2023-12-11 - Simple and Long-lasting Productivity - Minority

Simple and Long-lasting Productivity - Minority#

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What is the Problem#

On the topic of "productivity," I have personally gone through multiple stages of thought and tried various methods and tools. I consider myself to have a lot of practice and experience in this area, but recently I have been troubled by a question: Why do I always find myself fiddling with various tools?

Perhaps it's because, as I reach middle age, I find it hard to keep experimenting, or perhaps it's the frustration of being tied down by tools. In any case, I hope to find a good approach to solve this problem, rather than frequently switching between tools and getting caught up in so-called "techniques."

Additionally, I saw a post on Twitter about "productivity," and some of the issues the author encountered are also questions I have been pondering, original link:

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(Original text by the author:) I have tried many methods and tools to organize my life, but I always end up back at to-do lists, some GTD, calendar apps, note-taking apps, etc.

My pain point is "how to store, process, and think about long-term goals and large projects," and how to connect them with tactical aspects: to-do items, scheduled calendar events, dynamic timelines.

As a long-time system builder, I can use any digital and analog tools. I thought of Notion, and I recently published some articles about my setup.

However, both Notion and other web-based applications are not ideal in terms of performance and integration with native applications. In many features, native applications lack many capabilities that web-based applications have.

I thought of paper planners and a few digital tools. Things, Calendar, Mail, and Apple Notes can all handle this task. Because complex solutions like Notion, Capacities, Tana, etc., often create the illusion of productivity.

When I create another linked database with an incredible number of fields instead of doing the actual work I need to do, I know something is wrong here.

Simple tools don't have many features. For example, Bear lacks graphical views or plugins and block-based editing. But I love this app because it gets the job done. I can create a powerful system. Apple Notes is simple! But it has a lot of good things behind it. More and more people are using Apple Notes because of its simplicity and offline usability.

Before the New Year, I want to clear all the clutter around me. This article is the first step on my journey. If you have any thoughts, feel free to discuss!

In the past few days, I took the time to read through the replies below the tweet, and the general summary of the replies is as follows:

Overall, everyone has their own most suitable way to organize and manage their lives. Moreover, there is often no "best" way. Whether using paper tools or digital applications, the important thing is to "find a method that fits personal needs and work styles." Everyone is trying different tools and techniques, but they are also thinking about "how to keep it simple."

Some people prefer analog tools like paper diaries and notebooks because they provide more flexibility and a tactile experience. Others may lean towards digital solutions like Notion or Obsidian, which offer features like data analysis and cross-device synchronization.

Finally, many people in this discussion also emphasized one point: "Tools are just a means, not the goal." Any tool or system should help you work more efficiently, not distract you from your work.

Practices on Productivity#

First, when I refer to "productivity," I mean "task management + knowledge management." In the initial stages, my strategy was "divide and conquer," that is, using different tools for different software. Around 2010, I used Evernote as my note-taking software (at that time, it had few competitors) and began trying various task management software. During this period, I used Wunderlist (later Microsoft TODO), OmniFocus, and early versions of Things. However, at that stage, both task management and knowledge management faced a series of problems:

Personal knowledge management was basically at the "bookmark" stage, meaning "collecting equals reading, reading equals managing."
Personal task management was primarily at the checkbox completion stage, with neither long-term thinking nor complex projects needing management.
The most confusing issues at that time were "how to allocate calendar and tasks" and "when to look at the notes I collected."

Later, after various iterations of productivity tools, I used Notion, Agenda, OmniFocus, Todoist as "productivity management" tools. I can say that I have seriously thought about and carefully experienced each tool, and some insights and thoughts from that time are as follows (from recent to distant):

Of course, friends familiar with Wang Zhanggui know that in the past 2-3 years, I have heavily used Obsidian for productivity work. The main reason is that Obsidian offers excellent and rapid feature iterations and has a large number of powerful extensions. All of this allows "task management + knowledge management" to be effectively accomplished within one ecosystem. My insights and thoughts during this period are as follows:

I even migrated the Chrome extension to Safari for easier clipping (supporting the entire Apple platform): 《To Enjoy Clipping Articles in Safari, I Developed the "obsidian-highlighter" Extension》。

It can be seen that "productivity" is something I have been thinking about and practicing, so the questions I encounter and raise are indeed troubling me. You might wonder, since I have already researched and used Obsidian so deeply, and it basically meets my "productivity" needs, why do I still express that there are issues?

The All-in-One Problem#

The benefit of an All-in-One solution is that everything is solved together. For example, I place great importance on the role of "context" in productivity management. A task itself can only indicate "what needs to be done by when," but for a complex task, it may also require knowing some related information (e.g., what was the last step completed? What materials need to be prepared for this task?). At this point, if a task can be linked to a note, then the task's "context becomes richer," and in Obsidian, we can easily achieve this (of course, other note-taking software also has this feature), as shown in the image:

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In the illustration, the part marked with a red line describes an "ongoing" task named "Mastering Obsidian 09 - How to Use Properties to Manage Notes." By clicking the task title, you can open the "corresponding note" (the note on the right side of the image). This is just a simple example, but it is enough to illustrate the importance of "context."

Because Obsidian supports "bidirectional linking" and various task management plugins (such as Dataview), this is the main reason I stay with Obsidian. It is really useful and meets my needs.

Let me give another example of how a new feature in Obsidian brings "productivity enhancement."

The article marked with a red line in the image above has not yet been published, titled "Mastering Obsidian 09 - How to Use Properties to Manage Notes." In the article, it is mentioned that by utilizing the newly released Properties feature in Obsidian, we can give notes "different statuses" and filter and manage notes by different "status values," turning notes into tasks. It sounds a bit convoluted, but you can see it in the image:

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In the two images above, you can see that first, the notes have "status values." We can use filtering statements (here using the Dataview plugin in Obsidian) to aggregate notes of "different statuses," so for "the same theme," we have a batch of notes with four statuses:

Action: Notes that are currently in progress, usually referring to notes that are not yet completed within the same theme.
Hold: Notes that are paused, usually referring to notes within the same theme that are not completed for some reason but will continue in the future.
Completed: Completed notes, usually referring to notes that have been completed within the same theme, which can also be understood as archived notes.
Dropped: Deleted notes, referring to notes within the same theme that can be deleted because they are no longer useful.

So, when we create a note for a Reading theme, all notes related to that theme can initially be set to Action status. At this point, the notes appear in the In Progress and Action areas in the image above (because the filtering conditions for these two areas both include Action). When we finish processing the notes, we can change the "status value" of the notes to Completed, at which point the notes disappear from the In Progress and Action areas and appear in the Completed area. Thus, we have achieved "taskification of note management" using Obsidian's new Properties feature.

These features seem great, especially the combination of Properties + Dataview that implements this set of functionalities, but why am I preparing to write the article "Mastering Obsidian 09 - How to Use Properties to Manage Notes"? Because the functionality is wonderful, but the operation is overly complex. It involves task management thinking and some "coding experience" (with Dataview), which raises the threshold and makes it difficult to migrate (imagine how such notes could be migrated to other platforms?).

This is the problem brought by All-in-One solutions. Simply put, as Obsidian continues to upgrade, we as users also need to continuously iterate on usage skills and methods. Or to put it another way: "The more we deviate from the originally designed functions of the tool in usage, the more cognitive burden we will face."

Simple and Long-lasting Productivity#

In the previous article 《Idle Weekly Report 11.20 - 11.26》, I shared this video 《How I Organise My Writing - YouTube》, and today I want to discuss an important point raised by the video author:

Tools should be applied to their designed purposes. Don't try to make tools perform tasks they were not meant to handle; this will only undermine their stability and add extra complexity, leading to problems.

We shape tools, and tools shape us. For us, how to use tools and what to do with them is extremely crucial. Each tool was created to solve a specific problem, so the original function of the tool is often the most stable and effective.

Take a hammer as an example; its original design goal was to meet the need of "embedding one thing into another by striking." Therefore, using a hammer to drive nails or to straighten bent boards is reliable, but if you use a hammer as a "car window breaker," its efficiency will be greatly reduced. The reason for the existence of a dedicated "car window breaker" is to improve efficiency and reliability in special situations.

The best way to utilize tools is to "make the most of the functions they were originally assigned." This can reduce our cognitive burden and enhance focus. This is why we need to use tools efficiently to achieve "simple and long-lasting productivity." Here are my thoughts on this topic.

What is "Simple and Long-lasting Productivity"?#

Productivity management should be simple: Simple means we can do things in the most effective way. The capabilities originally assigned to a tool when it was designed are certainly the simplest and most effective; otherwise, such a tool would not "succeed." Based on this consideration, when we choose "productivity" tools, we should also select the most suitable tools according to our needs, rather than opting for an All-in-One solution that claims to be comprehensive. This will help reduce cognitive burden.

Productivity management should be long-term: Long-term means stability, and stability means habits. For example, some people prefer to use "Windows Notepad" for "knowledge management," and the habit they form is stable and will not be disrupted because the core functionality of "Windows Notepad" is extremely stable, with almost no new features added or updated. This also means that the recorded content and usage habits will always remain stable and will not be disrupted by people or events.

My Package#

So how do we practice "simple and long-lasting productivity"?

Actually, my thinking returns to the initial thought: "divide and conquer." Since I believe that "productivity" refers to "knowledge management + task management," I need to solve these two issues separately. After a period of consideration, I chose Bear2 and Things3 to address these two problems, while using Hookmark as the "adhesive for knowledge management":

I chose Bear2 as the "note-taking tool" in knowledge management. The reason is that Bear2's main function is "note-taking," and it excels in this area. It offers powerful features such as Markdown, bidirectional linking, simple tables, beautiful themes, and editing capabilities, making it a standout among note-taking software. More importantly, Bear2 meets our requirements for productivity software—simple and stable.
I chose Things3 as the "task tool" in task management, for the same reason: in "task management," Things is simple and stable. Task creation, project management, task reminders, tagging, and viewing functions are stable, with excellent design, making it easy to use without any cognitive burden.
I chose Hookmark as the "adhesive for knowledge management." I will introduce Hookmark in detail later. It has been mentioned in several of my recent articles. As a key part of "simple and long-lasting productivity," the design and user experience of Hookmark are also simple and stable.

Bear2#

Bear is an excellent "note-taking software" on the Apple platform, released in 2016, and won the title of "Mac App of the Year" that year. As an early user, I subscribed to Bear in its first year and wrote my "2016 Annual Summary" using it, which was published on my blog.

As a user, I subscribed to Bear in its first year and wrote the "2016 Annual Summary," which was published on my then-blog. Although the content before 2017 could not be fully migrated during the migration process, I can still find the original draft in the Bear software:

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Using Bear is a delightful experience. In terms of its Markdown editor, I would give Bear a score of 9.5—both its usability and aesthetics are top-notch. Later, the reason for abandoning Bear was also related to my mindset at the time: as a subscription-based software, its feature iterations were too slow and could not provide corresponding extensibility, while later options like Obsidian and RomaResearch offered more choices for note-taking functionality.

Now, I have returned to using Bear2, partly because Bear2 has significantly improved (after a major update over five years), adding new features like tables, bidirectional linking, outline view, and many optimizations in the interface. After a few months of trial experience, I decided to continue my subscription. As a "note-taking software," Bear2 undoubtedly provides stable and reliable service.

Things3#

Things is a long-established GTD software that won the Apple Design Award in 2009, a full seven years before Bear. Due to its excellent design philosophy, user experience, and interface, Things is very popular among "productivity enthusiasts." I started using Things2, and at that time, I even rated it as "the task management tool that best aligns with GTD principles." This description can be found in the article 《OmniFocus - Techniques》 published in 2015:

If it weren't for the "synchronization mechanism" issue at the time (which required going through the Great Wall to sync), I might have continued using Things because I really loved it. As a task management software, it is easier to use than OmniFocus and has a more understandable interface, made in Germany, stable and efficient. Compared to later Todoist, Things does not have the burden of cross-platform compatibility or the complexity of APIs, ultimately providing users with a simple, easy-to-use, and stable experience. The following image shows the reading list I stored in Thing2 in 2015:

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Choosing Things3 as my task management tool brings me a sense of stability and joy. Its excellent usability design and stable functionality completely align with my pursuit of "simple and long-lasting productivity."

Hookmark Links Everything#

Hookmark was originally called Hook. I first encountered it in an article by teacher "Yushu Zhilan" on Minority: 《Hook: How to Efficiently Create Bidirectional Links Between Different Types of Information Resources? - Minority》。 Although I did not immediately start using Hook, I gradually understood its usefulness through the author's official website and their advocated "Ubiquitous Linking Manifesto."

Ubiquitous Linking Manifesto:
Advocates that software developers should implement the technical requirements for "ubiquitous linking" when designing software that handles information resources, ensuring that the software can create resources that can be "identified and accessed through links," and that the links are stable and reliable. At the same time, the software should provide a user interface that meets user needs and have an application programming interface (API) for managing links, allowing users to easily copy links and access resources.

You may ask, "What can the Ubiquitous Linking Manifesto and Hookmark bring us?"

Let’s clarify this with an example. Suppose you create a task in Things: "Continue to improve the article 'Simple and Long-lasting Productivity' on this topic," reminding you to complete this article at a certain point in time.

When you receive the reminder for this task, what will you do?

Find and open the note "Simple and Long-lasting Productivity" to continue writing.
Find relevant websites and materials to assist with the article content, ensuring you are not interrupted by other matters.

The above two steps are very simple, but one sentence is very important: ensuring you are not interrupted by other matters. Why emphasize this sentence? Here we must mention a concept in "cognitive science" called "cognitive load":

"Cognitive load" is a concept in cognitive science that refers to the maximum number of active pieces of information that the human brain can process and hold in short-term or working memory. Simply put, it is the brain's capacity to handle information at one time.

A common practice to maintain "cognitive load" is to "reduce cognitive burden." In the computing industry, this is referred to as "reducing context switching." Only when we maintain "cognitive load" can we focus more on the tasks at hand.

Now, let’s revisit the two operations mentioned earlier: when receiving a task reminder, whether "opening notes" or "searching for relevant materials," either step could distract you (lose focus). For example, you might get distracted while looking for information on a certain page... Ultimately, when everything is ready, half a day has already passed.

Hookmark is a typical software that solves the above problems. When we use Hookmark, we can approach this task in a new way: "Continue to improve the article 'Simple and Long-lasting Productivity' on this topic."

When you receive a "task reminder," you no longer need to struggle to open various notes or search for various materials. You just need to select this task in Things and press the shortcut key (I set it to Shift+CMD+Space) to launch Hookmark, and all problems will be solved, as shown in the image below:

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As shown in the first step of the image above: click to select the current task in Things.
As shown in the second step of the image above: press the shortcut key (I set it to Shift+CMD+Space) to call up the Hookmark window.
As shown in the third step of the image above: by double-clicking any line in the Hookmark window, you can open the corresponding content.

The Hookmark window is divided into two parts:

The first part, HOOKED, also known as "direct links." Here you can see that I have linked "multiple notes" to the current task. They are relevant materials I recorded in various places.
The second part, INDIRECTLY HOOKED, also known as "indirect links." They are a large collection composed of "direct links" corresponding to each link in the first part, HOOKED.

As mentioned, Hookmark supports "bidirectional linking." At this point, if we open a note in the HOOKED section, such as 《2023.07.04》, and then press the shortcut key Shift+CMD+Space to call up the Hookmark window again, we will see the HOOKED links for the note 《2023.07.04》 as shown in the image:

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From the image, it can be seen that in the Hookmark links for the note 《2023.07.04》, we can also see our task: "Continue to improve the article 'Simple and Long-lasting Productivity' on this topic." This is the same concept as the popular "bidirectional linking" in Obsidian and RomaResearch. However, Hookmark establishes "bidirectional links" between resources in the Mac system.

The concepts of Hookmark's "bidirectional linking" and "indirect linking" are very useful for our daily "research on a topic." In addition to the previously mentioned "reducing cognitive burden" to help us maintain focus, it also links various resources scattered throughout the system under one "theme." This theme can be a task or a note (such as this article). There is no longer a need to search everywhere or repeatedly search and remember.

Hookmark even supports deep linking for PDFs, allowing us to associate a "theme" with a "passage" from a PDF for easy reference when needed, as shown in the image below:

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I will provide a detailed introduction to using Hookmark in future articles. Today's article is merely an introduction, illustrating how it works as "the adhesive for knowledge management."

Conclusion#

In the previous discussion, we noted that when we "make the most of the functions originally assigned to tools," the results we achieve are stable. For my "knowledge management" process, I found that the combination of Bear2, Things3, and Hookmark is a simple, effective, and long-term stable solution:

The original intention for which they were created, that is, the "capabilities assigned by craftsmen," must be simple.
The results obtained from using them "with the capabilities assigned at the time of creation" must be effective.
When they each excel in their respective fields and are combined, the resulting functionality is stable.

Finally, what is stability? Stability is the result obtained when we decisively "utilize the functions assigned to tools." This allows our brains to be freed from trivial matters, enabling us to focus on more important things, thereby using tools more effectively, leading to "simple, effective, and long-lasting" outcomes.

"Context" is a term in the programming industry. When a server program is executed, it requires context, which allows the current process to access a lot of information for corresponding processing. Here, it can be understood as "background information," and the task context refers to the relevant information of the task. ↩

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Column: The Art of Knowledge Management

This column discusses various levels and methods of "knowledge management," aiming to inspire thinking and explore together to find a suitable "knowledge management method."