It's so easy to get sucked into the tech rabbit hole and end up spending hours on researching, instead of producing.
I wanted to share my process on how I usually onboard myself on any new technology.
It's very raw. I am on hour 4.
1/ Disclaimer: my goal is to get to a "sufficient" state so I can focus on producing, instead of tinkering. Avoiding "procrastination by learning".
By no means am I an expert, and I have every intention to continue to learn more.
2/ TLDR; summary -
•Focus on the problem - think "what am I solving?"
•Get feedback ASAP - test drive the tech against your use case, hack it however you can to see if it works for you
•Write down your pain point, solve it
And yes, this was written using Obsidian in h4.
3/ Now the details -
•Hour 0 - learned about [[Obsidian]] from @roamhacker and decided to give it a test run
•Hour 2 - I downloaded Obsidian and set it up on my computer following this
6/ Hour 3
•Hour 3 - I took a leap of faith ("I will figure this out") and used it during our #ship30to30 office hour with [[Jack Butcher]]. It was very rough, I didn't even know how to do bullet points and was Googling on the side.
7/ Still Hour 3
I couldn't focus on the office hour and do research at the same time, so I created a new page [[Notepad]] and listed out all my pain points as I use the tool. My plan is to unlock them and figure it out later.
You can see how rough it is here -
8/ Hour 4
•Hour 4 - will spend the next 2-3 hours (after I go out for a walk) being uber-targeted on resolving these pain points.
This is how I went from 0 to sufficient with Obsidian. I've been knee-deep in Roam (and loving it) so it's fun to be a beginner again.
That's it for now!
If you find this useful, or you know someone who is also at hour 0 of learning this new tool. Feel free to jump back to the top to bookmark or share.
"Why would I pay for a course if I can find them for free?" This used to puzzle me.
(h/t) to @tferriss DiSSS rapid learning framework(deconstruct-selection-sequencing-stake) I think people underestimate the importance and time investment needed for Selection and Sequencing...👇
1/ Selection - When I first learn something, everything feels like a signal and I don't have the mental scaffold to decide what to keep and what to toss.
Being guided through a structure course helps to focus on the 20% that yields 80% of the result.
2/ Sequence - I don't think learners pay enough attention to this; there are skills/knowledge that serve as foundational blocks where the right sequence enables
maximum output.
And as an amateur learner, I do not have this knowledge.
Ever wonder if GTD had an app, what that'd look like?
Turns out David Allen (@gtdguy) had a clear idea in 1994, tried to build it twice but never got to where he wanted.
I stumbled on this and decided to prototype it out in Roam.
Took me about ~5h. 🧵👇
1/ Prototype progress: 65% done, but 100% functional.
I want to test drive this for ~2 weeks to tinker with the automation and smooth out some wrinkles.
Also still trying to read David’s hand-writing to decipher some of his feature requests lol
But damn. This is exciting.
2/ "What would David Allen’s tool for thoughts (TfT) look like?" I asked; I was so curious.
With the prototype, I deviated ~20% from David's original design (mainly to adapt the GTD principles to fit the digital context I work in) and 15% blocked by Roam's limitations.
Stumbled upon this gem from @tferriss; on fear, self-love & writing.
TL;DR
•Ask - what might this look like if it were easy?
•On writing - write atomically, have a routine, know thyself
•On marketing - good content has marketing built-in, write the book you wish you had
🧵👇
1/⏰26:24
•What might this look like if it were easy?
This is a really deceptively leveraged question.
BC you start to look for elegance and ease instead of the path of complexity that allows you to absorb and tolerate the most pain.
2/⏰40:15
Fear setting - this something Tim still does.
•Define - what are your specific fear?
•Prevent - what are the things you can do to decrease the likelihood?
•Repair - what are the things I can do to repair the damage or get back on my feet?
Thank you @maggied @roamhack for hosting the "Future of Tools for Thoughts" space. We covered -
1. Key elements for TfT (Tools for Thoughts) 2. Specific use case: task and project management 3. Interoperability 4. Trust 5. Future looking
1. What are the key elements for a TfT to be "good"?
- Capture and storage
- Frictionless
- Speed
- Search-ability
Note: there is no ONE right answer, it will be different depending on the problem you are trying to solve.
2. How do we layering time and action to resurface ideas?
- Touched on task management, spaced-repetition
- Discussed a particular usage of TfT being task management and compared tools such as Roam Research, Obsidian and nerded out on a few GTD plug-ins to play with :-)