Welcome

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

This week, I've continued feeling tired all the time. The opening of the Christmas Market didn't help. We've met friends all weekend, and I didn't have a minute to rest. Work has been quite the drag lately, and I can't wait to get some energy back. I probably also lack some vitamines! I just hope the end of year period will help me recover, even just a bit 😂

Alright, let's gooooo 🚀

The lab 🧪

I've continued working on the Knowledge Worker Kit. I've completed the first draft of the part about Clarity, important pages for the part about Personal Organization. Now, I'm diving deeper and deeper into the part about Personal Knowledge Management and Journaling. That one is near and dear to my heart, as I believe it's really an important part of becoming better Knowledge Workers.

So far, I've sold 37 copies even though it's still in early beta, and I haven't even tried to promote it yet. For now, I prefer to focus on the content. The community is still quiet, but we're 20+ already, so there's no doubt that we will have more and more interesting discussions about the content and related ideas.

There's a piece that I put a lot of energy into that I'll publish along with this newsletter. It's about writing. To me, it's an essential skill for Knowledge Workers. I'd love to convince more people that there's a ton of value in writing more, and honing that skill.

Next week, I'm going to share ideas about Personal Knowledge Management, as it is one of the best ways to write regularly and create powerful leverage. And the logical chain is there already:

• Writing is super important and valuable
• Advice on what to write about and how to write more
• Note-taking has many shortcomings and limits
• Why Knowledge Management is superior
• Explanations about PKM, PKM Systems, TfTs, Enterprise and Community Knowledge Management
• Advice on how to design your own PKM System
• Deep dive into PKM concepts and practices
• Why journaling is a valuable habit to acquire
• How to pick your tools
• Practical advice, guides, tips and tricks
• Reusable templates
• ...

It's all laid out and crystal clear in my mind. I just need to transform my ideas into words ;-)

Recent articles

Writing is an essential skill to develop if you want to reach “the next level” in your Knowledge Work career. Here's why.

On the Importance of Writing

Writing is an essential skill to develop if you want to reach “the next level” in your Knowledge Work career. Here’s why.

Sébastien Dubois •Sebastien Dubois

Recent purchases

I thought I'd share my recent purchases and the rationale behind each. Of course I bought dumb and fun stuff for Christmas (e.g., a PS5, plants, games for the kids, etc), but I've also bought more interesting things:

I bought a CO2 monitor because I'm worried about the air quality in my office. There's no ventilation in the room, and I don't want to suffer from CO2 intoxication. It's actually much more frequent than people imagine, and causes headaches, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, sweating, tiredness etc. And since I've been feeling tired all the time, it's best for me to eliminate potential causes:

Amazon.com: Newentor CO2 Monitor, Indoor Air Quality Meters, Carbon Dioxide Detector with Voice Alert, Large Display CO2 Tester, Temperature Humidity Sensor, Alarm Clock for Home, RV, Grow Tents, 400-5000ppm : Electronics

Buy Newentor CO2 Monitor, Indoor Air Quality Meters, Carbon Dioxide Detector with Voice Alert, Large Display CO2 Tester, Temperature Humidity Sensor, Alarm Clock for Home, RV, Grow Tents, 400-5000ppm: Monitors - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

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I've also finally decided to buy a ReMarkable 2 digital paper display. I've always preferred pen and paper, and pushed back for the longest time. The thing is that I have much less time than I'd like to convert my notes into digital notes. And I don't want to keep all that paper around. To me, analog notes should be transient, because there's no value in having notes that I can't connect with the rest of my Knowledge Graph.

With this, I'll be able to continue writing (which I believe is much better for thinking and for knowledge retention), but I'll also have a much easier time to convert my notes into Markdown.

That being said, I still intent to review my notes before I add them to my PKM. I don't want to blindly copy/paste the results. Reviewing my notes is a valuable practice, and I don't want to stop doing that.

Along with the ReMarkable 2, I've also ordered a Rocketbook, mainly out of curiosity. I'll probably give it to my daughter once I receive the ReMarkable:

Quotes of the week

• We shape our tools thereafter our tools shape us — McLuhan
• If you feel like it's miserable and hard, stop making yourself do the hard thing… It's better to accept that you're lazy and cowardly, and then make it easy enough so you can do it anyway. That's my whole strategy with life — Rob Fitzpatrick

Ready to get to the next level?

If so, then check out the Knowledge Worker Kit, the Obsidian Starter Kit, the Obsidian Starter Course, the PKM Library, a PKM coaching session with me, my collection of books about software development and the IT Concepts Wall 🔥.

If you want to discuss, then don't hesitate to join the Personal Knowledge Management community or the Software Crafters community.

About Sébastien

Hello everyone! I'm Sébastien Dubois (you can follow me on Twitter 🐦).

I'm an author, founder, and CTO. I write books and articles about software development & IT, personal knowledge management, personal organization, and productivity. I also craft lovely digital products 🚀

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