Bookworm Transcripts

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Time has come to talk about PKM and I could not be more excited.

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Hopefully you are as well, Corey.

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I am.

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I am excited to talk about PKM.

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I'm excited to pick your brain as well about this.

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Awesome.

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Yeah.

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So on the topic of PKM before we get to follow up, I should mention that I

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spent last week creating a sales page for Life HQ, which is not really a sales

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page because you can't buy it yet.

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But hopefully by the time this goes live, you'll be able to get it within a couple

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of weeks and I recorded kind of like a three, four minute promo video, a bunch

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of FAQs detailed what is in this done for you vault and then there's a 22 minute

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visual tour if you want to see it all in action.

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But Life HQ is basically my done for you obsidian vault, which I am trying to help

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people be use obsidian in a way that is going to help them be more productive

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and creative.

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The goal here is to establish the hub of your PKM stack so that you can do your

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best creative work and all the plugins and settings are pre-configured with the

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goal of saving you some time when you decide to implement something like this.

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I've written over 50,000 words in terms of how to's and productivity and

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creativity curriculum.

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So like the creativity flywheels in there, the PKM stack is in there.

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All the life theme stuff is in there and kind of how it all ties together.

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It's this is my life's work at this point.

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So if you are interested in this, go check out practicalpkm.com/lifehq and

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there's a form where you can put in your email address.

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If it's something that you're interested in and then I will let you know when

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it's available and also I'm going to have basically a launch discount when it

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comes out.

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But people who join that wait list are going to get an additional discount

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emailed to them on top of it.

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So that'll be the way to get the lowest price on this thing when it becomes

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available.

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So if that sounds like your cup of tea, then check out practicalpkm.com/lifehq.

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Cori, I know you're beta testing this.

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Thank you for doing that.

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I just released it to a bunch of other beta testers today.

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So I'm really nervous now.

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Hopefully it does everything that I say it will and think it will, but

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haven't seen the feedback come back in yet.

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So can I share the text that I sent you with the with the audience?

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Right.

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Sure.

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I need you to put this in a testimonial for the web.

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So by the way, okay.

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So I'm reading this text from our from our messages thread.

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I'm watching your life HQ video and this is insanity.

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Good insanity.

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You've created a completely custom application using Obsidian as a backend.

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It's truly outstanding.

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If you aren't a premier partner of Obsidian, they're really missing out.

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And then I went on, but it's like, so if anybody out there is in like Obsidian's

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leadership team, right?

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No joke, you need to, you need to see this life HQ thing.

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And you need to make like a premier partner, because what he's doing is crazy to me.

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Like we were just talking in the pro show about like, you know, if we could

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just tinker around with stuff.

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And like this is one of those things I opened it up and I'm looking at it.

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And I was like, man.

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I really wish I'd have made something like this.

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Like I really wish I would have been able to figure out like how to put all

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these pieces together and actually make it work and make it make sense.

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I can't remember the name of it right now, because I have since fallen off of it.

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But there was this other guy's like productivity system that I was running

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through and it used notion as a backend.

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And I thought the same thing with his, right?

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So in my mind, like yours is like the obsidian version of like magic.

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It's like, I mean, no, it's not magic, but it's like, it's crazy.

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So check it out.

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It's pretty awesome and keep going, Mike, keep working on it.

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Cool.

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Well, thank you for the endorsement.

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The follow up items that we had here, um, I can go through through mine first

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and maybe help you feel better about some of yours.

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All right.

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So the first one I had was, how can I make the ritual of date night more

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meaningful?

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And I've been thinking a little bit about this.

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However, date night has been hard to come by the last couple of weeks with

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school starting and soccer.

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My way around this has been to schedule a trip to Boise that Rachel is going

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to come with me on.

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And it's sort of going to be extended date night.

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But the reason we're going to Boise is that we are going to record a bunch of

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life theme videos at the ConvertKit studios.

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So it does have a work purpose.

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Um, but because of that, we moved this recording up actually.

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And there has not been multiple weeks in between the recordings, like there are

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on the, uh, the release schedule.

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So I haven't had a chance to actually implement anything with this yet.

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And therefore I'm going to say I failed at this.

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Uh, the other ones, uh, next one was to figure out my transition to work rituals.

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I have been thinking about this as well.

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And I think I've sadly come to the conclusion that I need a commute.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Uh, not a long commute, hopefully, but, um, I am going to start going to the

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co-working space every morning.

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And I want to get there early before everybody else does.

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And I think that that commuting time, which is like 15 minutes for me, it's

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not anything outrageous.

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That's going to help me transition into work mode.

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Now at the end of the day, the shutdown routine, um, this, I think obviously

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if you have a book end of a commute on one end, then that sorta is part of the

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shutdown routine as well.

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Uh, but I am trying to, when I shut down for the day at the co-working space,

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shut down, shut down, obviously on days like this, when I have to record a podcast

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from home, that's a little bit different.

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And I don't know exactly how that's going to work out yet.

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I think I still need like a checklist of items where this is exactly what I'm

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doing as I'm ending my workday.

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I don't have that yet.

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What I've kind of established is I want to do the heavy creative lifting at the

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beginning of the day.

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So I have a bunch of writing projects that I want to work on, including

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another book, by the way.

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Um, so this book that we're covering today is very timely for me.

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And that I want to work on that stuff in the morning, kind of take a break around

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lunchtime.

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That's usually when I'll go for a run workout, grab lunch.

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And then the afternoon, I want it to be more just like playtime.

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So if I'm going to mess around with something, try to figure something out.

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That's when I would do it or it would be admin time.

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Uh, and I'm going to go through support emails or whatever, uh, in that, that time.

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But I, I still need something that is going to be the, the signify, the end of the

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workday on my computer, other than get in the car and drive home.

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Cause I don't always have to do that.

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When I have to do that, it's easy because not only do I put the computer away and

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then come home, but I have been when I get home, putting my computer in my office

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and then not going into my office.

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Um, so that's been successful, but there's still more, more elements to be added to

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this, I think.

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So try to figure this out after we're back from Boise, I guess.

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And, and if that doesn't work, if your commute doesn't work, you could ride your

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bike around your house four times.

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Yeah.

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That's not happening.

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Sorry.

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All right.

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So, um, my follow up is, um, what rituals do I want to implement?

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So I thought about rituals that I wanted to implement in personal life in family

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life and in work life.

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So in personal life, I think, um, one of the big rituals I want to, um, want to

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think.

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So remember the difference between rituals and routines is the meaning behind them.

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Um, so each of these has like a big meaning.

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I'm not going to share that right now, but like there, there's a, a more,

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intentional, um, meaning behind it.

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But for personal, it's like basically like meditating on scripture and prayer.

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Right.

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Like I really want to incorporate that, um, ritual into my, into my life.

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What I'm trying to figure out is when and where do I do that?

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Um, I get up really, really early already.

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So like a lot of like places are lower.

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A lot of people will say like, just do it in the morning.

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It's like, that doesn't really work for me.

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Cause I'm already getting up really, really early and have a thing.

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Like as soon as I are fairly quickly after I wake up.

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So I think that actually needs to be later in the day or in the evening.

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Um, I've debated whether I should do it like during lunch because it will cause

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me or like make me stop in like the middle of the day, which I don't normally do that.

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So I'm thinking about that personal one.

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Um, and where do I implement it into my day for family?

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It's, uh, it's really this idea of like one on one time with the members of my family.

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Um, we do a lot of stuff together as a group, but it's like, I want to be

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more intentional and I want to develop rituals where there's planned in one on

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one time with, um, the folks in my family.

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And then from a work standpoint, um, I've actually gotten to where kind of where

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Mike is in terms of, um, I need a better ramp into the day and a better ramp out of the day.

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Um, so it's like, I do this already.

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Like I have like a, you know, my commute, I use as kind of a ramp in ramp out.

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But like what I'm talking is more formal and this is why the life HQ thing is so appealing to me is like,

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I think I can incorporate that into the day where essentially before I start my work day,

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the first thing I touch is the life HQ system, right?

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And then the last thing I would touch is the life HQ system.

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What I'm trying to figure out is like, okay, well, then how do I bring it back in?

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If there's any kind of like journaling in there or like, you know, any kind of other

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personal stuff is, but I'm not sure if I, that matters, right?

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Like I could revisit it later in the evening when I'm doing my planning for the next day as well.

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And that, that doesn't mess with my start and finish.

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But I think like it would be, I think it's a good idea for it's like the first thing I do is open up obsidian

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and do the, the, you know, four steps on whatever I have.

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And then the last thing I do before I leave work is the obsidian and I do the last, you know, the four steps that I do

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before I leave the, leave the office every day.

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So I think those are the, those are the rituals that I'm thinking about and trying to figure out how to

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implement. So overall, I would say like, as a, you know, counter to the way I normally do follow up, I actually think I feel pretty good about this one.

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We had a short week and I was actually able to think critically about these, which was, which was awesome.

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So nice.

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And just to add a little bit of context with, you mentioned using obsidian specifically in a couple of places.

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I've done that as well, but I don't use it on my computer in those places.

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I use it on my phone, but again, like my phone, I have done a lot to curate the types of things that I'm able to do on my phone.

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So the obsidian usage on my phone is simply for journaling.

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I opened up my daily note at the beginning of the day.

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And that's how I see today's Bible readings. I have a whole note that pulls in today's chronological Bible reading and displays it in a colored call out.

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And then at the end of the day, I'll do all my journaling.

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I've got a shortcut, which will, I'll use to, to log my daily questions.

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And then I've got journal entries.

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So I'll, I'll jot a couple of things, significant things that happen throughout the day and then gratitude.

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Those are the things that are kind of non-negotiable at, at this point.

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The whole process takes a couple of minutes.

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I've got videos on all of that stuff.

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So I can put those in the, the show notes if people are interested.

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These are all YouTube videos.

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So I've got one for the shortcut itself that I created using shortcuts on my, my iOS device.

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And then I've got one on the daily questions journaling format as well.

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So I'll make sure that those links get in the, the show notes.

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But I think that's a cool idea of figuring out what are the apps or tools I'm going to use at a specific time in a specific way.

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And you got to be clear on what you're hoping to get out of the interactions that you have with your devices in order to actually hit the mark with that stuff.

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But kudos to you for thinking it through.

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All right.

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Ready to talk about today's book.

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I am.

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I am.

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I am.

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All right.

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So today's book is a system for writing by Bob Dotto.

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And this was one that the PKM community was chattering about before Bob released it.

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And it's a book about Zetelkasten.

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I'm curious before we get any further.

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When I say the word Zetelkasten, how do you feel about that?

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Like what sort of reaction do you do you have to that?

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Yeah.

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So so I was very familiar with Zetelkasten as a system.

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And I've actually even tried to implement it a couple of different times before.

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And it never worked.

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Like it always fell flat.

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You know, I'll put the, put the end before, but it's like I still don't love it.

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Like, I mean, I like the idea of it and I think I see the value in it, but it's like,

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I still don't love the Zetelkasten system.

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But I've, I was familiar with it.

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So it wasn't surprising to me when like I read about it.

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I was like, OK, I got this.

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I've watched a bunch of YouTube videos on this and I've seen it before.

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So yeah.

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So some context here.

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I have also not been a huge fan of this model or this framework.

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Zetelkasten in general because I probably went through a lot of the same stuff that you did.

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I read how to take smart notes by Sankay Arrens.

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And he kind of is the guy when it comes to this.

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And he talked about Nicholas Luman and the slip box and how he used it to write so many papers

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and was just this prolific creator.

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And like you hear those stories and you're like, that sounds pretty cool.

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And then you try to implement it and it just never stuck for me either.

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And it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

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Now, I admit that I tend to fall into the comparison trap pretty easy.

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So it's easy for me to be to look at someone like Nicholas Luman's and say,

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well, they're so much beyond me that like this doesn't really apply to me.

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We're not in the same situation.

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I think that's a mistake.

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I think there's definitely some stuff that you can learn from it.

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But basically I wrote it off is like that's not for me.

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And then I talked to Bob Dotto when on the Focus podcast, this was after I had read the book.

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And the spoiler alert here is that this is the first book about Zetelkasten that I think I actually enjoyed.

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That doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to stick with me yet.

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We'll get into the specifics of the method that Bob outlines here in the in this book in a minute.

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But I do want to share that this was the first time that I ever really thought,

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you know what?

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Maybe there is something here for me.

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And Bob is a really interesting guy.

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When we talk to him for a focus, we really just talked about Zetelkasten in general and kind of how Bob does things.

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But we tried not to get into the specifics of the book itself.

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We really just kind of use some of the big themes as jumping off points.

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So ever since I read this book, I have been wanting to get into the nitty gritty of this with somebody.

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OK, good.

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And I remember you bringing up the Focus interview in one of our prior shows and saying that you were interested to read the book.

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And I was like, oh, OK, well, maybe we should cover this then.

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I wanted to read this book because I want him to convince me why Zetelkasten is great and why I should care about it and why I should actually go through the hassle.

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I say hassle.

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Why I should actually go through the work, the effort to start using it.

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Like, so that was my fully, fully transparent, motivated, like Bob.

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Like, make me want to use this.

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Make me set up a system where I'm actually trying to do this.

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And that's what I was looking for coming into this book.

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Yeah, and make me care, basically.

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And that's the subtitle, you know, how an unconventional approach to note making can help you capture ideas, think wildly and write constantly.

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That's in a nutshell what you're going to get with this book.

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So you may be listening to this and saying that's not me.

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This book probably is not for you then.

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Although I think I would argue based on my creativity flywheel framework that people are more creative than they give themselves credit for.

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And maybe you are creative, you just don't know it yet.

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I make the fundamental argument that everybody is creative.

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Even lawyers, accountants, engineers, just the way that you express your creativity is maybe a little bit different.

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Yeah.

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So I think there's something here for everybody. I'm excited to jump into the content of this book.

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Before we do, it is a fairly short book.

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It's a self published book.

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I'm pretty sure.

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So it's, you know, it's the way Bob wanted it to be.

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And he wanted it to be short and actionable.

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There's lots of visuals in here, lots of examples of notes that he's taken over the years as examples, which I think are really helpful.

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But it's 166 pages before you get to the afterword.

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It looks like about 170 pages altogether.

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And it's labeled as a Zettelkasten primer.

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I think that is a very accurate description.

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And it is broken down into a couple of different parts.

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There's an introduction, which is where we're going to talk just briefly about some some terms that he'll use.

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Zettelkasten in general, then part one is taking and making notes.

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Part two is making and leveraging connections.

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Part three is writing with your Zettelkasten.

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And then there is an afterword where he talks about the triangle of creativity, which you could probably do a whole show just talking about that concept.

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I think that was pretty fascinating.

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Pretty fascinating anecdote that he dropped in just a couple of pages at the end.

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Anything else before we dive into this piece by piece?

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Yeah, let me kind of double down on the fact that.

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So this was a shorter turnaround for me.

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So Mike's already read this book.

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So for us to do a shorter recording, I had no trouble finishing this book and not feeling like I was rushing through it.

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You know, like I was able to actually engage with the book.

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And it's not just because it was only 170 pages or whatever it was.

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There's something about the structure of it.

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There's something about the way it was written that it's like really easy to digest.

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Right?

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Like I could digest it.

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I could take notes and I could think about those notes in a six day period and not feel like, oh my gosh, I'm coming into this recording or I'm coming into this conversation, not prepared.

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No, I feel completely good.

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So if you're looking for something that's relatively, I say lightweight, but I don't mean it in like not good.

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I don't mean it in a not good way.

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I mean it in like a really easily digestible way.

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This might be a good one for you to start out with the idea of Zettelkasten.

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Well, as someone who has a personal brand called practical PKM, I'll say in a practical way.

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Yeah.

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That is my goal with the stuff that I do is I want to communicate these concepts in a way that people can actually apply them and start getting the payoff right away.

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I feel like when it comes to PKM and Zettelkasten is part of this too.

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There's this unrealized promise a lot of times.

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You're going to have all these connected notes and it's just going to illuminate things and creating is going to be effortless.

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And then you get discouraged when that's not exactly what happens.

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And I think it's because people think that when they get everything set up that somehow magically it's all going to click.

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And I think the better approach is to take individual pieces of it and ask yourself, what of this can I apply right now to improve my existing workflows.

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So I think that's a key mindset as we go into this is don't try to just copy everything that Bob's going to outline here and he would probably tell you the same thing.

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Think about what pieces of this would actually benefit the way that you're currently doing things and then implement that.

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But I don't know, maybe there's a possibility where you read this and you're just like, oh yeah, that makes total sense.

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I'm just going to copy paste the whole thing.

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But I don't think that's the intended approach.

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It might if we don't if we don't make it back to to it naturally when we get to the end, make sure I talk about the fact that I like tried to start doing this with some different things and like what the experience was going through that because I think that'll be a good like conversation about like, oh, I was, I tried to implement

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this and here are the things that I struggled with and here are the things that went really well and went really easily easily.

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So I think we'll get there naturally, but if we don't, like that should be something I talk about, you know, towards the very end.

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Okay, cool.

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All right, let's get into the introduction.

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And this is a little bit of Bob's story, which I can sort of relate to.

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He mentions that he did a lot of writing, but didn't consider himself a writer.

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I had trouble thinking of myself as a creator.

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Even though for many years now, I have been creating consistently.

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Like when I was back with Asian efficiency, I was in charge of the productivity show.

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So I was coming out with a podcast episode every single week.

00:22:41

I was usually writing a blog post.

00:22:44

I was doing screencasts online on the side.

00:22:46

I was creating a new video course every month for the membership community.

00:22:52

And yet I didn't think of myself as a creator.

00:22:56

Yeah, yeah.

00:22:57

That's kind of where the creativity flywheel concept came from is once I realized that actually I am creating quite a bit.

00:23:05

How is that happening?

00:23:06

And then I realized that there's a system there.

00:23:10

And that's what Bob talks about, that he started writing when he realized that he had a system.

00:23:17

Now his system is based on the concept of Zetelkosten, which I kind of mentioned.

00:23:23

Nicholas Lumens earlier, he's the one who made this famous.

00:23:25

The words Zetelkosten literally means slip box in German.

00:23:28

It's basically like one of those wooden file drawers that you would see in the old card catalogs.

00:23:33

And then a bunch of three by five index cards that he would reorder and jot down little notes.

00:23:39

This one connects to this one.

00:23:41

And he would do that as a way of organizing his thoughts.

00:23:47

And then when he would sit down to write, it was was easy.

00:23:50

So Bob talks about how Zetelkosten is an object as well as a method and that writing is controlled chaos, which I like that description a lot.

00:23:59

There's actually a whole section later on.

00:24:02

I think that we'll talk a little bit more about that.

00:24:05

Now Bob's writing systems, there's a visual for this, which I think is really cool.

00:24:10

And I'm going to try to describe this for people who are listening.

00:24:14

There is the the fleeting notes and the reference notes that he captures.

00:24:19

And then he takes those and creates main notes out of those.

00:24:24

Now, just in those two, there is a cycle or a loop.

00:24:28

And that's important because you're constantly collecting information and then you're constantly doing something with it, answering the question, what if this is important?

00:24:37

What do I think about this?

00:24:38

Okay.

00:24:39

And then from those main notes, you create connections.

00:24:42

There's another loop from those connections.

00:24:44

You have these high level views.

00:24:46

That's another loop. And then the last loop is with the actual act of writing where you are creating in Bob's case, a book.

00:24:52

Or could be a magazine article, could be anything that you are going to publish and share with the world.

00:24:59

So I like the idea of these feedback loops.

00:25:02

I like the idea of these feedback loops being connected.

00:25:06

I think maybe you could figure out for yourself what the stages of those loops really are.

00:25:13

But what is your impression of Bob's writing systems?

00:25:17

Yeah.

00:25:18

OK. So the explanation of Zetlkasten made sense.

00:25:23

I've heard that a couple of different times before.

00:25:25

I think I think it was in the introduction.

00:25:26

I didn't actually write it down, but I think it was in the introduction.

00:25:28

You know, everybody touts how much Lumen wrote, right?

00:25:33

Like how many books he wrote and articles and all this stuff.

00:25:36

But then I think Dotto throws in this quote in there, but basically Lumen's like, well, if I could wake up at like four in the

00:25:43

morning and right until lunch and then take a walk and eat some food and then right until 11 o'clock at night, that's what I do.

00:25:48

And I'm like, OK, so it's not just the Zetlkasten system.

00:25:52

Like Lumen was like solely laser focused on writing.

00:25:57

So I loved that Dotto put this in here because it was like it shined a little more light onto the fact that like it's not this magical system that allowed this guy to write.

00:26:07

This probably helped him.

00:26:09

But I think there was a lot of honesty in the fact that the system helped him, but he also was just like a very proficient writer.

00:26:16

He just wanted to write all the time.

00:26:19

So one, I really like that idea.

00:26:21

Yeah, we'll we'll come back to that too.

00:26:24

Don't don't let me forget to come back to Nicholas Lumen and his prolific output later.

00:26:28

OK.

00:26:30

So then to we get into, I think, and he starts it here.

00:26:36

This is the best explanation of the types of notes and why you would use the different types of notes that I've ever like in all the videos I've watched and everything I've read about it.

00:26:47

And it's the best explanation because I like I understand that there is a fleeting note and it has a purpose and it connects to a main note in the following way.

00:26:57

And then there's a reference note that has a purpose and it connects to fleeting notes and main notes in the following way.

00:27:02

And then we get to hub notes and we get to structured notes and we get to all these different things and they aren't just like, oh, here's the slip box and I just throw something on a piece of paper or a digital file and just throw it in there.

00:27:14

It's like, no, this is a thing.

00:27:17

Put it in the right place and then use it in the right way because that matters, you know, like, because there is a system to how these things all connect and tie together.

00:27:28

And when you were describing the loops, he does it here.

00:27:32

And then when you go back and revisit the loops, you see it even more clearly.

00:27:36

It's like, oh, I understand why there's this loop around fleeting and reference notes and the main notes.

00:27:41

And like, I'm going to take these fleeting ideas.

00:27:44

Some of them will get used into a main note.

00:27:46

Some of them will go into the sleeper folder and they're just going to go away.

00:27:49

And that's fine.

00:27:50

Like, OK, cool.

00:27:51

Like, I had it.

00:27:52

I thought it was a good idea.

00:27:53

And then it just went away and it's fine.

00:27:55

And like, this was the clearest high level.

00:27:59

This is how you could interweave these things together and like be productive with this.

00:28:05

Not just make this slip box system and then magically use it to do cool things.

00:28:12

It was like, no, like here's a way that you can actually do this.

00:28:15

So you can hear it in my voice probably as I'm talking about it.

00:28:18

Like, I loved this chapter.

00:28:21

Like I love the introduction because it actually made sense.

00:28:25

As opposed to just using the words that'll cast it and trying to like impress me

00:28:28

with the fact that you're using the words that'll cast it.

00:28:31

Yeah, exactly.

00:28:32

That that is kind of the impression you get from the people who talk about it.

00:28:37

Now you mentioned a couple different terms here.

00:28:40

Let's just define these real quickly because Bob does in this section.

00:28:44

So fleeting notes are things that you jot down.

00:28:47

Reference notes are things that you're referencing when writing like a literature note.

00:28:53

I think this is book notes for me primarily.

00:28:55

Main notes are permanent notes, kind of notes on topics, I would say.

00:29:02

Note taking is capturing information.

00:29:04

And then note making is distilling and contextualizing information.

00:29:09

This is an important distinction.

00:29:11

I first heard about note making from Nick Milo, but I like the visual here of note

00:29:20

taking is the information that comes in.

00:29:22

Note making is the information that goes out in that synthesis that ties into this

00:29:28

whole concept, which I don't know who came up with this originally.

00:29:32

It's been around for a long time of the things get broader and then they get narrower.

00:29:40

So divergence.

00:29:42

And then at some point, OK, now I have enough information.

00:29:45

I'm going to do something with it and then convergence into an actual deliverable.

00:29:49

So note taking is kind of the divergence.

00:29:51

I'm collecting everything that resonates.

00:29:53

And then the note making, that's the convergence.

00:29:56

Now, what do I actually think about this?

00:29:58

And then he mentions a train of thought as, which is simply just a threat of of

00:30:03

connected ideas or or notes.

00:30:06

And those are probably going to come up a lot in the rest of the discussion.

00:30:09

So I want to make sure we talk about those.

00:30:11

Anything though else from this introduction?

00:30:13

Yeah, like this, just this distinction here helped me figure out the place for

00:30:20

different things in my life, right?

00:30:22

So OK, I read a book and I take notes on that book.

00:30:25

Well, I also make notes while I'm reading that book.

00:30:29

Well, all of those things can go into that reference note, right?

00:30:32

Like in the reference note, the key about it is it's linked back to the book.

00:30:36

All of this came from me reading this book.

00:30:38

Well, where this became really valuable to me was I'll listen to podcasts.

00:30:43

And I'm not only like taking ideas from the podcast, like from what the people are

00:30:49

saying, but I'm also like more putting ideas together and like thinking new things.

00:30:55

And it happens to me more of podcasts than it does with books.

00:30:57

But like I now have an idea of like what to do with those like, oh, OK, this idea.

00:31:04

I'm still going to put it in the reference section associated with this

00:31:07

podcast or if it's important enough for me to make it a main note, I'm going to

00:31:11

reference that podcast.

00:31:12

Like this came from me listening to, you know, blah, blah, podcast about whatever.

00:31:17

But it's like I now have an idea of like where those things go.

00:31:20

And it doesn't just go into some random file.

00:31:24

Somewhere that I'm never going to see again or that I'm worried that I'm

00:31:28

never going to see again.

00:31:28

And like that was huge for me.

00:31:30

Like that was really, really big for me because it's like everything has a place.

00:31:34

And even if you never see it again, it went to the place it was supposed to go to.

00:31:39

And like that was almost freeing like as crazy as it sounds, it was like almost freeing.

00:31:44

It was like it doesn't just go into the ether of digital space.

00:31:47

It goes into its place in the chaos.

00:31:50

And we might find it again.

00:31:51

Like we might find it again when we need to if we do do things right.

00:31:54

So I was a big, like again, big fan of this chapter.

00:31:57

I thought it set the stage really, really well.

00:31:59

Nice.

00:32:00

Yeah, you mentioned we might find these things again in the future.

00:32:04

I think that is important, that little phrase that you've mentioned there,

00:32:07

because I think some people go into the ideas that will cost and

00:32:11

in creating these PKM systems and they think that this is going to allow them to

00:32:17

instantly recall a specific place where they stored something.

00:32:20

That's the wrong approach.

00:32:21

You want to kind of stumble upon these things organically again in the future

00:32:26

when they are in the right context.

00:32:29

That's where the connections can actually help you.

00:32:31

So let's go into part one on taking and making notes.

00:32:39

Now, there's a couple of chapters that are in this particular section and they're

00:32:45

sort of related to different types of notes.

00:32:48

So the first chapter is capturing your thoughts.

00:32:49

The second one is taking notes while reading.

00:32:51

And then the third one is making main notes.

00:32:53

The main notes, one obviously talks about main notes, notes while reading.

00:32:57

That's talking about really the reference notes and then capturing your

00:33:00

thoughts. Those are the fleeting notes.

00:33:02

So rather than take this chapter by chapter, let's talk about the main ideas here.

00:33:07

I think there's probably going to be a little bit of overlap.

00:33:10

Now, the capturing your thoughts, this is probably something that everyone

00:33:17

listening to this is familiar with.

00:33:19

I think probably the place that it's most often attributed is like getting

00:33:25

things done with David Allen, where you it's on the paper off the mind.

00:33:29

So you need to capture the things that have your attention.

00:33:33

I didn't really realize until years later that actually think that that's bad advice

00:33:39

to just capture everything that might be important.

00:33:42

And I know that's not really the there's a spirit behind what he's saying.

00:33:48

That's not the the literal translation of what he's saying there.

00:33:52

But I think I've fallen into that trap when it comes to PKM, PKM, by the way,

00:33:58

personal knowledge management, if you're not familiar with that term.

00:34:01

But really, I believe that information is from Tiago Forte.

00:34:06

Information is the fundamental building block of everything that you do.

00:34:09

So information is constantly coming into your world and then you are

00:34:13

constantly doing something with that information.

00:34:16

And we're kind of at a point in history where there's too much information to

00:34:19

try to keep up with it all.

00:34:20

So you have to decide for yourself what information is actually worth paying

00:34:25

attention to.

00:34:26

Now that translates into capturing because when you capture things, these

00:34:32

are things that based on Bob's system for writing here are going to be useful

00:34:38

in the future, or at least you think they are going to be useful in the future.

00:34:41

And hopefully you can understand how that might be very different than

00:34:45

could this possibly be important in the future?

00:34:47

Those are different things.

00:34:49

And so I like to think of the capture phase as I am looking for cool, mental,

00:34:56

Lego pieces that I can add to my collection that I might be able to use

00:35:00

to create something new in the future.

00:35:01

So when I am looking for those cool pieces, what I'm looking for is something

00:35:07

that resonates.

00:35:08

And I like that term, resonate because I grew up playing violin.

00:35:11

It's an acoustic instrument and it literally, that's how it makes sound.

00:35:15

Is it resonates?

00:35:16

You can feel it.

00:35:16

So it like reverberates.

00:35:18

That's the picture I get is there's a reverberation that goes off in your

00:35:21

soul when you come across something that feels like it might be important.

00:35:25

So those are the things that I would capture as fleeting notes.

00:35:28

Fleeing notes are by definition impermanent.

00:35:32

They will be deleted before you move them into a permanent note.

00:35:35

And so this kind of hits on something which I have thought has been missing

00:35:41

for a long time in the discussion of Zetalkaas and PKM, where a lot of times

00:35:45

people are looking for the most frictionless way to capture things into obsidian,

00:35:50

for example.

00:35:52

And there's not a great way to do it.

00:35:53

That's actually a good thing.

00:35:55

Because if all you did was capture stuff in there, you would end up with a lot of,

00:35:59

a lot of noise and not a lot of signal.

00:36:01

So I actually believe that having some intentional friction between the capture

00:36:07

and the curate phase of the creativity flywheel for me, but basically a capture

00:36:11

things in drafts whenever, oh, this, this sounds like it might be important.

00:36:15

And then later on, I will transfer those things into obsidian.

00:36:19

And I would say probably 90% of the stuff that I captured as fleeting notes

00:36:22

doesn't make the cut.

00:36:24

And I just trust that if it's really important, it's going to come back later,

00:36:26

but I just, I just delete it.

00:36:28

And so I think that the way Bob describes this is much more in line with the system

00:36:35

that I kind of stumbled upon where you capture these fleeting notes into an

00:36:40

inbox.

00:36:40

And then later on, you decide if it's not useful, you trash it.

00:36:43

If it is useful down the road, he introduces the concept of a sleeping

00:36:48

folder, which I think you kind of hit on earlier.

00:36:51

If it's useful now, then maybe we'll bring that over into a main note that gets

00:36:55

stored in the Zetalocost and that contributes to the writing.

00:36:58

What do you do in terms of the capture phase?

00:37:03

Yeah.

00:37:04

So I've been thinking about this.

00:37:05

I didn't have a good system prior to this, right?

00:37:09

So I'm looking at your life HQ thing, right?

00:37:11

And you have the workflow in there where you show like how the different apps are

00:37:13

used in different ways.

00:37:14

So I had that like kind of in the back of my mind priming this and then I'm

00:37:18

looking, I'm thinking about him talking about these fleeting notes.

00:37:21

And when you think about the fleeting note as you said, it's impermanent, right?

00:37:27

And I don't know if I'd go that far because I think it could be permanently

00:37:31

in your sleeping folder until you, it depends on how good you are going back

00:37:35

in and like, you know, filtering out that sleeping folder.

00:37:38

But it's like, even if it's permanently in your fil, your, your sleeping folder,

00:37:43

it's impermanent as a fleeting note.

00:37:45

It's either going to get turned into a main note or it's going to move

00:37:48

into your sleeping folder, which is a different in my mind, a different of a

00:37:51

different bucket.

00:37:52

Yeah.

00:37:52

That's good.

00:37:53

Because then I think about it as, okay, put the stuff in there and where this

00:37:59

will fall down for me, I can tell you right now is the curation phase.

00:38:02

Do I take the time to go through and actually curate those fleeting, those

00:38:06

fleeting notes and make myself move them one place or another?

00:38:09

I either make this go to a main note or I make this go into the sleeping folder.

00:38:13

And I'm not allowed to leave it as a fleeting note in the inbox.

00:38:17

Now you asked the question specifically, like, what would I use to do that?

00:38:20

I think what I've landed on is there's going to be two things.

00:38:23

There's going to be my phone in drafts.

00:38:27

I'm going to use drafts because it's just so easy and fast to get information

00:38:31

into drafts.

00:38:32

And then the other one is I'm going to have a note card and a pen with me at all

00:38:36

times.

00:38:36

And the reason why is because I, I'll be in certain social settings or I'll be

00:38:41

in certain situations where I just don't want to pull out my phone because I'm

00:38:44

afraid I'm going to get distracted or because it's just not the right

00:38:47

context.

00:38:47

But for me to jot something down on a note card, again, this is where this will

00:38:52

fall down.

00:38:52

The fleeting note process will fall down for me is do I remember to go through

00:38:55

the note card and the drafts essentially daily or, you know, in my mind, if I'm

00:39:01

not doing it every other day, I got a problem.

00:39:03

Like I've, I've taken too long to do that.

00:39:07

And then I'm going to go convert those in.

00:39:10

So I think that's where I'm going to really try to focus on in the next, you

00:39:15

know, call it an action item, right?

00:39:16

I'm really going to play around with this process of for the next week or two, how

00:39:23

good am I at capturing the fleeting notes and then processing the fleeting

00:39:29

notes?

00:39:29

And that's really the only thing I want to do.

00:39:31

Like I don't care if they turn into great main notes.

00:39:32

I don't care if they go, they all go into the sleeper folder.

00:39:34

Am I capturing well and am I processing well?

00:39:37

And that's like, that's my metric for success for implementing these things.

00:39:41

Nice.

00:39:42

Yeah.

00:39:43

And just to reiterate there, you mentioned the processing and putting that either

00:39:50

into a sleeping folder or a main note.

00:39:53

I think that there's another option there, which is you just get rid of it.

00:39:58

And I think the, the, the, one of the things that I think that is important

00:40:03

for this to stick, definitely for me, maybe for some other people is that there

00:40:10

isn't a set time or day, like I don't feel pressure where I have to go through

00:40:16

and process this.

00:40:17

If things just sit in the drafts inbox for two weeks, that is effectively like

00:40:25

me deleting those ideas.

00:40:27

And I'm okay with that.

00:40:29

Right.

00:40:30

So it's not a email inbox where I have to check this every day because there might

00:40:35

be something important in there.

00:40:38

The thing that makes this work for me is this is an additional step.

00:40:43

And whenever I get around to it, that's fine.

00:40:47

Yeah.

00:40:48

And until though, until I do process those things, it's almost like those things

00:40:52

don't exist.

00:40:53

Sometimes I'll go through my drafts inbox and I'll capture a couple of things.

00:40:56

I've forgotten that I captured something and I'll capture it again in a different

00:41:00

way and oh well, like that just adds more, more weight to the argument that this

00:41:07

should actually be transferred over by the time I go look at it.

00:41:10

So the exception to this, I think, is the reference notes.

00:41:15

So maybe we should go go there next.

00:41:18

Yeah, let's do it.

00:41:19

Okay.

00:41:19

So the reference notes, the whole chapter is talking about taking notes while reading.

00:41:25

It doesn't have to necessarily be books, but that is obviously the context I have

00:41:30

in mind as I go into this.

00:41:33

And the reason for that I think is that the way that I take notes on my books,

00:41:42

that they function very much as the reference notes.

00:41:47

Although an argument could be made that this could be articles, blog posts, stuff

00:41:50

like that.

00:41:51

For me, the reason that this is always book notes kind of stems from how to read a

00:41:57

book by Mortimer Adler.

00:42:00

And in there, he talks about the whole process for working a book.

00:42:06

I've adapted that into a bit of a modern version, which is why I use the mind

00:42:14

node and I create the mind maps.

00:42:17

Like that's my version of working the book like Mortimer Adler talks about what I

00:42:22

don't want, just me personally, is highlights automatically being piped in.

00:42:31

Again, I want intentional friction between, okay, now I've read the book and

00:42:35

I've taken the notes.

00:42:36

Now I'm going to transfer those over into obsidian from my node.

00:42:42

And the way that I do this is I have the mind map file.

00:42:46

I export as a PDF.

00:42:47

I also, because my node is great, you can export it as Markdown.

00:42:51

So I'll copy and paste that Markdown.

00:42:53

Those now are fundamental building blocks that I can break apart into their own

00:42:58

separate notes.

00:42:59

And I don't actually do that a ton.

00:43:01

I do it occasionally when I think something is a big enough idea that I can

00:43:06

stand on its own.

00:43:07

I'll break it into an atomic note.

00:43:09

Again, I've got YouTube videos for all this stuff.

00:43:12

I'll put some links, I guess, in the show notes.

00:43:15

But the idea here is that these are things that you're going to go back and

00:43:22

refer to.

00:43:23

And these are notes that you take when you are actively engaged with the media.

00:43:27

So that media could be a lot of different things.

00:43:30

It could be YouTube videos.

00:43:31

It could be podcast episodes.

00:43:33

For me, I have firmly compartmentalized this as books.

00:43:37

And I'm curious to hear how you think you're going to apply these reference notes.

00:43:43

But I do want to just call out real quickly the six things to consider when reading.

00:43:47

So read with a question or problem in mind.

00:43:49

I think these are great, by the way, and these can apply beyond just the book format.

00:43:53

But read with a question or problem in mind.

00:43:56

I think just to stop on this one a little bit.

00:43:59

One of the things that helped me establish a reading habit was picking books that I

00:44:03

thought were going to solve a problem that I was experiencing or a pain point

00:44:07

that I was trying to try to resolve.

00:44:09

So that's that's when you have a specific thing that you're hoping to get out of

00:44:14

the material that changes how you interact with it.

00:44:17

So that's that's great.

00:44:18

Capture ideas you disagree with.

00:44:20

I do this.

00:44:20

In fact, in the one that I shared with my most recent newsletter, I shared a mind map

00:44:25

from 168 hours by Laura Vanderkamp.

00:44:28

And there is a note in there.

00:44:29

I was realized when I shared it, there's an argument that she makes one specific

00:44:35

piece of it.

00:44:35

The book itself is pretty good.

00:44:36

And I like the way that it encourages you to think about designing the life that you

00:44:40

want to live.

00:44:41

But there was one point I saw my note was I call BS.

00:44:44

Yeah, for sure.

00:44:47

So like that that forces you to decide what you're going to do with the information

00:44:50

that you're reading.

00:44:51

And it's not just a guru coming down from the mountain with the stone tablets.

00:44:55

Capture what you think about what the author thinks.

00:44:58

Capture someone else's interpretation.

00:45:00

Don't forget fiction.

00:45:01

OK, Bob, I won't forget fiction.

00:45:03

Thanks for the reminder.

00:45:04

I thought of you.

00:45:06

Like, so that's the point of you bring it up because I thought of you.

00:45:08

I was like, yeah, I'll get my.

00:45:10

Yep.

00:45:11

I don't have a great workflow for capturing from fiction yet, but.

00:45:15

And then go wild with your captures.

00:45:17

I think this is this is important like with a caveat.

00:45:21

So go wild with your captures, capture everything that resonates.

00:45:24

But don't try to recapture the entire structure of the book.

00:45:28

I've talked about this in the reading masterclass workshop that I did a while back.

00:45:35

This is a mistake I think people make when it comes to nonfiction books,

00:45:39

specifically because they typically written as the definitive source on whatever

00:45:43

topic.

00:45:43

And if you just try to capture everything that the other person is saying is important,

00:45:48

you'll end up recreating the whole structure of the book.

00:45:50

So you want to create, you want to capture the key arguments that they're making,

00:45:54

not all the details, not all the lists.

00:45:57

You want to understand their arguments and then decide for yourself if those are

00:46:01

actually good arguments.

00:46:03

So those are the six things to consider when reading, but I would say maybe applies

00:46:08

to just about every other medium out there.

00:46:10

How are you going to use reference notes?

00:46:12

Yeah.

00:46:13

See, I differ from you a little bit in terms of you say,

00:46:19

you don't want your highlights to be automatically piped into obsidian.

00:46:24

You want there to be friction there.

00:46:25

I want there to be friction at the next layer.

00:46:28

Now, this is where something he says in the introduction that we didn't talk about

00:46:34

ties into this.

00:46:35

There is a big difference between my automatic pipe in from the book and then

00:46:41

what should go into the reference note in the Zettelkasten.

00:46:47

And I had never thought about this before and I never done this before, but I like

00:46:52

the idea of taking those automatically piped in highlights because my brain,

00:46:57

when I read, I engage way more if I'm like highlighting and noting and doing

00:47:02

different things.

00:47:03

Well, then I want those all to be put into a summary file.

00:47:07

So I'm going to call that a summary file.

00:47:09

Well, then the summary file gets transformed into the reference note that goes

00:47:14

into the Zettelkasten and that's where the friction happens and it's going to

00:47:18

take me 20 to 20 minutes to an hour depending on how long the book is and

00:47:24

how much I captured.

00:47:25

You know, I'm going to get rid of stuff.

00:47:28

I'm going to add things in.

00:47:29

I'm going to add comments in.

00:47:30

I'm going to restructure things in.

00:47:32

Oh, well, he said this in chapter four, but I think this ties to the point in

00:47:36

chapter one better.

00:47:37

So I'm going to take that note and re-engage it up there.

00:47:42

I also don't have a problem with grabbing more information than it sounds like you

00:47:47

would want, you know, somebody to grab or that you personally grab.

00:47:51

So it's fun to hear the differences and the way we capture things out of a book.

00:47:56

Cause like I essentially want to go back to this note file, whether it's the

00:48:03

summary note or the reference note, like I would have said the summary note before.

00:48:07

Now I would say the reference note, I want to go back to that reference note,

00:48:10

be able to skim that reference note and immediately know what the author's

00:48:15

arguments were and immediately know my stance on the author's arguments.

00:48:20

Right.

00:48:21

Like, and if I can do that immediately is the wrong word, but you know what I mean?

00:48:24

And in a very short period of time, I can know the author's arguments and my

00:48:27

stance on those arguments, at least at the time of me processing that reference

00:48:32

note, like that's really valuable for me.

00:48:35

So like if I can have that and that is my reference note going into the Zetel

00:48:40

casting system, man, that's, that's huge for me.

00:48:43

And that's way better than what I would currently or what I currently have or

00:48:48

what I've had up until now.

00:48:50

Um, that is a really important thing.

00:48:53

And Mike and I were talking kind of before, uh, everything got, got officially going.

00:48:58

I'm not sure where mind maps sit for me in this because like mind maps have been

00:49:03

good and I like mind maps, but I don't think I use them in the same way Mike uses

00:49:07

them as a, as a true mind map.

00:49:10

I think I use them more as a, um, visual outline, right?

00:49:15

And I don't think that's the, that's the nature of them or that's the intention of

00:49:19

them.

00:49:19

So like I want this reference note and maybe the reference note is the thing that

00:49:23

is going to, is going to seal it for me.

00:49:25

I hope, I hope it is.

00:49:26

Well, I don't think I don't think I have issue with the way that you're describing

00:49:31

using reference notes.

00:49:33

Um, so just to clarify, my issue with the automatic import of the

00:49:37

highlights is when you import the highlights from your notes, let's say you

00:49:43

read deep work or something and you have all these highlights that get automatically

00:49:48

synced via read wise into your obsidian vault, cause there is a plugin that, that

00:49:53

does that.

00:49:53

And then you never go through and process those highlights.

00:49:57

Okay.

00:49:58

So that is the issue I have is like you highlight them once and then you think

00:50:03

they're going to come up again, no, you've got to have some distillation of those

00:50:08

ideas still.

00:50:09

And if you're going through and you're working those and you're adding more and

00:50:12

you're creating summaries, then you are doing the additional work that's

00:50:16

necessary to glean the value from those highlights.

00:50:18

But I also for some reason have never really liked Tiago Forte's, um, what does

00:50:26

you call it progressive summarization?

00:50:28

He's got like four different levels that he goes through.

00:50:31

So essentially you would highlight the digital highlights.

00:50:37

Those will get piped over from the actual text itself.

00:50:39

And then from there, he would italicize certain things and he would bold certain

00:50:45

things and you basically force yourself to go through it multiple times until you

00:50:49

get down to the core essence.

00:50:51

That's always felt like too much work for me as well.

00:50:56

So I feel like the emoji system that I use when I'm taking notes, bringing those

00:51:02

over and then, um, so I'll do that once basically as I'm taking the notes in my

00:51:08

note and then bring them over and mark down.

00:51:09

But I also will add a three cent summary at the top of the book.

00:51:14

So that's kind of my abridged version of the progressive summarization.

00:51:19

And that is a helpful thing distilling it down into just a couple of sentences

00:51:24

based off of every, all of these things that, that you have, uh, that you have read.

00:51:28

But, um, yeah, I think like that's important, but then how deep you go down that rabbit

00:51:36

hole is probably a matter of personal preference.

00:51:39

Well, and, and I would say that just in our conversation right now, there's at

00:51:44

least three different ways to do this friction step, right?

00:51:48

Like, which is, which is good.

00:51:50

There's guaranteed other ways to do it.

00:51:52

Like, you know, people, there's probably as many ways to do this friction step as

00:51:56

there are people, you know, out, out there, do the friction step.

00:52:00

I think that's the, the key thing is like, do the friction step because that's

00:52:03

where, that's where things get really, really valuable.

00:52:06

Like I think taking that reference note and then making the main notes out of it,

00:52:12

which is where we're going, like we're going to transition into main notes now.

00:52:15

That's the friction step on top of the friction step that now really makes it

00:52:19

meaningful and it's different than progressive summarization because now I'm

00:52:23

not like the way he describes writing the main notes, it's not just

00:52:28

taking the highlight and transferring it over and calling it a main note.

00:52:31

Like you're actually going to reformulate that into an idea and do an idea

00:52:35

that we're going to link with, with these other ideas.

00:52:37

So sorry if I jumped the gun, but I think it'd be a good time to transition to main notes.

00:52:40

I agree.

00:52:41

So that, that is ultimately what you want to do is everything in the reference

00:52:46

notes is kind of priming the pump for making the main notes is a argument I would make.

00:52:50

Now the main notes themselves, what the heck is a main note?

00:52:54

I guess when I went into this, I was thinking of a main note as kind of like a map

00:52:58

of content is the popular term.

00:53:00

I don't really use that specific term, like with Life HQ, basically what I

00:53:07

have to find it as is maps.

00:53:10

I've got a whole section of maps, but those maps are really on specific topics.

00:53:15

Like I have a map on task management, a map on time management, a map on life

00:53:21

theme map on the creativity flywheel.

00:53:23

And I think what he's talking about with main notes is something that is more

00:53:27

granular than that.

00:53:29

So I didn't get that main notes were the maps of content at all.

00:53:34

Like what I got is main notes were what you would call atomic notes.

00:53:38

Yep.

00:53:39

And then hub notes would be maps of content or structured notes would be maps of

00:53:44

content and I'm still processing which one I think is more like a map of content.

00:53:48

And I think it's my lack of knowledge on maps of content more than structured

00:53:52

and hub notes.

00:53:52

But like, am I, am I interpreting it differently than you are?

00:53:56

No, you are correct.

00:53:57

Yeah.

00:53:57

So that's, that's what I was thinking going into it is, oh, that's what the main

00:54:01

notes are going to be.

00:54:02

But I think they are a little bit, they are something different.

00:54:04

Now a main note should have two components, Bob argues.

00:54:07

And I think I agree with this, a single idea and a link to another idea

00:54:12

started in your Zetal custom.

00:54:14

I think the single idea part has been something I've been practicing for a while.

00:54:19

That's the whole idea of the atomic notes.

00:54:21

And just a little bit of background on the idea of atomic notes, by the way.

00:54:25

So as far as I know, I came up with this because I was juggling with obsidian

00:54:33

coming from Rome research because I wanted to create a cross reference

00:54:39

library of all my sermon, Bible study sketch notes.

00:54:43

And in Rome, it was no big deal because you had like the book note and then the

00:54:50

chapter note and then the verse, but there were no, there weren't concepts of notes.

00:54:54

They were just additional levels of bullets that you could drill down in.

00:54:58

And then when I came to obsidian, I was like, how do I do that?

00:55:00

And everyone's like, oh, just link to the blocks, but it adds these like ugly,

00:55:05

cold, ugly code blocks at the end of it. And I'm like, no, that looks stupid.

00:55:09

Plus it's not showing up that way in the, uh, the local graph.

00:55:13

Like that's what I want to be able to navigate between those.

00:55:15

So I quickly came to the idea of, well, I've got to break all this apart into the

00:55:19

individual verse notes.

00:55:20

And then the thing that made a click was thinking about how James Clear describes

00:55:25

atomic habits is like the smallest component piece, but also something being very powerful.

00:55:31

I'm like, oh, so if I could break this down into the smallest component pieces,

00:55:35

but those connections, cause I had that workflow of the cross reference library in my head,

00:55:39

like that would be so powerful.

00:55:41

If I could just look at the notes that I took, see, you know, these are the verses that were mentioned,

00:55:45

click on one of those verses and see all the other notes that I took that reference,

00:55:49

that specific verse, that would be really cool.

00:55:51

So that's what I built with the help of Joe who ran the script for me that broke apart

00:55:54

the King James version into the individual things.

00:55:57

And then I actually created a video for the sweet setup course on obsidian about atomic

00:56:04

habits.

00:56:05

Okay.

00:56:05

So that was a couple of years ago at this point, maybe somebody else came up with that idea

00:56:10

before, but it was originally, it was organic, at least in, in my, my thought process with

00:56:16

this.

00:56:17

So then the piece that's, that was missing though, was that link to another idea that

00:56:22

stored in your Zetal custom.

00:56:24

And that I am still kind of chewing on.

00:56:28

I think that's really powerful and I want to start doing that more.

00:56:33

But I also don't have a formal process for that.

00:56:37

Now that is where Zetal custom comes in.

00:56:41

And I don't think I want to implement pure Zetal custom.

00:56:44

Okay.

00:56:45

But one of the things that I'm going to start doing, I guess there's an action item here,

00:56:49

is that when I create a note, I want to start thinking about what other things should be

00:56:54

linked to this.

00:56:56

And I've sort of done this in life HQ because in all of those how tos, I realized that,

00:57:01

like for example, I have a how to, here's how you add tasks using the quick add macro that I

00:57:09

created.

00:57:09

But then what are the other related notes that someone is going to want to see that tie to

00:57:15

that?

00:57:16

And it wasn't as simple as just looking at, well, what are the other things that I linked to in

00:57:20

the text of the note?

00:57:21

So I actually created at the bottom of those notes, see also, and then added the links

00:57:27

manually so that people could look at the local graph and be like, Oh, these are the other topics

00:57:31

that relate to this.

00:57:32

And I need to start doing that with the ideas that I'm developing in my own notes

00:57:38

vault inside of my, the obsidian that I personally use each and every day.

00:57:45

But I don't want to have a formula for this.

00:57:49

I just want to ask myself that question when I create the notes.

00:57:52

Like, what else do I have here that's relevant, that should be connected.

00:57:57

Yeah, so I said about having me talk about trying this, the links to the other

00:58:03

ideas, the links to the other main notes was probably the hardest thing.

00:58:09

And it's going to, it's, it's like the most valuable and most challenging thing to do.

00:58:16

Cause it's like, how many links do I make?

00:58:20

There is no right amount.

00:58:21

Well, what's an important enough link to make?

00:58:23

I don't know.

00:58:24

Like I'm trying to figure out like where, where do the links sit?

00:58:27

And then this will get to an idea that he talks about later, but basically it's a non,

00:58:32

zettocastens, a non-hierarchal system.

00:58:34

So therefore it's not like this note comes before this other note, but my brain doesn't like that.

00:58:39

My brain wants to say like, Oh, well, this idea sits before this other idea.

00:58:43

And this is where we haven't gotten into this, but like one of the additional or extra

00:58:48

things he says you can put in a main note is like an alphanumeric ID.

00:58:51

Right.

00:58:52

So, and he's got this whole process for it.

00:58:54

Like, you know, one dot one, one dot one BA two, seven, 14.

00:58:58

Like my thing is I can't figure out how I want to wrestle around with that.

00:59:02

Like, so we, I'm going to pause on that because we can talk about that later.

00:59:05

That doesn't naturally make sense to me.

00:59:08

The thing that does make sense to me though, is the connection between the notes.

00:59:12

And, and I've mentioned this to you before.

00:59:14

I know I have when I was writing my dissertation, I used a voodoo pad.

00:59:18

So voodoo pad was this old school Mac application that basically let you create

00:59:23

your own personal wiki.

00:59:25

So it's like I would have essentially hub pages that would outline an idea or a

00:59:32

structured note that would outline an idea.

00:59:34

And then I would link to all the other ideas.

00:59:37

And then when I got to that page, it would have a link to the like page, like

00:59:41

ideas that came off of that because what I was doing and he, he phrases it the,

00:59:46

the way that I would have never thought to phrase it, I was making trains of thought.

00:59:50

Because when I was writing this long form document or this research paper or whatever

00:59:54

it was, trains of thought were how you got from one place to another.

00:59:57

It's how you got from one idea to another.

00:59:59

It's how you wrote your literature review.

01:00:00

It's how you, you know, wrote your discussion and connected it back in

01:00:03

and implications.

01:00:04

And it's like this is a more structured way to develop trains of thought by taking

01:00:13

these main notes and linking them. And this is where I think Mike, like, are

01:00:18

your, are your linkages perfect?

01:00:21

Are your C also is perfect?

01:00:23

No.

01:00:24

And I don't think that's the point.

01:00:25

It's a, it's a living system.

01:00:27

It can always be updated.

01:00:28

It can always be, be modified.

01:00:30

And you're also going to see different linkages depending on the context of when

01:00:35

you're looking at it.

01:00:35

So you might look at it now and like the, the four things on playing the violin

01:00:41

or popping into your head.

01:00:42

Oh, well, I've got these notes on playing the violin.

01:00:44

You look at it six months from now and you could care less about playing the violin,

01:00:47

but you're thinking about like, you know, tacos.

01:00:50

And it's like, oh, well, this links to tacos in the following way.

01:00:53

And I know I'm being like, you know, I'm using ridiculous examples, but like the

01:00:56

point is, is, is still there.

01:00:58

The context of when you're looking at it matters in the system allows you to kind

01:01:03

of adapt to, to that context.

01:01:05

So I think that's really good.

01:01:07

The, the one I struggle with or the one I'm, I'm struggling to implement is the

01:01:11

previous.

01:01:12

So like, is it really important that I say where I came from to get to this note?

01:01:18

Like, is the two way communication important?

01:01:22

Like, so let me, let me back up.

01:01:24

So Bob, he'll do previous and I'll show you like how he got to that note.

01:01:30

And then he'll also say see and he'll link to the notes that he would, he can go

01:01:35

from, from this note or go to from this note.

01:01:38

And I don't know if I see the, the necessary distinction between those two.

01:01:42

I think you could just do CCC like and say like, Oh, well, here it is.

01:01:47

I could be wrong.

01:01:49

Like as I work with this and as I try to develop this, but I think not doing

01:01:54

previous and then see would help my brain not try to make these in a hierarchy.

01:01:59

It would just really let these natural non-hierarchal connections actually develop.

01:02:06

And I'm trying to wrestle around with, with how I want to do that.

01:02:08

So I know I just talked a lot about like about all this stuff, but it's like.

01:02:12

You can see I'm wrestling around with these main notes and how do I connect

01:02:16

these main notes a lot, which is a good thing, right?

01:02:19

Like I'm really engaging with Zetelkasten in a way that I've never even thought of

01:02:23

before. And that's encouraging to me.

01:02:25

Like I got some, I have some stuff to figure out and I don't know how I'm going

01:02:28

to figure it out, but I think that that's good.

01:02:31

Like I like that.

01:02:32

Yeah.

01:02:33

So let's put an official distinction here, we're moving into the next section

01:02:40

because this is getting into making and leveraging connections.

01:02:45

And these are going to be made from the main notes to your point.

01:02:50

But that's actually where he describes the previous versus C references.

01:02:54

And I want to just kind of double click on one other thing here when it comes to

01:03:00

making these notes and the connections between them.

01:03:03

He talks about developing notes in light of and in spite of other notes, which I

01:03:06

think is interesting because one of the things that can happen when you start

01:03:12

building a collection of notes is you want everything in there to be accurate

01:03:17

and up to date.

01:03:18

But he talks about how there's no need to overhaul a note just because you

01:03:22

capture a new one that disagrees with it.

01:03:24

So that's important.

01:03:26

You can look at these from different angles, different contexts.

01:03:29

And I think it's okay to have something in it.

01:03:31

It's like, well, that's what I thought at the time when I captured that.

01:03:34

Now, when you make the connections, I think I agree with you where the previous

01:03:41

versus C references, those make sense if you're going to be looking at this in

01:03:46

terms of the Zettlkosten and using the ID numbers.

01:03:49

And that's not something I want to do.

01:03:51

Okay.

01:03:52

So maybe that is another level of insight that you can get from these notes.

01:03:58

And an argument should be made.

01:04:00

Oh, you should really try this, but that's just not interesting to me.

01:04:05

But the connections are, and then also I want to back up a little bit because

01:04:09

you asked me with the main notes, are these the maps of content?

01:04:11

Are these the atomic notes?

01:04:13

And I think the answer is actually yes, because the way that you would be

01:04:17

coming into this, it could be either one of those.

01:04:20

You could be making a main note about something that you don't have anything

01:04:24

currently, like habits, for example.

01:04:28

And as you are talking about habits, that's a single topic.

01:04:31

That is a main note, but it's also a map.

01:04:33

Once you start adding more in there and you realize, oh, actually, there's

01:04:37

this whole section here.

01:04:38

This is a separate note that I can break apart as its own atomic note.

01:04:43

And that's one of the things I like about Obsidian is that you can actually

01:04:45

just highlight that text and you can use the built in note composer.

01:04:49

You can extract that as a new note and it adds the link to the original place

01:04:54

so that you can create these connections really easily.

01:04:57

Now, is that a previous connection?

01:04:59

Is that a C connection?

01:05:00

It doesn't really matter in that context.

01:05:02

There's no specific direction associated with that.

01:05:06

And that's kind of the thing that has made these connected notes work for me.

01:05:09

Is those bi-directional links?

01:05:12

There isn't a hierarchy.

01:05:14

I think I see some value in like adding that sort of breadcrumb type stuff,

01:05:19

but that's not the way that I have used it.

01:05:22

So I don't think that that's something that's really going to be valuable for me.

01:05:26

But then the other thing that you were kind of hitting on was,

01:05:29

how do I determine the direction?

01:05:31

I kind of think you don't have to know.

01:05:33

In fact, in chapter four, where you're cycling connecting your ideas,

01:05:37

he mentions that as you add more notes, the ways in which they relate will become

01:05:43

clearer.

01:05:44

So as you start doing this, I think you really aren't going to know.

01:05:48

And it's sort of like tagging where you maybe don't want to even get started

01:05:53

with it because you don't want to make a mistake and have to fix it later.

01:05:57

Or maybe that's just me.

01:05:58

I don't know.

01:05:59

But that has one of the resistances I've had to tagging things is like, well,

01:06:03

I have to go back and change these tags.

01:06:06

Like I've made that mistake before and that's so much work.

01:06:09

And so you just decide you're, you're not going to do it.

01:06:12

I think that's a, that's a mistake.

01:06:15

And I think the perfectionist in me is always going to want things to be perfect.

01:06:21

But Bob's whole description of the chaos is kind of freeing in that it's never going

01:06:26

to be perfect.

01:06:27

It's not going to be all neat buttoned up.

01:06:29

And that's actually where the magic is going to happen.

01:06:31

So, so let me ask, let me clarify something.

01:06:34

You talked about habits.

01:06:36

So you wouldn't make a main note that says habits because the way he describes

01:06:42

main notes and the way you make main notes is essentially it's, um, it's like making

01:06:47

action items, right?

01:06:48

Or, or to do's.

01:06:49

You're better off writing them in a way that's like proactive.

01:06:53

So habits are essential for project management, right?

01:06:57

Like you would write that you wouldn't just write like habits in project management.

01:07:01

Like that would be a bad title.

01:07:02

You would write habits are essential for project management.

01:07:04

Like that would be your, your main note.

01:07:06

But like if you're going to link or if you're going to try to connect all your

01:07:12

habits notes, you're going to make a hub note that's called habits.

01:07:16

And in that one, you can just randomly call it habits.

01:07:19

And then here are all the notes I have on, on habits, but that's not a main note.

01:07:23

That's a hub note.

01:07:23

Yeah.

01:07:24

So you're right.

01:07:26

But I also think that there's a situation where you're creating a hub note and you

01:07:30

don't know that it's a hub note at the time.

01:07:32

Yeah.

01:07:33

Okay.

01:07:33

So like just talking about journaling as an example, um, when I first started journaling

01:07:39

that, that, uh, main note on journaling was probably just a couple of sentences long.

01:07:45

Like those were all my thoughts on journaling, but then I got into, oh, well, gratitude.

01:07:51

That's a whole separate thing.

01:07:53

And Dilly questions.

01:07:55

That's a whole separate thing.

01:07:56

Each one of those is their own note.

01:07:59

And each one of those actually could be a hub note.

01:08:01

So I think that trying to decide ahead of time, is this a hub note?

01:08:07

Is this a main note?

01:08:08

Maybe adds additional complexity.

01:08:12

The thing that should trigger making either of those types of notes with the intention,

01:08:18

I think of figuring out what do I actually think about this is feeling the, the mental

01:08:25

squeeze point, like I, I've collected information on this.

01:08:28

And I don't really know what I think about it.

01:08:32

So I'm going to force myself to codify it through this opinion note, that opinion note could be a

01:08:38

main note.

01:08:38

It could be a hub note, but the thing that is important there is that I am writing down what I think about it.

01:08:45

There's a saying, thoughts to centennial themselves through lips and pencil tips.

01:08:48

I would argue also clicky keyboards.

01:08:50

But how long that note becomes, it's anybody's guess.

01:08:55

It's just, I know I need to clarify these things.

01:08:58

So I'm going to create a new note and I'm just going to start typing and see what comes out.

01:09:02

I, okay.

01:09:03

So then we get to the IDs and you said about you're not interested in using the IDs.

01:09:08

I, my gut reaction is on the same way.

01:09:11

Like I don't like the idea of the IDs at the top.

01:09:15

The value of those, and he makes this point that like the longer the ID, the longer the train of thought or the more

01:09:22

connections that you would have between those.

01:09:24

Now, one of the things I hope and I think will be true is obsidian.

01:09:28

If you're using it for your zetocast and for a digital zetocast, and you'll be able to see that.

01:09:32

Anyhow, like you'll see long trains of thought through the graph view or you'll be able to see a lot

01:09:38

of different connections off of that note in the graph view.

01:09:41

Am I correct in that?

01:09:42

Yes.

01:09:45

Okay.

01:09:45

So what he's after with the zetocast in here, the naming structure for the numeric IDs, I get what he's after.

01:09:57

And I feel like if you were just going to use a collection of plain text files, kind of like Enviel, or Enviel

01:10:06

Trob back in the day, then this is great advice.

01:10:10

If this is the only way that you have to figure out how to tie these things together, but this isn't the only

01:10:18

way that you have to tie things together.

01:10:20

So you've got the bidirectional links that you can create inside the note of the text itself.

01:10:25

So in Obsidian, it's the double brackets.

01:10:27

But you can also use tags.

01:10:30

And with the properties at the note level, I use these a lot.

01:10:33

So you could have note level tags on things.

01:10:38

You could have the location of the notes in the file explorer.

01:10:43

You could have them being manually added to a map of content.

01:10:49

There are all these different ways that you can link these ideas together.

01:10:54

And I have found personally, I teach this in the Practical PKM cohort, that you have to figure out for yourself

01:11:00

what ways you want to use these various methods.

01:11:05

And I've kind of landed on this is the way that I use these things because I want to see them in a certain way.

01:11:11

So for example, I will use tags multiple ways.

01:11:16

I'll use them at the note level.

01:11:18

So I can see, for example, all of my sketch notes, because I've got not just sermon notes in there.

01:11:23

I've also got like notes that I've taken from conferences that I've gone to focus course live, stuff like that.

01:11:29

And I can click that tag and I can see all the notes that have the sketch notes tag.

01:11:33

And I can see all of my sketch notes across all different domains that way.

01:11:37

I also have tags for the individual, like daily questions, journal entries, things like that.

01:11:43

I can use queries then to pull all that stuff together.

01:11:46

I can see all my journal entries with the notes that they came from.

01:11:50

And like you could use tags alone as a way to link things together because you can use them at the note level or on the line level.

01:11:59

But I kind of use them specifically those ways.

01:12:03

And then I'll group things together by folders and I'll group things together by maps of content and I'll group things together by see also links.

01:12:12

And I just kind of if you were to ask me, how do you know when to use which one?

01:12:18

It's just, well, whichever one kind of feels right in that specific scenario.

01:12:23

I will say I think this is one of the mistakes that like Tiago and building a second brain, like that that's really phenomenal stuff that he's put together over many, many years.

01:12:36

But when you think about like the PARRA method, it's very prescriptive.

01:12:41

You have these folders for organizing your information, projects, areas, responsibility, archive, and people will create that structure in whatever app they're using.

01:12:53

And I feel that is a little bit forced.

01:12:57

The general advice I would give people when it comes to where you're going to draw those lines, it's kind of like, have you heard the story about when people are putting in the past at the universities?

01:13:10

Yep.

01:13:11

They just let the students walk and then they pay the paths that show up.

01:13:16

Like that's what you should do with your PKM system.

01:13:19

Your brain is going to naturally go down some paths, create some structure for those paths instead of trying to force your brain down specific predetermined paths.

01:13:28

All right.

01:13:29

Do you want to talk about anarchy?

01:13:30

Let's talk about anarchy.

01:13:32

OK, so this conversation is not enough anarchy.

01:13:36

Yeah.

01:13:37

This is actually one of the chapters where we don't have to go, I guess, into as much detail on this one as we have in the past.

01:13:46

But anarchy is basically saying that like, don't think of it as we're trying to like destroy or disrupt or whatever.

01:13:53

Think of it as chaos.

01:13:55

And then like, how do we create something out of that chaos?

01:13:59

How do we embrace that chaos?

01:14:00

How do we create something out of chaos?

01:14:01

So this ties back into something that he talks about in the introduction as well where the Zettlkassen is a bottom up approach to this.

01:14:08

Instead of a top down approach, it's a bottom up approach.

01:14:11

So the chaos of all of these notes, these individual notes at the bottom level of the system, we're going to follow those connections back up to get our train trains of thought.

01:14:21

And basically, if you allow that to happen, you'll start to see what he calls semiotic chains form.

01:14:30

Right.

01:14:30

These like chains of thinking or these chains of reasoning form back up through.

01:14:36

And you can do it through this distributed network.

01:14:40

So he talks about the distributed network, a system where every idea is both an intersection and a point of departure.

01:14:45

So you can start anywhere and get to a lot of different places, right?

01:14:49

Or you can get to that place through some other place.

01:14:53

We started some other, some other place talks about this idea of the rhizome framework for understanding.

01:14:59

Yeah, I love that.

01:15:01

Yeah, like, so I'll let you unpack that a little bit more.

01:15:04

But like, and then he gets into the, how do you work with the with the chaos and he gets into these hub notes?

01:15:09

Right.

01:15:10

They help point towards various places and you're thinking as gone.

01:15:12

So basically, you can think of them as access points.

01:15:15

So the hub is like the access points to then go off and go into your chain of reasoning.

01:15:21

And then he says structured notes, which basically contain lists of notes pointing towards a train of thought developing.

01:15:28

So it's like, these are ways to hub notes and structured notes are ways to essentially engage with your chaos and try to make something out of it.

01:15:38

And you can start from anywhere and you can develop these as this thinking comes to your mind.

01:15:42

The last one he talks about in this, in this section to try to make sense of the anarchy or make sense of the chaos are these keyword indexes where you have this idea of like, OK, basically, I'm just going to throw out this keyword and I'm going to list all the notes under that keyword.

01:15:56

In my mind, this ties into your tags.

01:15:59

Right.

01:15:59

Like, so I would then tag a note and that's my keyword index and then I can search for the tag and it's going to pop up all of those and city and is really, really good at pulling those for me.

01:16:08

I don't have to manually go and do all that into into one note unless I want to, you know, unless I would want to do that.

01:16:14

So that's kind of the high level.

01:16:15

I don't know what you have.

01:16:16

If you want to talk about rhizomes and other things.

01:16:18

Yeah.

01:16:19

So the rhizome theory is that you enter by any point whatsoever.

01:16:22

None matters more than another and you discover what other points the entrance connects to.

01:16:27

That's really the.

01:16:29

That's what I'm after with my use of obsidian.

01:16:34

But I also think that you don't have to rigidly approach it the same way.

01:16:41

So just defining that rhizome theory.

01:16:43

It's almost like, well, you connect everything and then you enter in at a home note and then you click on something from the home note and then you navigate that way.

01:16:50

It's sort of like a choose your own adventure book at that point and you could use it that way.

01:16:55

That's cool.

01:16:55

But other times I'll go in there and I know exactly what article I want to write and I just opened that note and I start writing.

01:17:00

And then as I start writing, I'm like, Oh, wait, don't I have something about?

01:17:04

Didn't I write something earlier about this?

01:17:06

You know, and I'll I'll find the connections and I'll make them that way as well.

01:17:10

So I think that the structure here is going to evolve and emerge over time.

01:17:17

And that's the beauty of it.

01:17:20

So one of the important distinctions I got from the section at the very beginning, he says,

01:17:24

the anarchy is about leveraging chaos, not creating it.

01:17:26

The chaos is there.

01:17:28

You're not trying to make a mess.

01:17:30

It is going to naturally be a little bit messy.

01:17:33

And what you want is to provide enough structure to gain from that mess.

01:17:41

Something of value.

01:17:43

And that is going to tie to the whole idea of tools for thought, which is really what I think.

01:17:49

PKM is, or at least it should be.

01:17:52

Is these are things that are going to allow us to do more with the information that is

01:17:57

already coming into our world.

01:17:58

Now I teach a couple of different levels of knowledge in the practical PKM cohort.

01:18:04

The first level is the information where you just dump it somewhere and you can

01:18:08

search and find it later when you want to recall it.

01:18:11

The second level is knowledge.

01:18:13

You know where that thing is, but it doesn't really affect you day to day.

01:18:16

And then the third level is the application where you're actually

01:18:19

doing something with that information.

01:18:22

So any of the productivity books that you read, that's what you want.

01:18:25

That's what you want from it.

01:18:26

If you're going to read a book on habits, you want it to help you create better

01:18:30

habits and eliminate bad habits.

01:18:31

There's got to be some sort of tangible takeaway that affects you day to day.

01:18:37

So that's what we're after with this.

01:18:40

But then yeah, the hub notes, which this is where I mentioned in my map file, this

01:18:45

is like the map of content.

01:18:47

The structure notes, which are notes that contain lists of notes in semantic order

01:18:52

pointed towards trains of thought being developed.

01:18:54

The keyword index, which is the prescriptive, prescriptive way to enter the

01:18:58

Zetal custom, but it's not exhaustive.

01:19:00

These are all different tools that you can use.

01:19:02

And this is where Zetal custom starts to fall down for me because it seems like

01:19:07

it's very clear.

01:19:08

This is what you do.

01:19:09

These are the pieces that you need.

01:19:11

And then the alpha numeric IDs.

01:19:14

This is an important part of this because those, well, let me back up a little bit.

01:19:20

Those were actually a necessity for the paper based Zetal custom.

01:19:23

That it makes sense where those came from.

01:19:26

But I don't think that they're necessary maybe with the digital tools that we have

01:19:31

because we have so many other ways that we can connect things.

01:19:35

Now, as I'm thinking about those alpha numeric codes, those are like 2.1 B2, right?

01:19:42

So the thing with these is that they're not supposed to be an outline.

01:19:49

They don't indicate semantic quality of notes, but just by making these connections,

01:19:55

you are kind of sort of making a structure here.

01:19:59

There is a little bit of a hierarchy.

01:20:01

Two means something.

01:20:03

Point one means that it's below that B means that it's below the point one.

01:20:08

Two means that it's below the B, right?

01:20:10

So there is a structure that is emerging through these.

01:20:13

Now, I like the thing that he calls out.

01:20:15

And this is one of the friction points I had was Zetal custom initially,

01:20:18

was that you don't want to have to make the things that are at the same hierarchical level there

01:20:25

in order of priority or importance.

01:20:28

You want to disconnect from that.

01:20:29

So that's where the anarchy piece, the non-hierarchical organization

01:20:32

leads to non-normative ideation.

01:20:34

That's really what we're after.

01:20:36

But then I kind of think when it comes to adding enough structure to your chaos

01:20:42

for you to do something with it, you got to figure that out for yourself.

01:20:46

And kind of the place I'm at is like when it comes to the individual numbers, who really cares.

01:20:51

And maybe I'm getting value out of my notes and ideas already.

01:20:57

So a mission accomplished, but for someone who's coming to this new

01:21:02

and they want to get more out of their notes and ideas, maybe there is a lot of value in doing that.

01:21:06

I don't know.

01:21:07

But for me, as I'm reading it right now, that's kind of where I draw the line.

01:21:10

OK. All right.

01:21:12

Should we talk about writing with your Zetal custom?

01:21:15

Let's do it.

01:21:16

OK, so this is the last part.

01:21:19

And I think this one is going to go more quickly.

01:21:22

This is the one I think where he gets into the specifics of how he writes.

01:21:26

And there's some interesting tidbits in here, but this is probably the least prescriptive part of the whole thing.

01:21:33

So chapter seven is what to write about and how not to do it.

01:21:36

Chapter eight is writing for readers.

01:21:38

And then chapter nine is managing your writing projects.

01:21:41

So the first one here, what to write about and how not to do it.

01:21:46

This is really just looking at the clusters of ideas in your Zetal custom and using those as

01:21:52

inspiration for what to write about.

01:21:55

Reference notes can show you what's been capturing your attention.

01:21:58

Structure notes can provide a foundation for writing main notes can nudge you toward a composition.

01:22:04

I think all of that is true, but then there's one thing that he says here that trumps all of it, I think.

01:22:10

And that is always take advantage of inspiration.

01:22:12

So everything about Zetal custom is great.

01:22:16

But if you were to take all of this away, I think you can still be inspired and still write about things

01:22:22

because when I came to creativity, you know, I've thought and I said that I guess I'm just not

01:22:28

creative and still like an artist was the book that made me realize, oh, creativity is a formula.

01:22:33

When you make something new, you're just connecting dots in ways that haven't been done before.

01:22:36

Well, if I just focus on getting better dots, then probably I'm going to get better output.

01:22:40

That's exactly what happened before I understood any of this stuff.

01:22:43

So if you just improve the quality of your input, you will improve the quality of your output.

01:22:48

Now, everything that he talks about here could actually exponentially increase that, I would would argue.

01:22:54

But for me, what it comes down to is collect high quality dots and then write when you're inspired.

01:23:00

And when you do that enough, you get some traction.

01:23:04

You're inspired more often.

01:23:06

And I see this going both ways, right?

01:23:08

Because I was, as I'm thinking about this, it's.

01:23:10

Yeah, there's this bottom up approach where we look for these long connections and then we say,

01:23:15

well, what is the long connection and how do I turn that into some sort of a writing?

01:23:18

But then there's also, like you said, inspiration.

01:23:21

And I think that's the benefit of it or the beauty of Zetlka's and it can work both ways because

01:23:26

really at the at the raw level, you're taking ideas, you're going to call them dots, right?

01:23:31

And you're connecting those dots.

01:23:34

It doesn't matter how I enter into that web, you know, as long as I get into that web,

01:23:40

something should come out of it.

01:23:43

Now, whether it's good or not, that's a whole other story, but like something should come out of that.

01:23:47

If I've done this well and there's something there, I can connect these dots in a way

01:23:52

that can tell whatever length of story, you know, I would want to, whether it's a.

01:23:57

He talks about posts for social media.

01:24:01

He talks about blogs.

01:24:02

He talks about articles and he talks about longer form different type of books.

01:24:06

And that really resonated with me in terms of, I think, I think this type of a system or this type

01:24:13

of a framework foundation, I don't know what, what word

01:24:17

you want to call it could lead to all of those different types of writing.

01:24:21

Like there's there's definitely validity there in what he's saying.

01:24:25

Yes.

01:24:27

And so this is getting at one other thing that we need to call out here.

01:24:33

So your writing can can manifest a lot of different ways.

01:24:36

And ultimately what you're after though is the quality, not the quantity.

01:24:40

You want both and quantity leads to quality most of the time, but he calls out

01:24:46

something that I really appreciated here.

01:24:48

Nicholas Looman is praised for his productivity, not the quality of his writing.

01:24:51

Yep.

01:24:52

Is this, is this what you wanted to talk about before?

01:24:54

Yeah.

01:24:54

Yeah.

01:24:55

Exactly.

01:24:55

Okay.

01:24:56

So if you follow this whole format, yeah, you have all these connections and maybe that means

01:25:01

that you have a bunch of words that you can spew out whenever you need to.

01:25:05

But the inspiration piece, you know, you'll never write anything that's any good unless you are inspired, I think.

01:25:12

So I want more than just a machine that's going to crank out words.

01:25:17

I mean, chat GPT can do that.

01:25:20

Yep.

01:25:20

That's not what I'm after.

01:25:23

And he calls out somebody specifically.

01:25:25

I'm not sure if we should mention it.

01:25:26

There's another book.

01:25:27

Do you remember?

01:25:29

No, I don't remember now.

01:25:30

Okay.

01:25:31

Well, I'll mention it Bob wrote it.

01:25:34

So it's the anti net Zettlecaste and by Scott Schweiger.

01:25:38

I have that book.

01:25:40

It's a giant book.

01:25:41

It's like six or 700 pages if I'm thinking right about it.

01:25:46

And he mentions that that system.

01:25:50

You can use that to write lots of words, but there's Bob's words more to writing than just spewing words.

01:25:58

So I really appreciate this whole section.

01:26:02

It's kind of like, okay, so you have this settle custom, which is going to prime the pump, but then that's really when the work begins because writing is hard.

01:26:10

And you have to not just have a bunch of words that you can say.

01:26:13

You have to distill it down into a way that's communicating these ideas well.

01:26:16

Now that gets into the whole chapter eight writing for readers where something you hit on this writing could take multiple formats.

01:26:25

And this also reminded me of kind of like ship 30 for 30 because I went through that that cohort and you write to kind of refine your ideas.

01:26:37

And what they talk about in that, because it's all really about writing and publishing every day for 30 days, using the social platforms as a way to validate ideas.

01:26:47

That's something that's really interesting to me.

01:26:49

And I know that this is a missing piece for me currently.

01:26:51

I write the newsletter every week.

01:26:53

That's roughly 1500, 2000 words by the time I'm done.

01:26:56

And I really put a lot of work into that and I hope that it's awesome.

01:27:00

But then like I have trouble sharing the same sort of stuff on social media.

01:27:07

And kind of the ideal process, I think for me is when I get excited about something, I'll start by running it through the process in Obsidian or the Zettlecast in light, whatever you want to call my thing.

01:27:22

And as I start to clarify my thoughts on it, then I'm kind of writing the draft version of that publicly.

01:27:29

And then I'm collecting feedback from people there.

01:27:32

And then that ultimately translates into, well, this model doesn't really doesn't really work for people.

01:27:37

They didn't really like the framing of this argument.

01:27:40

These ideas were the labels for these are maybe a little bit clumsy.

01:27:45

But I'll believe that that can translate into better versions in the future.

01:27:50

So I want to add that to my creative process.

01:27:55

I don't know when I'm going to be able to do that probably after the lifeage

01:27:57

queue launch, if I'm honest.

01:27:59

But I think that's an important piece that's been missing for me is the social media is the co-creative environment.

01:28:07

And then the long form writing that can be either top down or bottom up.

01:28:12

But that's kind of the distillation of some tried and tested ideas that will appear other places.

01:28:23

And I think adding that that testing stage is going to ultimately increase the quality of the end product as well.

01:28:33

Yeah, I liked his section about creating in community, like writing is created in community and and how he ties back into taking the feedback that others give you and then reincorporating it back into your writing.

01:28:48

Now, the thing that I the pessimist in me, right, like, or the thing that, you know, I come in and I go, well, this works great if you have an engaged community.

01:28:58

But if you don't have anybody, right, if you don't have an engaged community, like the first thing you got to do is you got to just start trying to get a community.

01:29:04

So, you know, for somebody like me, I mean, I don't have a significant community that cares about the thoughts I put out on the on the internet.

01:29:12

So like step one, start writing to then get people into the community to then hopefully get them to engage with the work that you're doing in the community.

01:29:22

And then you can then do the cycle that he do your piece.

01:29:25

So it's not that he like, I don't think he did it intentionally where it was just one of those like blind spots that you don't have anymore because you've you've got this community developed.

01:29:35

And it's like, oh, by the way, like, if you don't have a community, just start writing a bunch of stuff and try to get a community.

01:29:41

And then you can take those comments and feed them back into writing.

01:29:44

But I agree that, you know, writing is better or that meaning is created in community.

01:29:51

I think that's a really, really strong premise. The more feedback we can get and the more people we can get to speak into the ideas and the thoughts we have, I think the ideas just get better and better.

01:30:01

Yeah, agreed.

01:30:02

Now, the rest of this is kind of Bob's system for writing.

01:30:06

And I think there's some basic task management advice here, which maybe is helpful for people who want to write.

01:30:13

One of the things that he talks about is two different kinds of writings writing with a deadline, writing without a deadline.

01:30:18

Seems simple, everybody understands the difference here, but I can tell you they're very different things and you won't know that until you are writing for a deadline.

01:30:25

Yeah.

01:30:26

I would prefer not to have a deadline whenever possible, but I use them tactically when necessary, just so I can keep up with the cadence.

01:30:35

Like the newsletter has a deadline of every Monday morning.

01:30:37

And it's hard at first, but then once you get into a rhythm that deadline becomes less scary.

01:30:48

A couple other nuggets from here.

01:30:51

He talks about using due dates, but not due dates.

01:30:55

So due is in like, I'm going to do the thing.

01:30:57

Do not.

01:30:58

This is the date that it is due.

01:31:00

Has you heard of this before?

01:31:01

Yeah.

01:31:03

I mean, I don't think I've called it do and do because it's easy to confuse.

01:31:09

It makes sense when you're writing and people can actually see the words.

01:31:12

But if you're just describing it, like we are on a podcast, like that is a little confusing.

01:31:16

So I would say start dates or scheduled dates.

01:31:20

Yeah.

01:31:20

Instead, which are different, but all of them are supported with the obsidian task plugin, by the way.

01:31:25

So all of my task management stuff is built on this.

01:31:28

I use all three of these kinds of dates.

01:31:30

Do is when it actually needs to be done.

01:31:33

Start is this is the date that it is able to start working on it.

01:31:38

It's not available before this.

01:31:40

And then scheduled is this is the day that I intend to do this thing.

01:31:44

I don't typically use the scheduled dates.

01:31:47

The way I schedule things is I have the list of things that I'm going to work on.

01:31:50

And then I look at my list and then I translate that to the time block plan, right?

01:31:54

That on my no card, put it on my desk.

01:31:56

Adding those to the system is a little bit redundant to me.

01:32:01

But he also reiterates that there is no one system here.

01:32:05

So you got to figure out where to draw all these lines.

01:32:07

I think in terms of writing, the general advice here of using the due dates.

01:32:13

Selectively, not overusing them.

01:32:16

That that's important.

01:32:17

And then put create enough structure to help you move forward, but not so much.

01:32:24

That it's a a lot to maintain.

01:32:28

That's really what you're you're after.

01:32:30

And then he talks about the creative log, which is really just kind of

01:32:33

interstitial journaling about what he's what he's was able to do throughout the day.

01:32:39

So these are a record of what he did, thoughts about what needs attention,

01:32:44

suggestions for what to work on next.

01:32:45

You know, that's a cool idea with the creative log, but not going to do anything

01:32:51

with that myself.

01:32:52

Yeah, I'm good on this section.

01:32:55

I thought it was valuable tips that that he gives and different things to think about,

01:32:59

but nothing really major here for me.

01:33:01

All right, let's go to the last section then.

01:33:06

The last section is the afterward, the triangle of creativity.

01:33:08

And we're not going to talk long about this, I promise.

01:33:11

I like this idea though.

01:33:14

He's got again, these loops where you are reading, you're thinking, and then you're

01:33:18

writing and all of those influence one another.

01:33:21

So he's got this triangle and writing is bigger than just writing.

01:33:25

I 100% agree.

01:33:26

The triangle of creativity is not always a friendly place.

01:33:30

Be pulling the internet can be jerks.

01:33:31

Also agree.

01:33:32

My version of this is the creativity flywheel, but I think we're kind of

01:33:36

speaking the same thing.

01:33:37

You have to be consuming things and then you have to go through a process where

01:33:41

you make sense of those things.

01:33:42

And then the last part of that is the actual writing, the distillation of your

01:33:47

thoughts on the thing where you you're right.

01:33:50

I really don't think there's a way around that.

01:33:53

I don't think you can speak it into existence.

01:33:57

I think there's something about the actual form of writing.

01:34:00

Yes, you can write by dictation.

01:34:02

Maybe that works.

01:34:03

But for me, there's just something about seeing the words appear on the page.

01:34:07

You know, I don't think most people write dictation wise while they're

01:34:11

looking at the words appearing on the page.

01:34:13

They just kind of see if Siri picked it up when they were done and I would

01:34:17

encourage people not to do it that way.

01:34:19

I know David Sparks does it that way, but he's been doing it for many years.

01:34:23

If you're just getting started, you need to see the progress that you are

01:34:27

making writing provides that.

01:34:29

So and then I think regardless of what what field you're in, what market, whatever,

01:34:38

there is benefit to a writing habit.

01:34:41

I think everyone should be trying to develop this.

01:34:45

Yeah, I couldn't agree with the triangle more in terms of they feed each other,

01:34:50

they support each other.

01:34:52

It just makes everything each one of those increases your ability to do do the other one.

01:34:58

I think the missed opportunity here.

01:35:00

So if I was given Bob feedback on figure 60, I would say like community needs to play

01:35:07

into that, right?

01:35:08

So he talks about, you know, a larger, much more communal system of creativity,

01:35:12

where emphasis on interacting with other writers, readers and global

01:35:15

canon of creative works.

01:35:16

Like I think that in that figure, if he would acknowledge community existing in all

01:35:21

of those places, right?

01:35:22

So maybe it was the, you know, the background of it, you know, like all of these three

01:35:27

things in the triangle exist in a community and they're better if you do them in community.

01:35:31

I think I think that would enhance that that figure in that idea.

01:35:37

But the premise of it, the triangle I completely agree with.

01:35:41

I liked the, I don't know if we were going to get there or not, but I liked in the

01:35:45

afterword or it was maybe after the afterword.

01:35:47

He has like the lightning round of like, this is what people ask me about all the

01:35:52

time.

01:35:53

And here are my quick answers.

01:35:54

Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and he goes down through those, you know, it's like, the

01:35:57

one I wrote down was, should I bring my old notes into my Zetal castan?

01:36:00

Nope, I wouldn't.

01:36:02

You know, like, just start fresh, like just start new.

01:36:05

Um, and then the last thing I'll have, and this is more of a general comment that

01:36:09

really helped me think through this.

01:36:11

So like, and it actually worked really well that I got your life HQ beta.

01:36:17

And I got this book, and I read this book at the same time because like my natural

01:36:23

ink inclination would have been to smush these two things together in the same obsidian

01:36:27

vault.

01:36:28

And one of the things he says in this book is like, keep tasks, scheduling, planning,

01:36:35

keep that separate from idea generation, idea connection, Zetal castan development.

01:36:42

So like I'm playing around right now with two different vaults.

01:36:46

There's the Zetal castan vault that's just for this work.

01:36:49

And then there's the life HQ beta vault.

01:36:52

That's just for that kind of work.

01:36:54

And I can tell you that at, you know, I don't know, a week or so, maybe a little

01:36:59

bit less than a week or so, this, this makes sense.

01:37:01

This is much, it's a much better way to do it than to try to smush these two

01:37:05

things together and still keep them organized in the best way that you can keep

01:37:09

them organized or not bleeding over into into each other or kind of, whereas

01:37:14

before, I would have just tried to do all of this in the same notion or obsidian or

01:37:21

whatever, you know, note taking database.

01:37:24

And it just, it always got too, too cumbersome.

01:37:28

It just got too like, I just don't know where anything is.

01:37:31

I'm so confused about, about where I put things.

01:37:33

So separate things.

01:37:35

That's my, so I do what works for you, but I generally disagree with like the

01:37:42

multiple vaults thing.

01:37:43

And I'll tell you why.

01:37:45

When you are clear on how you're using a tool, the fact that you've got all

01:37:50

of these workflows and all of these different things inside there doesn't

01:37:54

deter you anymore.

01:37:55

It's when you try to just copy paste what other people are doing that you get

01:38:02

confused with my main obsidian vault, where I keep all of my tasks and I manage

01:38:07

all of my writing projects.

01:38:09

And I also have all the Bible study stuff and the sermon notes and the book

01:38:14

notes and everything else.

01:38:15

By having that all together, I'm able to connect things across multiple domains.

01:38:20

And that is really important to me.

01:38:22

I get a lot of insight with how things connect across different domains.

01:38:26

I think we talked about that in the last, last episode, maybe, or maybe it was

01:38:30

the one before that on Hidden Genius, but Leonardo making the connection when

01:38:35

he was thrown stones into the water about how sound waves work.

01:38:38

Right.

01:38:39

That's the kind of thing that you can get when you keep things together.

01:38:42

And I think if you use multiple vaults, multiple tools, like that just has more

01:38:47

complexity and how you're actually going to interact with those, because

01:38:50

the switch vaults, every time you open up obsidian on your iOS device, you're

01:38:53

not going to use obsidian very long.

01:38:54

I'll tell you that.

01:38:55

I'm curious at how that's going to work when I move to an iOS device.

01:38:59

Yeah.

01:39:00

Yeah.

01:39:00

So it's picking the right tool for the right job, but being clear on what you're

01:39:05

actually using those tools for, which is really the whole PKM stack, which is

01:39:09

part of the life HQ.

01:39:10

So once you figure out, I'm going to use obsidian for this piece, but I'm actually

01:39:13

going to use to do this for my tasks because I need location based reminders

01:39:17

and obsidian doesn't give me that.

01:39:18

You know, so you change that part.

01:39:20

That's, that's cool.

01:39:22

But I think there is value of having all these things being able to be connected as

01:39:27

well.

01:39:27

So I don't agree, but I don't disagree.

01:39:30

Like I understand the general idea.

01:39:32

It's okay to have different walled gardens for the different things.

01:39:38

Um, but I think I would generally advise against, well, just spin up another vault

01:39:44

or use another app because before long now you've created a whole bunch of

01:39:49

different places when really you only need like four or five buckets.

01:39:52

Yeah.

01:39:53

You need a task manager.

01:39:54

You need a note taking app.

01:39:55

You know, you can identify the tools that you need for your workflow and then

01:39:59

which tools your apps are going to hire for those, those jobs.

01:40:02

But once you're clear on that, you know, it really doesn't matter how many ways

01:40:05

you're going to use obsidian versus whatever.

01:40:09

And maybe obsidian isn't the right thing for you at all.

01:40:12

Like that, that is a very distinct possibility.

01:40:16

But you kind of kind of have to figure out where you're going to put up the boundaries.

01:40:20

Cause the boundaries are intended to keep the undesirable things out and keep

01:40:24

the desirable things in.

01:40:25

If you have no idea what's desirable or undesirable, you have no idea where to

01:40:29

draw those boundaries.

01:40:29

And I think that's, I think that's where I'm learning right now, you know, what I

01:40:33

want in, in the, in the space.

01:40:36

And the good thing about obsidian is it's pretty easy to transfer those files into

01:40:40

that, into that new vault and have them get piped right in.

01:40:43

So.

01:40:44

Yep.

01:40:44

True.

01:40:45

All right.

01:40:47

Let's talk about action items.

01:40:49

So it's my book.

01:40:53

I'll go first just grabbing the time code here.

01:40:56

I've got two of them.

01:41:00

One was the ask, what other notes should I connect to this when I am creating a note

01:41:05

inside of obsidian?

01:41:05

And I don't know that I'm going to have a whole lot of value derived from that by

01:41:10

the time we record next, but I think long term, this is really going to pay off.

01:41:14

And then I also want to incorporate into my writing rhythms, the writing for social

01:41:20

media.

01:41:20

I have the tools in place to do this.

01:41:23

It's just one additional thing that I haven't made the time to do.

01:41:26

I'm already writing for the newsletter.

01:41:29

I could very easily break this into regular posts using the hype theory is the app I

01:41:34

use for scheduling.

01:41:35

But that I can post to threads.

01:41:37

I can post to X or Twitter.

01:41:39

I can post to LinkedIn.

01:41:40

I can post to medium.

01:41:42

Like I can post it to all these different places.

01:41:44

Why am I not doing this?

01:41:45

Yes.

01:41:46

Why are you not doing that?

01:41:48

Yeah.

01:41:48

And that's a little bit different than what I had mentioned.

01:41:51

So I like I'm going to create these threats in the newsletter, but I also want to, in

01:41:55

addition to once I start scheduling that, the next layer on top of that, I think, is

01:41:59

like the shorter stuff where what do you think about this and the polls about things.

01:42:03

So that's all part of that as well.

01:42:07

Yeah, I think so mine, you know, I stated it earlier, but capture and process fleeting

01:42:14

notes.

01:42:14

I think a more general one that I'll hit before before I do that is basically just

01:42:20

you know, keep playing around with Zellkasten.

01:42:24

So I don't know what that means.

01:42:27

It could mean, you know, I just I just take my random thoughts and do the fleeting notes

01:42:33

and do the, you know, process those or it could mean I try to make more main notes.

01:42:38

I want to just keep playing around with this Zellkasten and see if I like it.

01:42:43

I can tell you right now that I don't like the IDs.

01:42:47

I don't like the numbering of the of the card.

01:42:49

So it's like, will that stick around or will that go away?

01:42:53

It's it's tough because it's like I'm playing around with obsidian life HQ.

01:43:00

Zellkasten, it's like it's good because I'm learning a lot and I'm getting

01:43:05

I'm getting exposed to a lot of stuff, but my brain's like, what's going to stay?

01:43:09

Like, what's going to stay and what's going to go and, you know, how long how long

01:43:12

will these things last?

01:43:13

So I think that's where where I'm at right now in the action items.

01:43:17

All right.

01:43:19

So style and rating.

01:43:23

Man, this, uh, this is the longest conversation we maybe have ever had on

01:43:30

bookworm about one of the shortest books that we've ever read.

01:43:34

Um, if it is not clear already, I really enjoyed this book.

01:43:42

And I don't typically like, um, covering books for bookworm where kind of the

01:43:51

spoiler alert has already been shared, like, Hey, Mike likes this book.

01:43:55

So, um, I was hesitant to pick this one really happy with how the episode turned

01:44:01

out and the conversation that we had.

01:44:02

I think this is hopefully going to help a bunch of people who are curious about

01:44:06

personal knowledge management and our Zellkasten curious.

01:44:10

Um, how the heck do I rate this book?

01:44:13

Well, I think I'm going to give it five stars.

01:44:17

And I say that with a little bit of surprise in my voice, because when you

01:44:22

compare this to the other five star books that I have picked, like the one,

01:44:25

the gold standard that that stands out to me is, is man search for meaning by

01:44:29

Victor Frankle.

01:44:30

You can't really compare a system for writing to man search for meeting.

01:44:34

Agreed.

01:44:35

Yes, I agree.

01:44:36

But if you are interested in the topic of personal knowledge management, you feel

01:44:44

like you're not getting as much as you want out of the notes and ideas that

01:44:48

you have been collecting and you feel like the systems that you have established

01:44:52

are cumbersome.

01:44:53

You're not getting the creative payoff that you've been after.

01:44:56

This is the book.

01:44:58

Forget about how to take smart notes.

01:45:00

Forget about everything else that's out there.

01:45:04

Read this one first.

01:45:06

And in terms of the style, I mentioned this at the beginning, but one of the

01:45:10

things that will make this click for just about everybody are all of the

01:45:15

examples that Bob uses.

01:45:17

He uses examples of notes that he's taken from his own Zetalkosten and

01:45:23

shows how these things get tied and linked together.

01:45:26

So the way that he does that, it covers a whole, like a broad range of things,

01:45:34

which I think is actually a benefit to the whole topic and the discussion about

01:45:40

the Zetalkosten.

01:45:41

I think everybody should read this.

01:45:44

First of all, I think everybody is creative.

01:45:46

And if you can identify with that, then you absolutely should pick this up,

01:45:52

especially if you are a writer or you recognize how writing can add value to

01:45:58

your life, both either personally or professionally.

01:46:01

This is a great book that will help you out a lot.

01:46:05

And I feel like the payoff that you would get for going through a short book

01:46:10

like this is going to be phenomenal.

01:46:13

Like in terms of the return on your reading investment, hard to think of a

01:46:20

book that would provide more value than this one for someone who recognizes

01:46:26

that they maybe want to do their best creative work, but are not doing it

01:46:31

currently.

01:46:33

All right, so Mike, I'm going to need your help on what my final reading will be on

01:46:37

this. So you'll understand as I unpack it.

01:46:40

What you said at the very end is the key for me.

01:46:43

If you're a writer and I don't care what kind of writer you are, right,

01:46:47

whether it's social media, very short form writing, blogs, magazines, books,

01:46:55

whatever form of writing you do, even if you write scripts for like YouTube,

01:46:59

right? Like, so whatever kind of writer you are, if you are a writer,

01:47:03

this is easily a five star book for me, right? Like not even a question.

01:47:06

It's a five star book. I think you're better off for reading it.

01:47:10

Whether or not you use Zettelkasten or you try to do any of this stuff,

01:47:14

I think you're better off for just thinking through what he describes in the

01:47:18

book and the system and the process.

01:47:20

And I think you'll leave with a few nuggets, one or two nuggets for a very

01:47:25

short time investment that will make you a better writer long term and in the

01:47:30

future. So if you're a writer, it's a five star.

01:47:34

If you're not a writer, I don't know, right?

01:47:38

Like, I don't think I would read it five stars.

01:47:41

Like, so somebody's going to come to me and they're like,

01:47:43

should I read a system for writing by Bob Dotto?

01:47:46

And I say, are you a writer?

01:47:47

And they come to me and they're like, well, I don't really care.

01:47:49

No, like, I don't really care to really ever write all that much.

01:47:53

I'm probably not going to recommend that they read it.

01:47:57

I'm, it's, it's going to be like, it's a good book.

01:47:59

Like I, I really liked it as somebody who has to think and write and create

01:48:03

content and do a lot of this stuff a lot for my, for my day job and just,

01:48:08

I get enjoyment out of it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to them.

01:48:12

So therefore I wouldn't want to tell them that's a five star book for them.

01:48:16

So I'm like, what do I do?

01:48:18

Right? Like, how do I, how do I write this book?

01:48:20

Because it's easily five stars for writing minded folks.

01:48:26

And it's probably like, I don't know a three or a two for people who just

01:48:33

don't care about writing, like, um, or, or they don't care about

01:48:37

zenocastin.

01:48:38

So it's like, I don't know.

01:48:39

I wish there was a way that I could be like caveat writers, five,

01:48:45

everyone else two and a half, like it's just an okay, you know, like, um,

01:48:50

split the difference, I guess.

01:48:52

I, I don't really know.

01:48:53

I mean, the one thing I, one thing I would say is that if you are listening

01:48:57

to this podcast, you probably care about the type of information that you are

01:49:01

already consuming.

01:49:02

Maybe you are not creating something with that information yet.

01:49:06

And for everybody listening to this, I would say you should be.

01:49:11

That's a general statement, but I believe it's a hundred percent true,

01:49:15

that creating something is an important part of sense making.

01:49:22

And, um, doesn't have to be a blog, doesn't have to be a podcast,

01:49:25

doesn't have to be a YouTube video, but I think writing will improve your life.

01:49:29

And so that is general, but I, I understand your, your predicament here.

01:49:34

That helped me.

01:49:36

If I think about the audience for the show and the people who are going to

01:49:40

listen to bookworm and the people who are going to stick with us through two

01:49:45

plus hours of, of, you know, audio on this book, it's a five star book, put a

01:49:50

five, like it's a five star book.

01:49:51

We're, we're writing it a five.

01:49:52

All right.

01:49:53

So we got a golden book.

01:49:54

We got a golden book.

01:49:56

Whoo.

01:49:57

All right.

01:49:58

Let's put a system for writing on the shelf.

01:50:00

What's next, Corey?

01:50:01

All right.

01:50:02

So my book is next.

01:50:03

It is a hundred and one essays that will change the way you think by

01:50:07

Brianna and Mike say it because you've done one of her books before.

01:50:10

Weced.

01:50:11

Uh, I forgot to look it up.

01:50:13

I forgot to look it up too.

01:50:15

So I was hoping you were going to save me.

01:50:16

I'm going to say it's weced because it's, it's spelled different than West.

01:50:20

Um, but she is the author of the mountain of you, um, the pivot year.

01:50:25

She's got quite a few different books.

01:50:27

This one was from 2018 as when it came out.

01:50:30

And, um, I just think it's going to be an interesting and challenging book.

01:50:35

If you're going to read it with us, it's a longer book.

01:50:37

Um, so it's one of the longer ones we've done.

01:50:39

It's 448 pages.

01:50:41

Um, so kind of gear up for, for that one, but I think we're going to have a good

01:50:45

conversation.

01:50:46

One of the challenges I'm going to have is to figure out how to break it down.

01:50:49

Cause we are definitely not going to talk about 101 of her, of her essays.

01:50:54

And we got to figure out how, how we're going to do that, which Mike, I'll,

01:50:57

I'll give you a guide prior to, uh, sitting down to record that show.

01:51:00

That what you, what's your, what's the book after 101 essays?

01:51:04

Oh, I realized as we were recording that I forgot to put one down here.

01:51:09

So I'm going to pick one, which is a little bit older, but I have kind of always

01:51:13

wanted to, uh, to read and then discuss for bookworm.

01:51:17

And that is Story Worthy by Matthew Dix.

01:51:21

Okay.

01:51:22

Story Worthy is, uh, one of the books that Ali Abdahl raved about several years ago.

01:51:31

And, um, when Ali Abdahl raves about a book, that's usually when it blows up.

01:51:36

Like he did that with the pathless path by Paul Miller as well.

01:51:40

Uh, I have read a different Matthew Dix book and, uh, the whole idea of storytelling

01:51:46

is kind of his thing.

01:51:48

Uh, but this is kind of, this is the one that gets held up as his definitive work.

01:51:54

And this is the one that I have not read.

01:51:56

So Story Worthy by Matthew Dix.

01:52:00

Sounds good.

01:52:02

Um, for the, uh, pro show today, uh, we talked about our,

01:52:10

oh my goodness, why am I blanking on it?

01:52:11

Our creative work, our early creative works that we did.

01:52:13

Um, and how we felt that we were ashamed of.

01:52:16

Yeah.

01:52:17

How we felt about those and what those experiences were like.

01:52:20

So if you're interested in that, um, you can check out, um, the, the pro feed.

01:52:25

You can go to, um, patreon.com/bookwormfm.

01:52:29

Uh, if you end up signing up, uh, highly recommend you sign up through the website,

01:52:33

uh, that way you don't get tacked on with a additional fee.

01:52:36

But, uh, so, but the benefits are, uh, the pro show, so you get extra content,

01:52:41

the bonus content there.

01:52:42

Um, you get a wallpaper, you can get an ad free.

01:52:47

It's the ad free feed when we, when we sell an ad on the show.

01:52:50

Um, and then, um, we send out the bootleg version of the show or the show

01:52:55

that's, um, directly from, uh, zoom, um, and you get that, uh, very, very early.

01:53:00

Right.

01:53:00

So you get it the day, uh, usually the day after we record.

01:53:03

Um, so if you're interested in supporting the show, we'd really appreciate that.

01:53:07

It helps with, uh, just some of the fees that it takes to, uh, to keep the podcast up and going.

01:53:12

So thanks for those who are interested in that.

01:53:13

Yes.

01:53:15

And if you are reading along with us, pick up 101 essays that will change the way you

01:53:20

think by Brianna West, and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.