In today's world, we are bombarded with information coming left and right, competing for our attention, and distracting us from the work that really matters.
Productive/fulfilling knowledge work cannot happen with a brain full of scattered thoughts, led by impulses, notifications, and algorithms.
That cognitive abuse from your environment results in a lack of output and apathy.
That environment is your system of knowledge work.
Everyone has a system for knowledge work, even if you've never "built" one.
Your social media feeds (made up by algorithm and who you're following), your newsletters, your paper notes or notes app, your writing editor, all of them combined make up your knowledge work system.
Cleaning up your knowledge work system allows you to take a step back and sculpt your environment, decisions, and routines into a system that lets you heal, nurture, and grow your second brain.
You'll need to have metacognition, which is an awareness of one's own thinking, behavior, and habits.
(follow @anthilemoon for more reading on that)
To better clarify things you can use journaling or visual tools of thought (mindmaps, flowcharts).
List out every source of information you use
- Email Inbox
- Conversations
- Twitter feed
- Google search/Reddit
- Youtube recommendations
etc etc
Then list all the places where you work on or store information, if you do
- Google drive/docs
- Computer Hard drive
- Paper notebook
- Roam Research
- Book marginalia
etc etc
Then when you really know your environnment, start re-designing it however your want, depending on your purpose.
Possible avenues:
- Filter sources for higher quality input
- Move to a centralized system with few apps (mine: notebook, roam, readwise, instapaper)
- Move to digital or paper only
- Slow down consumption to increase output
- Reduce overall friction with simplicity + automation
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My project management system in Roam is mostly based on @Anonym_s3's free youtube course
for the barebones context, each project has metadata with the Project tags in it. Then there's the Project Todos tag with every todo underneath. That allows me to display project lists.
I always use the project todos page, so that's where we go next
I'm writing a thread, and then I want to quote something I haven't written yet, so I think I'll just write the first tweet of that in another tab so I can link it
The thing is I feel pressured to write this secondary thread entirely now to benefit from every impression (my reach is very tiny), otherwise people will just see the "cover" tweet, w/o content
Hell I'll just do it
Writing this is procrastination
If my Internet or Twitter crashes I'm totally fucked though
I should probably draft threads outside of Twitter, but ThreadHelper is now part of my writing process, so I'm divided about that
Anyway sorry for the ramblings, that's me thinking in public again
I think what I'm trying to do now is to become a better user of the internet, taking advantages of its tools and getting into symbiosis with that powerful information-sharing connection-making machine
Reading @visakanv made me discover the beauty of interconnected thought paths (threads and QTs), curated indexes, unperfect/prolific notes to build a huge body of observations/experiences/thoughts, and thinking in public to make friends & increase luck
We have access to a powerful information-sharing tool, but we rarely use hypertext and the world wide web to its full potential
Finding desire paths after prolific journaling/posting, and making sense of information, are not things technology does for you
First tweetstorm :)
The biggest issue, when learning about systems, networked thought, accelerated learning, etc, is handling how to implement it all in a practical, realistic, and time-efficient manner.
So many systems are perfect in theory but fall apart when confronted with reality because they don't fit into your environment (external and internal).
The constant struggle between reality (selection tests) and theory leads you to systems that work and actually increase positive outcomes in your life.
At first, your systems will slow you down and reduce your output, until you improve them and get past the learning curve.