I’m experimenting with a new Now page. It is built using Craft and is very easy to add to and maintain.

Short notes vs. long notes, how they differ, and the tools you need to manage each.

I personally capture small notes but then create larger documents.

Original Post

I’ve been using Craft for over a week, including capturing personal notes and sharing many of my notes online.

It’s easy to capture links, notes, images, and more and curate them into nice-looking documents. I think I like it!

Currently reading: Move The Body, Heal The Mind by Jennifer Heisz 📚

I’ve been using OneNote for anything related to work projects. I’ve never been a big fan, but I like the integration and how it is shared with team members by default.

Today, I created a single note that I keep open all day with my projects and immediate action items for each.

📺 Watching Stutz on Netflix.

I’ve used Craft.do before and have recently gone back. From my perspective, and you see this in their marketing, Craft is more about creating documents rather than notes.

Creating documents is a great way to put the puzzle pieces together into something coherent and useful.

I published a guide that consolidates my notes and bookmarks about Mastodon. It includes articles, tools for finding a server, people to follow, and client apps.

As I stumble across more resources, I’ll add them. I’m recently starting with Mastodon. Let me know what I’m missing!

I’m always experimenting with how I take notes when I read a non-fiction book. My goals when reading includes the following: Read from anywhere without much distraction. Obtain a general understanding of the key concepts. Have an easy way to refer back to the ideas in the book. The Digital … read more

I published my first Craft documents for the public. Starting with recent book notes and my notes for Microsoft Power Apps.

Currently, it’s a copy of my existing notes, but I plan to expand on it quite a bit.

I also created a Notes page that will link the various documents.

I’m considering moving all of my notes into Craft.

I’ll have my personal space and another space for my knowledge base where some would be shared.

I like the idea of creating “documents” around a specific topic that are updated over time rather than small individual notes.

Finished reading: How to Calm Your Mind by Chris Bailey 📚

A nice balance of storytelling, research, and actionable advice. Chris doesn't get technical or ramble on pointless stories, either. It was an easy-to-read book with a few actionable takeaways.

Here are my notes.

☕ I dug out my old French Press, which tastes much better than the Keurig I’ve been using (for convenience).

I want to try and wait a good 90 minutes before any coffee (wake up naturally) and have coffee I’ll enjoy for the flavor.

🎮 I got a Nintendo Switch last year and rarely used it after the novelty wore off.

A couple of weeks ago, I hooked it up to our main TV, and the family and I play together almost daily.

We usually play Rocket League, Mario Cart, and Gang Beasts.

So much fun!

ManicTime is Windows App that will automatically track your time. Useful for anyone who needs to track time to bill clients, ManicTime can auto-tag your documents, URLs, etc., to your projects, as well as give you an overview of where you spend your time. The data stays on your device! read more

Cal Newport explains how he marks up physical non-fiction books for his research. He simply adds a slash to the corner of the page containing anything of interest, adds a block to the side of the text and sometimes adds a star for important things. No notes. No highlights.

Bike Outliner is a simple, native macOS app from the creators of Task Paper. Bike makes creating outlines simple and fast. Unfortunately, it is macOS only right now. It may be worth a look if you like to create outlines for blog posts, books, projects, or brainstorming. read more

By default, Readwise Reader has an Inbox, Later, and Archive location. If I wanted to read something, do I put it in my Inbox or Later? And what’s this Shortlist? It can be pretty confusing for someone who wants a simple reading list. Fortunately, there is an easy change we can make to adjust … read more

I listened to a snippet of Security Now podcast where they discuss password managers. The subject was brought up after the recent LastPass breach. Apparently Bitwarden is a great option because it’s open source, has a great free offering and is very secure. 1Password is also great especially if you … read more

I had a newsletter a year or so ago where every week, I would gather all of my bookmarks, notes, and resources and turn them into a newsletter where I would share these valuable links with some brief commentary. I gave up the newsletter because I often had weekends when I was out of town and was … read more

Lantern is a slick service from @rknightuk that allows you to quickly search for a game, TV show, or Movie. Give it a rating and post your thoughts about it to your Micro.blog site. Since Micro.blog has books covered, this is a great addition. Well done! read more

This may seem odd, but I won’t even give Mem.ai a shot because of this giant blue Share button in the middle of every screen in an otherwise simple and clean app. I don’t want to share my notes. Give me the option in the submenu. It’s a big distraction for me.

“The End of Organizing” by Dan Shipper argues that AI will be the best way to organize our notes in the future.

So you rarely go back to use your old notes. It’s too cognitively expensive and not rewarding enough. For an old note to be helpful it needs to be presented to Future You in a way that clicks into what you’re working on instantly—with as little processing as possible.

As you consume content and take generic notes, the AI can transform it into more meaningful text, autocomplete the thought, apply context, and organize it, making it easy to find again.

As you create content, AI could show your notes as you type. Imagine typing about a topic, and the AI presents the notes to you as you type, as it applies to the current context.

Many note and reading apps already incorporate AI, including Readwise, Mem, Mymind, Craft, and Notion. Some with plugins that add this, including Obsidian and Logseq. It should quickly evolve to the point envisioned in this essay.

This essay does not account for the act of writing as a way to help you think and learn. If we let AI do the lifting for us, does that make us smarter, or do we lose the ability to think for ourselves? There is a fine line.

Readwise Reader is growing on me.

I spent some time learning how to configure it to my liking and learned some shortcuts. I removed most of the views, updated the swipe commands, and changed my Library Commands to only Later and Archive. Also, cleaned up my feed.