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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.

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✍️ How to Manage Creative Writing Projects in Obsidian

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...

A computer keyboard sitting on top of a desk

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: PKM Lessons from some of the Internet's most prolific creators 😎 Something Cool: My sketchnotes from the Newsletter Marketing Summit πŸ“š My book notes from The Catalyst by Jonah Berger If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: What I Learned Last Week from the Internet’s Most Successful Newsletter Creators Last week, I attended the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin, TX. It was hosted by Matt McGarry,...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: The tagging tutorial I wish I had when I started collecting notes 😎 Something Cool: A heat map plugin that helps you build writing momentum πŸ“š My book notes from Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning If you prefer to view this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: Tags Are a Great Way to Keep Your Notes & Ideas Organized β€” If You Use Them Correctly Last week, I shared how I was using automation tools to help move...

In this edition of Practical PKM: πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: How I use automation to keep my Obsidian writing projects tidy 😎 Something Cool: A plugin that gives the Obsidian outline superpowers πŸ“š My book notes from The Courage to Be Disliked If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here. πŸ’‘ The Big Idea: File Automation Can Help Keep Your Notes Organized β€” But Only After You Decide How You Want to Group Things Together People ask me all the time about how I organize my file folders...