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Allow me to introduce you to Matt Stein , who has a carefully curated workflow and likes to access his files in apps like Obsidian, iA Writer and Vim. It warms my heart to come across people who are just as deeply-rooted in plain text as I am!
If there’s a world where plain text becomes obsolete, I will find another world
↑ This! When I have my in-person cosy chat with God (we haven’t yet fixed the date) and I get to ask him all those hard questions I keep on a shelf in a corner of my brain, I will not be surprised to learn that the foundation of the entire Universe is… plain text. After all, in the beginning was the Word! — John chapter 1, verse 1.
Matt has a blog where he writes cool stuff like this:
I’ve learned the hard way that spending too much time customizing a tool can be a barrier to actually being productive with it, and it’s not an easy balance to strike. I’ve borrowed ideas from a lot of people here, and have been amazed by other ones I’ve deliberately avoided.
This kind of thinking tends to come with a mindset, I’ve found. One that doesn’t depend on political or religious conformity, but on a desire to get back to the simple authenticity that many of us would argue is what a best-case internet (and world) should look like.
I’d rather my words be personal. Mine. For your consideration, disregard, enjoyment, or whatever they mean to you. But never to exploit your attention, or persuade you that you need someone else’s product or service that I’m not personally eager to tell you about. Certainly never to pull your attention into a platform that will use it for profit.
Thanks, and high five, Matt!
How many inboxes do you have? This time last year I wrote about the need to corral my wild inboxes, so today I’m taking a look at how things are going 12 months later.
These are my current inboxes, that is to say, places where tasks are gathered for later processing:
Missing from last year’s list is the Drafts app as an inbox. Something isn’t working quite right with sync between my Mac and iOS devices, so that little red notification dot on the Drafts icon no longer taps me on the shoulder. Middle of the night must-not-forget notes now go into Reminders, or if they’re really urgent, I’ll set a labelled alarm. The idea is that I spend time each morning checking each inbox, and placing them where they need to go.
The Bullet Journal way of capturing tasks on the fly (along with everything else) is working well. I enjoy the process of combing through and rewriting, because this process helps me evaluate their form, priority, and even their very existence. Bigger projects with their attendant tasks still live in Markdown files in my main Obsidian vault.
Speaking of Obsidian, this year I’m making more use of the monthly note, as I’ve set it up to display all daily notes in a single list.
I often have multiple notes for each day, and I track both those and the French flashcards I review on any given day with embedded queries in Obsidian. It’s easier to skim through and see what I’m looking for with everything listed together than it is to skip from day to day. These files can just as easily be viewed in the Finder from the folder they live in. This is the kind of flexibility and simplicity I love!
Now’s as good a time as any to check in with your inboxes and see what they’re telling you.
Do they need to change in type, number, or the way you process them? Tightening up your inboxes can give you more time, and help stop things slipping through the cracks.
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