you already know (and find easy).
- Connect the new concept to it.
I know this method is effective, as I’ve been applying it for years across various productivity and physical activity endeavors.
The Plain Text, Paper-Less Productivity Digest delves into productivity through a future-proof, text-focused mindset while still appreciating the important aspects of paper.
For free productivity resources, including a demo vault for Obsidian Planner, click here.
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