For people who are learning prompt engineering to leverage powerful large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT, use the the "genius in a room" mental model when crafting your questions/prompts. Imagine you live next door to a genius (or at least a very smart friend who reads a ton, up until 2021) and the only way you can communicate with him/her is to slide a piece of paper under the door and ask for a reply.

In Nov 2021, we ran a @RoamBookClub on David Allen's book "Getting Things Done."

We opened 50 seats as an experiment, 200+ signed up.

I was excited, except for a few caveats: I was strapped on time, never ran a book club and had no idea what I was doing.

Here is the scoop. First of all, if you don't know what @RoamBookClub (RBC) is - it's a book club that's not just a book club.

We connect through a common interest in the form of a book, read, meet weekly (virtually), and then add some extra magic - we write to make sense of the world together.

Julian Shapiro (@Julian) wrote one of my favorite essays on how to generate good ideas -"The Creative Faucet"- it got over 13k likes and 3k re/quoted tweets.

In his new handbook "Writing Well", Julian revealed his writing secret: dopamine hits.

A thread.

https://twitter.com/Julian/status/1327765347936522240

I've grossly simplified Julian's Writing Well Handbook into 2 formulas and 1 tip:

1/Follow-Through & Quality = Objective x Motivation
2/Good Writing = Novelty x Resonance

Tip: Write for yourself; and write a terrible, ugly, sloppy, messy first draft.

For ppl in software development, check out Juan's (@z9sx7wox) Roam workflow.

TL;DR
• Juan uses a combination of Roam42 and templates, driven by Jira tickets + agile methodology
• Everyone's workflow can be different based on how your brain works and the nature of your work

👇 First, check out his two-part videos here:

https://twitter.com/z9sx7wox/status/1479215850758541313

This is a total of 21 + 6 min, I watched them around 1.5 to 1.75 speed.

Here are my observations, @z9sx7wox feel free to refute if I made any false assumptions.

I've spent the last 6 months painstakingly stitching the different pieces of GTD together with Roam where @rjnestor summarized beautifully in these 5 key elements.

If you are looking for a guide, start with R.J.'s YouTube (link below) and go from there.

https://twitter.com/rjnestor/status/1478126636943904770

YouTube Playlist - Roam Research Fundamentals

https://twitter.com/rjnestor/status/1478818972472643590

As the final week of @RoamBookClub approaches, I've asked the participants to summarize the learnings for their 6-wk-ago self or their 12-yr-old self.

Here is mine:
1. Updated Guiding Principles
2. Redefinition of GTD Terms
3. Open Questions
4. Special Thanks

Thread👇 1/Guiding Principles (1/4)

TL;DR
• System should be designed to shine at your worst
• Aim to build a system that iterates (instead of perfect)
• Look for signals: goals, ease, happiness

Tuned in to "Build Crypto: Year in Review & Outlook" w/@naval @cdixon hosted by @coinbase
@sanchans covering the following topics:

1. What is Web3?
2. Why does token matter?
3. What are NFTs?
4. Other comments on regulations, composability, zero-knowledge proof, etc.

Thread👇 1/What is Web3? (1/2)
"Open source, the user owns data (instead of being the data), contributor-owned web." - @naval

Our natural wiring leads us to seek the truth where it is easy, rather than where it actually is.

It's a known phenomenon coined "drunkards search" or "streetlight effect".

THREAD: The mental wiring that keeps us stuck and the mental toolbox to combat it👇 First, a story:

A police officer sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight.

"What's going on?" inquires the officer, "do you need help?"

"Yes, I lost my keys," the drunkard mumbles.

They both look under the streetlight together.

Saving this for the weekend.

I've been looking for the iOS shortcut community for a while now and wondered why it's rarely mentioned in my bubble.

Integrating w/@NotionHQ, I've developed several shortcuts that drive my capture + draft flow.

Worth a look for the curious mind.

https://twitter.com/tfthacker/status/1448508970742788096

Two examples - Twitter advanced search (so you don't have to remember the syntax to search in Twitter) and IOS shortcut that integrates with @NotionHQ for idea capture, search, and remix!

https://twitter.com/jessicashieh/status/1419768810530238477

I’ve always found the life advice “step out of your comfort zone” to be -

• Too hand-wavy
• Anxiety-inducing without being effective

Instead, ask these questions👇 and act accordingly; they will inevitably lead you down a path out of your comfort zone w/o coercion.
#tweet100 To find a path that leads you out of your comfort zone, start by asking:

• Where do I feel friction/pain? Solve it.
• Where do I feel curiosity? Lean in.
• If I'm already the person I want to be, how will I act? do that.

Then to take it to the next level…

Summary of "Roam for Productivity" session w/ @jasongriffing and @MatMcGann.

1. GTD concepts that drove my approach in Roam
2. Daily page setup x GTD walkthrough
3. My capture toolkit: @NotionHQ x iOS shortcuts
4. Tips and tricks
5. Closing notes on #TfT

https://twitter.com/TfTHacker/status/1429376636311453696?s=20

1. Generalized GTD philosophy I internalized when I built my Roam graph(~1 min):
• Your brain is a crappy office
• Externalize your thoughts
• Close the open loops (for tasks running in your head)
• Be deliberate w/ planning and clarifying your work

Takeaways from the @tferriss show w/@ANNELAMOTT.

•Become your own priority
•Understand that the inner critics are just K-f*ck radio
•Keep the promises you made to yourself, rain, shine or hungover
--
Keep your butt in the chair; write badly.

Take it small, bird by bird. If you haven't listened to the show, take this podcast from @tferriss and @ANNELAMOTT for a walk.

It will shower you with insights, naked honesty, vivid analogy, mixed with light-hearted wit and laughter.
tim.blog/2021/07/09/ann…

I've spent an obscene amount of time trying to figure out the right TfT (Tools for Thoughts) stack for ME.

My curiosity led me to explore 10+ TfT tools, but at the end of the day, I was just trying to solve 3 major pain points.

And here is where I landed as of TODAY.

🧵👇 A little bit about what is important for me -
• I'm looking for a "functional minimum structure" that helps me to get shit done
• I have a hectic schedule and a fragmented mind, so having a powerful quick-capture tool is important

https://twitter.com/jessicashieh/status/1388142863377076228?s=12

"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...👇

https://twitter.com/fortelabs/status/1404604978140880897

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.

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.

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.

In my opinion, the highest value delivered per word on the topic of good writing is @ScottAdamsSays's blog post "The Day You Became A Better Writer" (2007)

Short 280 words, barely a minute read; but on-point.

I am surprised people don't know this.

Here are my takeaways 👇 1/ I first came across this in a @tferriss @naval podcast - (#97) The Person I Call Most for Startup Advice

Naval mentioned that he still pulls up this blog post from time to time when writing anything important.

tim.blog/2015/08/18/the…

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.

Learning Obsidian(@obsdmd) in 4 short hours

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.