My dad, wisely, read to me when I was young. He had whole Dr. Seuss books memorized as many times as he’d read them to me. The title of this article is a hat tip to On Beyond Zebra!, which describes many of the wonderful letters beyond Z. The Zettelkasten “alphabet” A pure “canon” Zettelkasten … Read more
Not just create, but build your community Over the past year and a half or so, I’ve been cleansing myself of low-value side hustle activities. “Get Paid To” or GPT sites were the big culprits. Do 8-minute surveys for $0.14, watch 10 videos with ads in between for $0.02, that kind of thing. Most of … Read more
A personal knowledge management system captures your thoughts and keeps them working for you. It’s part notebook, part database, and part writing assistant. For content creators, your second brain can be your best friend if you spend quality time with it. How you put your thoughts in your second brain is of course up to … Read more
I chatted before about my mastermind group and how much it has helped me along my creator journey. I learn something new from every meeting. One member of that group has gotten high-quality coaching leads on Reddit. I’m surprised by this not because of my friend, but because I’ve had the impression that it’s futile … Read more
It’s entertainment, but with a purpose For months, my after-work unwind time was pulling out my phone and scrolling through TikTok. My work doesn’t allow me to bring my phone into the building, so after I scan my notifications for anything important, TikTok comes up. I didn’t have to think where to pull it up. … Read more
My hard drive’s file organization looks like a cherry bomb hit it. My current “process” if you want to call it that involves cleaning stuff out of Downloads and putting it in Documents, and then getting to them … eventually. It’s a long way of saying that if I didn’t have the search feature, I’d … Read more
Obsidian is a Markdown editor on steroids. It’s my core tool for developing my Second Brain. The methodology of how to tailor Obsidian to the way you work is mainly through plugins. More often than not, someone asking about capability in the help forums will be instructed to download and install a plugin. Plugins come … Read more
Two I knew, and two I learned today Our family has a lot of capacity for distraction. To combat this, we’ve purchased several Secura 60-minute Visual Timers. They’re battery-powered and have a neat little transparent colored disc that shows at a glance how much time is left. (Full disc is 60 minutes, half disc is … Read more
And what I’m doing to fix it “I work better under pressure.” I’ve come to realize that’s a huge lie. It’s not my secret performance enhancer that I use to vanquish my competition and vault myself up the food chain. Not at all. It’s a crutch. A bad habit. Lack of discipline. A bunch of … Read more
A writer’s tools are as unique as the writer using them. Without further ado, I’ll jump into what I use. Two 5×7 hardcover lined notebooks I have two of them because of the separation of concerns. The work notebook is the property of my employer. I experimented with four notebooks so that I could keep … Read more