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I’ve faced the sad fact that Obsidian Sync is essential for using the app on iOS. Plus, how to define your top 10 values that can guide everything you do.
After a detailed conversation on Mastodon about the lack of alternatives to Obsidian for certain key features and the unacceptable performance of iCloud on iOS, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is currently no other solution for my specific needs than Obsidian Sync.
And I’m sad about that!
I’m not sad because I now have to pay for another subscription; money is not the issue. I’m sad because I dream of living in a digitally interoperable world, and we just aren’t there yet. This really, really isn’t about looking for reasons not to pay for a good product.. It’s about being free to choose which interface I use on iOS.
I need all of the following to be true in an iOS Markdown editor:
And it appears that only Obsidian fits the bill. iCloud is unreliable at best, unusable at worst. And that’s not how things should be! The good news is that there’s a special on at the moment for Obsidian Sync — 5 × the storage space for life, if you sign up before January 1, 2024.
The budgeting course I mentioned buying last week surprised me by digging into the psychological depths of my relationship with money. Beliefs, both negative and positive.
Was money talked about openly in your home growing up? (No, it wasn’t seen as polite.) What’s your self-talk around money?
This week we’re supposed to turn our negative self-talk into positive affirmations. Instead of “I just can’t do it!”, say something like “I might not be able to do it right now, but I’m working on things that will allow me to be successful.”
I’m forcing myself to be patient and go through the process, even though all I really wanted (or thought I really wanted) was some immediate help on tracking and planning expenses. The course instructor, Kamiko, is so convinced of the importance of doing the mental housekeeping first, she’s locked the course so the modules have to be done in order! Smart move. I feel like this is giving me a foundation that’s been missing my whole life.
Can you imagine, though, if Obsidian did this? It’s kind of amusing to imagine opening the app and being faced with thought-provoking pop-ups, like —
The thing is, it’s up to us (and only us) to come up with our own set of guidelines for the productivity tools we use — or not. Although, I think that if we don’t make the conscious effort to define a personal manifesto of sorts, we run the risk of finding ourselves trapped in an ill-fitting system that never feels quite right, or of being pulled to and fro chasing the latest plugins and features, whether or not they are in harmony with what we truly value.
This past week I defined a set of 10 money values as part of my homework for the budgeting course. These are words that can guide my budgeting /spending decisions to fit within what’s most important to me. The fascinating thing is that, as I look at these ten words, they’re not about money at all. They represent core values that can also guide my forays into productivity, and any other venture.
It’s a great exercise, that goes like this:
After doing the exercise, I came up with these value-words:
This is the first draft, so it’s likely my words (or the order of them) will change over time. If you take the time to do this exercise, I’d love to hear how it goes.
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