dbieber

I review them frequently -- opportunistically only, but frequently nevertheless. I gather I'm unusual in this regard; most people I talk to about note taking seem to be "write only".

For myself, I write notes on Go Note Go without seeing them, but I also use Roam at a computer where I do see my notes. When there, I'm often curious to read for the first time what I wrote blindly the day before. I also go back through my notes looking for ideas to expand on (tagged e.g. #[[Snippet Ideas]]), or for TODOs for projects.

I made a list of my strategies for this: https://davidbieber.com/snippets/2022-03-18-attention-strate...

So you don't have to click through, here they are: * Using an outliner like Roam Research

* Working with another person (e.g. pair programming)

* Working with another person present (e.g. independent coworking)

* Running a “distraction detection” program

* Mentally noting the distraction-kind and returning my attention

* Keeping my phone in my kitchen

* Writing on Go Note Go, my headless keyboard

* Attending meetings/talks in “clamshell mode” (laptop closed, no keyboard or mouse available)

* Making TODO lists

* And explicitly writing down the ^^active TODO^^

* Going to sleep at a specific time (e.g. 10:10pm)

* Exercising regularly (or at least aiming to)

* Stopping watching TV in the middle of an episode (ends of episodes are more addicting)

* 50 minute working sessions (e.g. focusmate.com)

* Stretching

* Taking short deliberate breaks

* Using Pomodoro timers for working sessions

* Using the “Intention” Chrome extension by DK

* Keeping all notifications on my phone turned off

* Asking the people I live with to get my attention first before starting a conversation with me

* Announcing my current active goal publicly (e.g. in a chat room)

* “Hide feed” Chrome extension, also by DK

This is all in addition to what I call the "Nike strategy". i.e. "Just do it". aka pure will power. But you don't need to rely completely on the Nike strategy -- the rest of the list can be useful too!

In this snippet I introduce a work-in-progress comment system I'm calling "Ask Me Anywhere". Ask Me Anywhere lets you ask a question at any point in the post.

Give it a try. Simply click between two paragraphs or double click on a paragraph to open a comment box.

I put this together in Jan 2020. Since then, I've actually introduced a second comment system on my website: Discord!

You can give that one a try too. Scroll to the bottom of the post, and click Discussion. That will open a topic-specific Discord channel inline on the post. You can use it to discuss the snippets or any of my other snippets on the same topic.

I think it's surprising and cool that you can embed Discord discussions in a website like this. And as a bonus, you can leave comments anonymously / without logging it. If someone replies to your comment, it's updated immediately (like chat), rather than requiring a refresh (like a naive comments implementation.)

The "Ask Me Anywhere" comments are private, whereas the Discord comment section is public, as is more typical of web comments.

My goal with these comments threads is just to make it super easy to get discussions started. I suppose part of me prefers 1:1 discussions, but the private vs public distinction isn't so critical. Just looking to connect!

> e.g something tongue in cheek like dinner at an AI powered White Castle

How about robot assembled salad from Sweetgreen [1]? I'd suggest autonomous pizza but Zume is refocusing [2]. Perhaps all topped with basil never touch by human hands [3]?

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/25/salad-chain-sweetgreen-buy... [2] https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/zume-shu... [3] https://ironox.com/

Google Apps Script and Browserflow are two of my favorites. Getting a GCP or AWS VM is a solid approach too; both have reasonable free-tiers. And as an alternative to cron, the Python `schedule` library is nice too. Finally if you don't mind some down time, running it on your laptop might be fine. Supervisord is a solid tool for keeping jobs running / restarting them on error.

I'm actively using all of the above approaches.

Here's the tl;dr:

* The best blog posts are narrowly scoped and focused on a single point

* Trying to do too much in a blog post can distract from the main point and weaken the argument

* Having a clear, well-defined main point improves the clarity and persuasiveness of your writing

* It also increases the shareability and reference-ability of your piece

* Respect your readers' time by making the main point clear upfront

* There are exceptions to this rule, such as educational pieces or literary works

Would love to see some of the things you've drawn using this tool!

This is a snippet I wrote back in Jan 2020, an idea for a writing assistant tool. Since then, conversational agents have come a long way. I think a modernized version of this idea would probably be writing while simultaneously chatting with an AI assistant helping your brainstorm and stay on task.

The original idea is still interesting to consider though, 1) because it's simple and doesn't require AI, and 2) because it informs what the conversational agent could do to be most effective (for me at least).

The high-level core of the idea is that 1) you're writing and brainstorming simultaneously, 2) an external force is using timers and prompts to keep you on track.

The details are important too. Accountability-buddies make for great external forces, but they aren't generally patient and supportive enough to listen to intermittent brainstorming punctuated by many minutes of quiet writing.

The implementation that I suggest in the post ensures you can both write and make changes without losing old versions.

It allows for low-friction brainstorming during writing, and makes sure ideas don't get lost.

Or at least that's the intent. I tried (a low-tech version of) it out at the time and there's definitely room for improvement.

I guess this snippet was from before I wrote Go Note Go, so I reference shh shell (my older headless writing system), not Go Note Go. It's weird to me; GNG feels like its been with me forever but it hasn't even been two years yet. My whole apartment is arranged around GNGs already!

Anyway... 2-year old idea that I'm sharing now, but like many of my old snippets that I've revisited 2 years later, I'm still intrigued by the idea and topic, and glad I wrote it down when I did.