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Practical PKM

A weekly newsletter where I help people apply values-based productivity principles and systems for personal growth, primarily using Obsidian. Subscribe if you want to make more of your notes and ideas.

Featured Post

😍 Desire Paths: The Best Way to Build Your PKM System

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: The critical role of desire paths in PKM 😎 Something Cool: Inline callouts in Obsidian πŸ“š My book notes from Put Your Dream to the Test by John Maxwell If you prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Ditch the prescribed organizational structure & follow the desire paths. A desire path is "an unplanned route or path (such as one worn into a grassy surface by repeated foot traffic) that is used...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: How to use AI & PKM together effectively 😎 Something Cool: I built a PKM AI agent πŸ“š My book notes from Wild Courage by Jenny Wood If you prefer to read/listen to this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Small Language Models are the Key to Using AI in Your PKM System. AI is all the rage lately, and with good reason: it’s the most disruptive technology most of us have ever seen. It’s rapidly changing the way we work, and...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Get more from your ntoes by going from information to application 😎 Something Cool: An Obsidian plugin to help you identify and eliminate overused words πŸ“š My book notes from Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith Prefer to read (or listen) to this newsletter in your browser? Click here. πŸ’‘ The Key to Getting More Out of Your Notes: Take Action! In the world of personal knowledge management (PKM), understanding the three...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: How I manage my writing projects in Obsidian 😎 Something Cool: A plugin that makes it easy to publish to Ghost from Obsidian πŸ“š My book notes from The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: My Content Creation Workflow in Obsidian In my opinion, Obsidian is vastly underrated as a writing app. But getting words on the page is only part of the process. And it turns out,...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: A slightly unconventional approach to riding the productivity wave 😎 Something Cool: A Raycast extension for editing Obsidian Tasks πŸ“š My book notes from I've Got Time by Paul Loomans If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Feeling Overwhelmed? Time Surfing Might Be Able to Help. I recently read an interesting book called I’ve Got Time by Paul Loomans. In the book, Paul introduces an idea called time...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: An honest review of Obsidian in 2025 😎 Something Cool: A Pomodoro timer in your Obsidian status bar πŸ“š My book notes from Keep Going by Austin Kleon If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Where Obsidian Shines (and Where it Struggles) as of April 2025 A few weeks ago, I read Jason Snell's Apple Report card for 2024. It's a post he does every year where he collects feedback from others in the Apple...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: How a LifeTheme can help bring your ideal future into reality 😎 Something Cool: A great quality-of-life plugin for desktop Obsidian users πŸ“š My book notes from Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Chase Your Dreams, But Abandon Your Goals. I’ve been reading Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy for an upcoming Bookworm episode (the book made famous by A.J. Brown reading it on...

a laptop computer sitting next to a pair of glasses

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: A frictionless weekkly review template (+ custom Shortcut) 😎 Something Cool: A free webinar on doing Personal Retreats in Obsidian πŸ“š My book notes from The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: A Weekly Review That Actually Works (For Me) I’ve always had a bit of trouble getting the weekly review to really stick. By the time the week was over, I was usually...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: How your information diet impacts your ability to think and focus 😎 Something Cool: A useful toolbar for Obsidian users who aren't Markdown masters πŸ“š My book notes from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Curate Your Information Sources & Increase Your Upper Limit When it comes to your information diet, you are what you eat (consume). If you’re...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: How an Experimental Mindest helps you make more progress 😎 Something Cool: An Obsidian plugin that enables manual file sorting πŸ“š My book notes from Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Don’t Set Goals, Run Experiments. Last week, Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff was officially released. I got a sneak peek when we interviewed her for the Focused podcast...