๐ŸŒŠ Time Surfing: A Flexible Take on Time & Task Management


In this edition of Practical PKM:

  • ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: A slightly unconventional approach to riding the productivity wave
  • ๐Ÿ˜Ž Something Cool: A Raycast extension for editing Obsidian Tasks
  • ๐Ÿ“š My book notes from I've Got Time by Paul Loomans

If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here.

๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: Feeling Overwhelmed? Time Surfing Might Be Able to Help.

I recently read an interesting book called Iโ€™ve Got Time by Paul Loomans. In the book, Paul introduces an idea called time surfing, which he defines as using intuition to decide what to do when. Itโ€™s an intentional time management strategy designed to combat the time pressure we all feel from the pace of life continuing to move faster and faster.

While I donโ€™t necessarily agree with Paul on everything (Iโ€™m not about to throw away my lists just yet ๐Ÿ˜‰), there were some powerful ideas that he shared which really got me thinking about my own relationship with time.

As I continue to process the book (and the conversation with Paul for an upcoming Focused episode), I realize there are a couple of big takeaways for me for the Actions level of my PKM Stack framework:

Here are three big takeaways from the book that you can apply to your own PKM Stack to help you do more of what matters.

  1. Do one thing at a time and finish what youโ€™re doing. Urgency often masquerades as importance, so be intentional about choosing and focusing on the things that are truly important.
  2. Take intentional breathers. The moment you donโ€™t know what to do is the perfect time to take a breather. Look for the impasse, and take strategic breaks to spark inspiration.
  3. Convert your โ€œgnawing ratsโ€ to โ€œwhite sheep.โ€ Things gnaw at you because of your relationship to the task. So do one thing at a time, and be ok with what youโ€™re not doing.

If you want to dive deeper, check out the full blog post here.

(The vast majority of the feedback I got last week was that people preferred shorter summaries here with a link to read more. Let me know if you prefer the whole essay here in the newsletter instead!)

Am I a Time Surfer Now?

I donโ€™t think so. I still like my lists too much ๐Ÿ˜‚

But this book did give me a lot to chew on. Paul is a Zen Buddhist monk from the Netherlands, so some of his descriptions and terminology were a bit difficult for me, but thereโ€™s one quote in particular that really resonated with me:

โ€œWhen you do nothing, all kinds of things happen. When you donโ€™t fill in the blanks, anything is possible.โ€

I think we all could probably benefit from riding the wave a little bit more.

๐Ÿ˜Ž Something Cool: Obsidian Tasks Raycast Extension

This week, a Library member (thanks Jeremy!) introduced me to a Raycast extension that integrates with the Obsidian Tasks plugin.

Itโ€™s a pretty cool extension that gives you commands to list, add, or edit tasks straight from Raycast without even opening Obsidian. Thereโ€™s even a menubar item that you can use to show tasks from a specific file in your vault.

If you are a Raycast user and you manage your tasks in Obsidian, you should check out this extension.

๐Ÿ“š Book Notes: Iโ€™ve Got Time by Paul Loomans

If you want to dig deeper into time surfing, Iโ€™ve Got Time by Paul Loomans is a short book with some interesting ideas about time and task management. It's a short read, and it gave me a lot to noodle on.

If you want to download my mind map book notes, click here.

โ€” Mike

P.S. Wanted to let you in on a little secret project ๐Ÿ˜‰ I've been working on a brand new Practical PKM Hybrid Cohort. It's a combination of self-paced videos + live Q&A calls (so you can go through it at your own pace but still get live feedback). The last live cohort was great but a bit much to keep up with live, so I believe this will be the best version of the Practical PKM cohort yet! Click here if you'd like to be the first to know when it's ready.

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.

Read more from Practical PKM

In this edition of Practical PKM: ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: What I'd Do if I Was Starting in Obsidian Today ๐Ÿ˜Ž Something Cool: A fun little text scratchpad for your Mac ๐Ÿ“š My book notes from AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor If you prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser, click here. ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: 5 Things Iโ€™d Do if I Were Coming to Obsidian for the First Time in 2025 Most people who try Obsidian quit within the first two weeks. Not because the app is bad, but...

In this edition of Practical PKM: ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: How I added an On This Day feature to my Daily Notes template Obsidian ๐Ÿ˜Ž Something Cool: A modern Obsidian plugin that lets you customize icons and colors ๐Ÿ“š My book notes from Lean Learning by Pat Flynn If you prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser, click here. ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: Adding an On This Day Feature to Your Daily Notes with Bases After a bit of a rocky start, Bases continues to improve. Now that the syntax is no...

Artificial intelligence is represented by the lightbulb and brain.

In this edition of Practical PKM: ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: AI makes things easy, but sometimes the value is in the struggle ๐Ÿ˜Ž Something Cool: An Obsidian plugin that lets you set rules for forcing note view modes ๐Ÿ“š My book notes from Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks Prefer to read (or listen to) this newsletter in your browser? Click here. ๐Ÿ’ก The Big Idea: Sometimes Difficult Things Are Worth Doing I recently came across a great How I Write podcast episode where David Perell interviewed Ezra Klein about...