DeveloPassion's Newsletter - New chapter

By Sébastien Dubois • Issue #71 • View online

Hello everyone! I’m Sébastien Dubois, your host. You’re receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion’s Newsletter. Thank you for being here with me ✨

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Welcome to the 71st edition

Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩

June is already gone. And with that, 50% of 2022 is now behind us! 😨. I hope you’re all ready to rock the next half of the year! 🚀

This month is the beginning of a new chapter of my life. I’m both enthusiastic and scared shitless. For those who don’t know, my life partner and I have decided to end our relationship. It was the hardest decision ever. But life is complex, and not all choices can be simple and straightforward. Sometimes, the obstacle is the way…

Needless to say, the last months were extremely demanding, challenging, and exhausting. I’m still struggling, but I’m proud to have managed to keep coming back here with you, week after week.

My daily note-taking has clearly helped me a lot through all this. Not only as a way to vent my thoughts and emotions, but also as a way to better understand myself and think more clearly. 100% would recommend!

The Lab 🧪

In June, the lab did not explode, which is rather good news. The formulas are stable and even though I didn’t manage to start new experiments, the ongoing ones have continued gaining momentum.

I’ve sold 40+ copies of the Obsidian Starter Kit ($630) and continued improving it. I didn’t deliver as much content as I intended, but it’s definitely coming. The kit was mentioned in the Obsidian Community Roundup newsletter of Eleanor Konik.

I’ve also sold 10 copies of the Personal Knowledge Management Library ($200) and also improved it. I’ve received a ton of useful feedback, especially from Raymond (thanks again!).

Sales in the last 30 days

The PKM subreddit that I’ve launched has now almost 360 members. People keep coming back for new resources, and I really like sharing all the PKM goodness that I stumble upon. That experiment was clearly a Win-Win because it helps the community and also brings more visitors to my product pages and articles.

I’m slowly approaching 2K followers on Twitter. I’m not in a hurry, but I clearly feel like it’s growing too slowly. The thing is that I know exactly why: I don’t tweet enough. More importantly, I don’t engage nearly enough! I failed to keep the momentum I had, and now struggle to resume interacting more efficiently and scheduling more tweets in advance.

This month I’ve also decided to move my content over to Ghost, following the footsteps of Rosie with Rosieland. Ghost is really appealing as it provides a way to host multiple types of content such as articles and newsletters. In addition, it also makes it possible to target multiple audiences, manage subscriptions (with customizable tiers), etc.

My main problem with the migration is the time and effort it will take for me to move everything over. Being a nerd, I’ve decided to go at it using my tool of choice: programming. After an interesting discussion with Pete, I suddenly wanted to create my first Obsidian plugin: Obsidian Publisher. The goal of the plugin is to make it a breeze to bulk publish or update notes as blog posts or newsletters, all from the comfort of Obsidian. My ultimate goal is also to handle cross-posting articles to Medium, DEV.to, Hashnode, etc.

Google Search console stats (left = more recent)

I’m also pleased with the momentum that my blog is getting. In June, impressions on Google Search went from 57K to 78K. I hope this trend will continue.

With all the chaos in my life right now, I didn’t find the energy to try and launch the YouTube channel. That remains on hold for now. I’ll give that project another go in September!

I also haven’t had the opportunity to get back in touch with André to continue working on our focusd app. Bummer!

Things I've learned this month

How the notes I've taken in June fit with the rest of my knowledge base in Obsidian

I’ve taken a ton of notes in June, which I find quite surprising given how little time I actually found to even breathe 😂

Some of the notes I've taken in June

Among those, here are a few cool ideas I’ve explored:

The 4 pillars of creativity (Anne-Laure Le Cunff)
The LATCH principle / The Five Hat Racks
“Ya ain’t gonna be Elon Musk (YAGBEM)”, a fun alternative to YAGNI
The steps to build a Second Brain (Tiago Forte)
How laziness leads to automation
The circle of learning
Write Once Read Never (WORN)
The lag between efforts and outcomes
How knowledge adds dimensions for us to see beauty in (Richard Feynman)
The types of empathy
The TOCLA approach to content creation
How solitude fuels productivity and creativity
How replying to mails with a scenario limits the burden on the recipient
Luck surface area
Stoic values
The fact that the opposite of distraction is traction
… and many more!

I mentioned this a few times, but if those topics look interesting, tell me, and I’ll publish my notes! 🎉

Recent articles

No new articles this week.

I know it’s been a while, but the best I can offer you right now is a small poem I wrote last week, called “Freedom”:

Freedom. Dear freedom. Let us unite once more. Under your mighty wings. Shelter us from the evil lurking among the many. Shelter us from the prison of our minds. Pave the way from the depth of our oceans to the distant stars of our dreams. Give us hope. Let us be. Free from fear and doubts. United

Quotes of the week

Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want — Ken Poirot
Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will

Book of the week

Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential

It’s been a while since I last recommended a book. Since Tiago’s book is out, I can’t help but point you toward it. I haven’t had the opportunity to grab a copy yet, but I’m sure it’s well worth the investment!

amzn.to • Share

Tips of the week

Sébastien Dubois

@dSebastien

Don't try to create the perfect knowledge management system.

Start small, accept imperfection and focus on continuous improvement. Consider your notes, metadata, your whole system and process as a work in progress.

3:49 PM - 30 Jun 2022

How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days | Nerd Fitness

Beginner’s Guide to Handstands! Get your first handstand with this step-by-step handstand progression and handstand exercises.

www.nerdfitness.com • Share

How cool is that?!

Thinking and learning links of the week

The Feynman Technique 2.0: How to Take Your Learning to the Next Level

A deep dive into the Feynman Technique, a method designed to learn through teaching. How can we upgrade it with a few teaching principles?

themindcollection.com • Share

The Last Question - Isaac Asimov - Read by Leonard Nimoy

The science-fiction short story “The Last Question”, written by Asimov and read by Nimoy

www.youtube.com • Share

PKM Weekly July 3 2022 – Issue 025 – Curtis McHale

curtismchale.ca • Share

50 Cognitive Biases - The Big Picture

ritholtz.com • Share

3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on the Curse of Knowledge

Curse of Knowledge, Creative Incompetence & Concealing Your Talents

chrismeyer.substack.com • Share

Markwhen

markwhen.com • Share

Tech links of the week

The Technium: Not Future-Proofing

kk.org • Share

Why Duck Typing Is Safe - iRi

Your description for this link…

www.jerf.org • Share

Git Timeline Generator | Preceden

Create a visual timeline of any codebase’s contribution history.

www.preceden.com • Share

Gource - a software version control visualization tool

gource.io • Share

Why TypeScript enums suck - LogRocket Blog

TypeScript enums can be valuable. However, it can sometimes be difficult to tell how they should be used and what they represent.

blog.logrocket.com • Share

Know. Before it matters

Canarytokens is a free tool that helps you discover you’ve been breached by having attackers announce themselves. The tokens allow you to implant traps around your network and notifies you as soon as they are triggered.

canarytokens.org • Share

Indie Hacking and bootstrapping