Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: Information Is a Commodity. Transformation Is the New Product. I just got back from the New Media Summit, and I came home with a lot to process (and a lot of sketchnotes 😉). Some of my sketchnotes from the New Media Summit. I went to learn about the creator economy, but I realized that the world of personal knowledge management (PKM) is dealing with a lot of the same issues: AI is commoditizing...
7 days ago • 6 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: The AI Revolution Requires a Different Set of Skills. Last week, I fell down a vibe coding rabbit hole. It all started with a conversation between my wife and someone else at church about planning our pastor's Birthday party. They wanted some sort of Jeopardy-style game setup based on some of our pastor's favorite movies. So in about 30 minutes, I vibe-coded a Jeopardy Board app that we could project on...
14 days ago • 4 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: Burnout is a PKM Problem I just finished reading a book about burnout, and it opened my eyes to a couple of things: Many of us are much closer to burnout than we’d care to admit An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure Today I want to consider burnout from a PKM perspective, and share what I’ve learned from getting way too close to it. The Burnout Spectrum According to researcher Christina...
21 days ago • 4 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: AI Will Change PKM, But Not Destroy It. Last week, I received a newsletter from my friend Nick Milo with a provocative title: Will AI be the death of PKM? Short answer: Not even close. But it will expose who’s been doing it wrong all along. A picture of a brain with lots of connected wires. AI is Great at "Donkey Work" I first experimented with AI-powered plugins for Obsidian a full 2 years ago. Back...
28 days ago • 3 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: Use Your Gut to Tame Your Task List Recently, I was listening to an episode of Mac Power Users where my friend Chris Bailey (who had stepped in for a sick Stephen) said something that really stuck with me: Intuition is underrated in the pursuit of greater productivity. At first glance, that may seem contradictory. After all, many productivity systems are engineered so you don’t have to worry about what...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: What I Love About the Supernote Nomad I finally picked up a Supernote Nomad. I say "finally" because I’ve had my eye on this e-ink note-taking device ever since Blake let me use his when I met up with him at a coffee shop in Boise last summer. I’ve owned several e-ink devices over the years, and I’ve been periodically checking the Trials & Discounts section of the website to see if new stock came in....
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Prefer to read this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: Reflections on a Bestselling Author’s Rules for Reading in 2026. Ryan Holiday is kind of a reading/writing hero of mine. I’ve long been fascinated by his note-card based writing process, and I have a dream to someday run a bookstore like he does with The Painted Porch. Basically, I want to be like Ryan when I grow up (minus the stoicism). Recently, he published his 31 reading Rules for 2026. While I generally agree...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: Our Values and Our Technology are Permanently Linked Whether we like it or not, our technology use reflects our values. And our “digital footprints” consist of not just the data platforms collect about us, but also the trail of attention and choices we leave behind us every single day. This can be uncomfortable to acknowledge. We’re really good at creating narratives about who we think we are and how we...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. 💡 The Big Idea: Daily Questions + DataviewJS = 😍 I’ve been journaling in Obsidian ever since I first started using the app over 5 years ago. The Daily Notes make it perfect for this, though I’ve crafted my own workflows using a method called Daily Questions that measure my intentions rather than the outcomes. I explain the whole process here, but the short version is this: I have a Shortcut that prompts me for a score...
2 months ago • 5 min read