AYOE 11 / Taming The Digital Clutter Gremlins
Happy May my friends!
I seriously can’t believe it’s almost Summer of ‘23 😳 I swear it was just January. (Also, I’m now singing Summer of ‘69 in my head. You’re welcome for putting that gem in your head!)
Anyhow! I finished up my breathwork experiment for April and even though it wasn’t super challenging I’m happy I did it. But now I’m ready to dive into something a little different.
I mentioned in my last update that I was probably going to do something outside the wellbeing sphere for the May challenge and that’s exactly what I’ve decided.
As someone who doesn’t like to follow the crowd as a rule, it was a little tough for me to choose a topic that is SO mainstream and frankly, over hyped in my opinion. But I’ve managed to move past those feelings so I can address the very real struggle I’m having with digital clutter 😅
So, drumroll please…
My experiment for May is going to be all about my personal knowledge management system - of which I currently have a clusterf*ck that should probably NOT be described a system in any way shape or form. But I digress.
The structure of this month’s experiment will be a bit different than previous months because not only am I committing to daily reading, thinking and writing time (with the hope of creating things I can share as content), but I’m also testing out a few tools to find a setup that makes sense for the types of content I regularly consume.
I know there are about a million and one productivity and PKM tweets, threads, Notion templates, blog posts, Medium articles and courses and I am not in any way trying to add to that noise. I’ve tried out systems from several of these resources and they’ve been super helpful, but it still doesn’t feel like I’ve quite pieced together the best solution for me yet.
This weekend I spent some time mapping out a tentative structure for inputs, tools and outputs and even though I feel so completely cliché sharing this, I included a screenshot of what I’m testing first. (Seriously, I’m not going to suddenly turn into a PKM blogger or something, pinky promise!)
For the first week or so of the month I’m going to test out the structure below, with a daily writing ritual in Bear. I’ve created a couple of tags in there that I can use for things I want to move over to Notion (Atomic ideas, content ideas, etc) It’s a manual process, but shouldn’t take long to copy and paste my notes into new database entries.
The way I’m planning to use Bear was inspired by this article, which was recommended in Martine Ellis’ latest newsletter. If you’re not already following her and are interested in wellbeing-driven productivity at all, she’s a great follow.
I’m also using pieces from Ev Chapman’s Tana Fast Track and Daily Creator courses. (not affiliate links) Interestingly you may have noticed I’m not using Tana in the first iteration of this experiment. I love a lot of things about Tana, but not having a fully functional app is an issue for me. 😬
Issues I’m trying to solve for:
I like to free write and often find gems and connections in my writing later so I need space to do that. I need a simple interface without distractions for writing time.
I don’t like the writing experience in Notion because things get lost so easily in a database and I can’t make connections like I can in a tool like Roam, Obsidian or Bear
I save too many things to Readwise Reader and then don’t read them (I know, I know 😬 I fully admit I’m a digital hoarder)
I don’t have a good tagging system in Reader so that I can find and consume things based on topics (right now I just have to scroll my giant Library and Feed lists which is super overwhelming. So I mostly avoid it)
Probably a bunch of other issues I haven’t even realized I need to solve yet 😅
So there you go - my foray into the world of productivity blogging has begun. But I promise the rest of the year won’t be a continuation of this topic. I’m excited to have a better system so I can actually make use of the things I find that spark ideas or inspiration instead of letting them languish in Notion or Reader.
If you have any amazing resources to share on this topic, send them my way! 🤩 I feel like I’ve tested about every tool at this point, but there’s always something new coming out in this space.
I hope it’s starting to feel like Spring wherever you are in the world. It’s my absolute favorite time of year in North Carolina because the temperature is 60-80 degrees daily with lots of sunshine and cool breezes. ☀️ I’m enjoying it now because by June it’ll be hotter than hell’s front porch here 🥵
Til next time…
xo - Nic