Category: PKM & Productivity

  • Replicating Roam’s /tomorrow command in Obsidian

    Roam Research‘s fabulous note taking app (Roam) was my daily PKM driver for a few years. Roam introduces the concept of daily notes for journaling but the real power is the way that it surfaces linked mentions. These are game changers for allowing the information captured within your system to bubble to the surface. I…

  • The Importance of Reminders in my Trusted System

    I have a sieve for a brain. I can forget things easily. Really easily. I blame this on my A.D.D, my general anxiety and some weapons grade hedonism in my early twenties. There is so much stuff whizzing around inside my head at all times; it is an utter mess in there. Recall is a…

  • Life Planning & Journaling with OneNote

    I recently spoke at the Learn OneNote conference 2016. It was a virtual conference, with all the talks being recorded in advance of the day and then released over the space of a few days to match the schedule. This talk describes my productivity system in detail, a system that has evolved over the 10 years…

  • OneNote Workflow Examples

    To give you some ideas of how you might use OneNote I provide a detailed run-through of my personal workflows. This system has evolved over the past 10 years of me using OneNote nearly every day. It also touches on my morning routine and how I use week planning.

  • Music For Concentration When Working

    One of the unexpected benefits of this 30 day challenge has been getting to read other people’s work. Whether that has been to to proof-read, give ideas on direction or simply to provide moral support, there have been numerous daily posts to go through. One of the recurring subjects has been workflows. The things we do…

  • My Evening Routine

    I have a morning routine that I’ve worked on these past 18 months. It can look a bit extreme, but it’s just an hour and a half that I use to prepare myself for the day ahead. I now rely on that time and feel disorganised if it doesn’t happen (though I can’t recall the…

  • The Personal Statement

    What is your memory like? Do you have total recall? Or are you more like Dory from Finding Nemo? Like most people you’re going to be somewhere in the middle. You remember a lot, but some things slip. You probably write lists of things to get done, you’ll have a few goals or dreams noted down…

  • Essential Software

    The problem with setting yourself a 30 day writing challenge is that you have to actually write something every day. Go figure. The first few days are easy enough but after that the runway starts getting quite short! So, this is officially my first filler topic that I had in my back pocket just in case I…

  • My Morning Routine

    2024 edit: my morning routine looks nothing like this any more. I do still try to meditate and journal every day, though my workflow is very minimal and relaxed these days. There are lots of articles telling you why you might want to consider having a good morning routine. They usually include words like ‘success’ or…

  • Take Control of Your Time by Putting a Value on It

    How much do you value your time? Let’s guess: you value it a lot, right? OK, but can you put a number on it? A monetary value? We’re not talking about your daily rate if you’re doing some consulting. Instead, when you’re planning your day or week, are you able to associate a value to every discretionary task…

  • Manage Your Week with Timeboxing

    As we all know there is only so much time in one day. We can use various productivity methodologies to define & track what we need to get done in any given day but the fact remains there is a finite time available to get all that stuff done. One ‘trick’ we can use to cram more…