Obsidian

an idea I've been playing with for the /obsidian clipper — interpret the page in natural language and turn the results into structured data

making /obsidian • writing stephango.com

Hey @kepano - I wanted to get your take on something I've been struggling with. I find that using Obsidian (as well as my own tool I've built for myself) would reinforce automating the process of capture of information  - e.g. highlight and save as-is. 

Then I switched to a physical card-based Zettelkasten and actually started writing everything I learned in my own words, or at least taking the time to write it down by hand - I was forced to.  I noticed that I actually started retaining and connecting the knowledge better in my head.

How do you think about this kind of "useful" friction w.r.t. digital tools, including Obsidian, obviously.

practicing "bottom up" research and writing for a month with really promising results so far. Writing "bottom up" to me means writing piecemeal, one paragraph, argument at a time on an index card, and filing the index cards next to each other - forming a tree of thoughts that build on top of each other. I hated writing before and now I write for at least 1-2 hours per day, and it's so enjoyable that I can easily spend a whole day doing it. 

Usually I reflect on what I'm reading in the moment and try to apply new information + my take/experience to what's already in the box. It's like having a conversation with myself. Eventually I can tie together all the thoughts to construct essays - that should be easy as most of the work is already done. 

If you want to try this yourself, look up the Zettelkasten method. But be careful as it's starting to get corrupted by productivity influencer grifters. Happy to guide anyone who wants to seriously try this out!

building /amp. prev: 2x founder, improbable, github, amazon. ntik.me

do what works for you!

I do something similar digitally

do what works for you!

I do something similar digitally
https://stephango.com/evergreen-notes