PLAIN TEXT, PAPER-LESS Productivity Digest
PTPL #17 : Why You Need an Inbox in Obsidian, plus How Doing Nothing Makes You More Productive
Also: the latest development in my weekly/daily note saga, and why you should throw out your old journals
Welcome to the 17th in a series of posts documenting my plain text, paper-less, Obsidian-flavoured journey. Each post explores productivity through a future-proof, plain text mindset, with a soft spot for the paper that counts.
Past Episodes live in my PTPL List.
Today I’ll be talking about —
- The productivity benefits of doing nothing
- The case for throwing out your old journals
- Keeping an inbox in Obsidian
- Taking notes on YouTube with auto time stamps
- The continuing evolution of my weekly and daily notes
Productivity Inspiration
In “The Capacity to Do Nothing”, dargoyaki talks about the dangers of constantly trying to be productive, and of seeking to never be bored.
One of my favourite activities to do in recent memory is this. To sit in an area that has very little noise at night, and do nothing. An area with a complete lack of stimuli. No one around me. No music, no TikTok, no Instagram. No bright lights, nothing flashy. Just sitting and doing absolutely nothing. Well, maybe some subtle noise from waves crashing onto the coast. — dargoyaki
Take this as your reminder to regularly channel some Zen, and increase your productivity by deliberately not trying to be productive. Note that “not trying to be productive” is not the same as “trying not to be productive”. I’m not recommending the second one.
It’s better to make recovery time a habit before you feel tired, instead of running out of steam part way through something important. Sometimes sharpening the saw simply means a spell of being still and doing nothing.
Productivity Tips
Just chuck ’em out
What to do with filled notebooks and journals has been a recurring theme in my writing, so I was interested to read George “Ace” Acevedo’s suggestion that tossing them is better than revisiting old feelings and events. What do you think?
They’re a touchstone to who you were and how you became who you are. But by letting them go, you’re changing none of that. You will still be you. Giving them up will free you to remember only the things you want, with the hazy fuzziness we all have of our pasts. —George “Ace” Acevedo
Read what I’ve written on this topic here, and here.
You’re on hold
It’s taken me an embarrassing number of years to learn how to put an iPhone call on hold. Guess I’m not popular enough to have had the need (thank my lucky stars for that)!
Time saving file and folder utility
Alexander Birman recently wrote about Double Commander, a utility that saves him a lot of time when working with files and folders. It’s so far above my geek-paygrade that I have no idea how to even install it, but it might be useful for you if you’re savvy in these things.
Adventures in Obsidian
Do you have an inbox?
This tweet from Martine Ellis presents a good case for having an inbox in your Obsidian vault (or note-taking app of choice).
Martine has Readwise send her book notes to an inbox to remind her to actually do something with them, instead of just capturing and forgetting.
I deliberately added some friction to my process. Now, I can see when I have highlights and annotations that need action. —Martine Ellis
An inbox works best, in my opinion, when you’re someone who’s willing to spend time in it daily, because you don’t like it cluttered. I tend to use Drafts as my inbox, because I don’t like seeing the little red dot on the icon. I tend to take care of things in there fairly quickly just to make the red dot go away.
While I’ve yet to formally put an inbox into Obsidian, I can see the value of it for Readwise highlights. My Readwise folder is full of other people’s thoughts rather than my own; perhaps an inbox can help to change that.
Notes from YouTube with easy time stamps
Two utilities that let you take notes from YouTube videos with automatic time stamps, ready for Obsidian: NattyNote (that’s all it does), and the fuller-featured Fleeting Notes.
Fleeting Notes has an extension that syncs easily with Obsidian. The only thing I don’t like about it (the extension) is the notification that insists on showing itself every 30 minutes when auto sync is turned on. It annoyed me so much, I switched to manual sync.
Evolution of my Weekly and Daily Notes
I’m refining the way I use weekly and daily notes.
The weekly log is still my first port of call, showing a nice overview of the week ahead. Notes related to specific days are currently entered into daily notes or directly onto the weekly page, as this clever-but-simple transclusion set up shows both sets on each page.
I.e. daily notes show up on the weekly page, and weekly notes (in the daily section) show up on the daily note.
I’m considering confining day specific notes to the daily page, only using the weekly page for seeing the week at a glance, and for general notes made during that week that aren’t associated with any particular day. The latter will be appended to the bottom section, under the daily header.
My favourite way of adding to both weekly and daily notes pages is still using this method with the Drafts app.
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