81 // Evergreen Notes With Stephan Ango
Metadata
- Author: Metamuse
- Full Title: 81 // Evergreen Notes With Stephan Ango
- URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c5e1f85c-ed2f-4bdb-9c5f-2c93bb37dc09
Highlights
Transitioning from Founder to Employee Transcript: Speaker 1 Well, I’ve never worked at a company that I didn’t start until now. So it was surprisingly natural because I had developed this relationship to the founders over a long period of time, very gradually, very organically just through chatting with them and reporting various bugs with the app and building some community contributions and things like that. So it was surprisingly easy and very natural. It was just really like, instead of spending a few hours here and there working on Obsidian every week, what if I was just doing that full time? And I do think it’s a, at least in my mind, when I was thinking about what’s next after Lumia, my default would have been to start another company, but I couldn’t think of anything that I thought was more exciting than Obsidian. And so that, to me, at least in my own head, it says a lot. I don’t know if it says a lot to other people, but it does say a lot that I would rather kind of go and help build this thing, which I think is such an amazing app and community, than try to start another thing from scratch right now. Speaker 2 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that entrepreneurship, you shouldn’t start with, I want to start a company. You should start with, I want to solve a problem or have an impact on the world or go to a place where I can contribute the most. Really starting a company should be your last resort. If there’s really no other way to accomplish. I agree. That’s a great point. What you want to do, then you say, well, damn it. I guess I have to start a company. (Time 0:07:15)
[[Starting a company should be a last resort]]
Evergreen Notes: Turning Ideas into Memorable Chunks of Text Key takeaways: - The term ‘evergreen notes’ refers to the act of turning an idea into a memorable chunk of text. - Andy Matchak has written about evergreen notes, which are published and considered to be great. - Memorable quotes from famous people or books can be seen as examples of evergreen notes. - In the speaker’s personal writing system, evergreen notes are utilized as links or references in sentences. Transcript: Speaker 2 I think you actually perfectly teed up our topic today, which is evergreen notes. And partially I like this term for a lot of reasons comes up, but it’s also a back reference to one of our first guests we ever had on the podcast, Andy Matchak will link that in the show notes. But you have a great blog post titled evergreen notes turn ideas into objects you can manipulate. Speaker 1 Yeah, evergreen, I think that Andy’s notes about that that he’s published are really great. And what I like about my definition is just turning an idea into a memorable chunk of text, but memorable to you, like a meme that is a meme inside of your own thinking. How can you take an idea that you had or read and turn it into a memorable chunk? Like sometimes I think what we love about good quotes from like famous people or from books is that they are in a way and evergreen note because they take a feeling or a concept and turn it into this like memorable little chunk of text. And at least in the way that I write for my own personal thinking, having that little chunk of text, like you said, everything is a remix. That’s an evergreen note in my system. And I can use that in the context of a sentence that might start with because everything is a remix, you know, this thing that I found is interesting for that reason. And I use everything as a remix as a link in that sentence. (Time 0:23:07)
The Power of Writing Things Down to Free Up Mental Space Key takeaways: - Writing down ideas allows for rapid combination and manipulation of new concepts - Breaking down ideas into smaller pieces allows for building more complex thoughts with a stable foundation - Writing things down frees up mental space and allows for more capacity to do things manually - Automating tasks can open up capacity for manual processes, similar to writing down ideas freeing up mental capacity Transcript: Speaker 3 Yeah, that’s been my experience too. Or at least I think you can fool yourself into thinking that you can manipulate these things in your head because you can hold what seven things in your head. It’s like, oh, look, I have seven things on my head and I can even combine them in different ways. But it’s sort of false because once you write down 20 or 30 things and have them as discrete objects, that’s when you have the ability to rapidly play with new combinations. It’s one of those things that works unreasonably well, just writing it down because it takes it out of your head and it frees up one of those seven slots to put something in and it makes it possible for you to quickly pick up new objects to put in those seven slots from your written down items. Speaker 1 Yeah, and if you can break your ideas down into smaller and smaller pieces, you can also build up more complex ideas that you feel have a stable foundation. Like you can build ideas on top of each other into thinking more complex thoughts than you could otherwise think, which I think is exciting. That’s really fun. Yeah. Speaker 3 This idea of being able to build up more complex thoughts because you’ve written them down, it reminds me of this idea of automation and programming where sometimes it feels like you don’t really need to automate it because it’s basically going fine when you do it manually, which again, it’s true as as far as it goes. But really what happens is you have some capacity to do stuff manually. So if you automate it, you can add your manual stuff on top of that. So you basically open up the ceiling to be able to do more stuff as a computer user. It kind of has the same feeling to me as this idea of writing stuff down to free up more mental space. (Time 0:25:17)
The importance of work over tools in software creation Key takeaways: - Users care more about their work than the tools they use - Software creators can have an ego-centric view that the tool is the important part Transcript: Speaker 2 And it touches on a few things of very much of interest to me. I mean, one is I think that from a user perspective, putting aside how long of a duration you expect or want or would be desirable in your data, your work, the things you’ve created. Ultimately, I think, especially here talking about creators, people using tools or productivity software to make things, you really care about your work, not the tool. And obviously people can get excited about the hot new tool and they do and that’s a lot of fun. But ultimately I care about when I’m using a piece of video editing software to edit a video or I’m using a word processor to write my PhD dissertation, I care about what I’m creating way, way more than the tool itself. But as software creators, as tool makers, it’s very easy to have a certain kind of ego-centrism, which is the tool is the important part. Or maybe this even just comes from programmers where we think, well, the program is the complicated, interesting, important part. (Time 0:36:38) The work is more important than the tool
User Perspective: Caring About the Work, Not the Tool Key takeaways: - Users prioritize their work over the tools they use. - Ego-centrism among software creators can lead to a misguided focus on tools. - Understanding the user perspective is crucial for software creators. Transcript: Speaker 2 And it touches on a few things of very much of interest to me. I mean, one is I think that from a user perspective, putting aside how long of a duration you expect or want or would be desirable in your data, your work, the things you’ve created. Ultimately, I think, especially here talking about creators, people using tools or productivity software to make things, you really care about your work, not the tool. And obviously people can get excited about the hot new tool and they do and that’s a lot of fun. But ultimately I care about when I’m using a piece of video editing software to edit a video or I’m using a word processor to write my PhD dissertation, I care about what I’m creating way, way more than the tool itself. But as software creators, as tool makers, it’s very easy to have a certain kind of ego-centrism, which is the tool is the important part. Or maybe this even just comes from programmers where we think, well, the program is the complicated, interesting, important part. And all those bits we write to disk on behalf of the user, that’s kind of a secondary thing. But I think the user perspective is really the inverse of that. (Time 0:36:38) The work is more important than the tool
Tools for Thought and the Future of Creation Key takeaways: - The term ‘tools for thought’ sometimes prioritizes the tool over the thought - There is a sense of something significant happening in the field of tools for thought - New tools are being invented and society is making important decisions regarding them - These tools have the potential to unlock new thoughts and accelerate creative output - Consideration should be given to how the ideas and creations produced by these tools can be preserved and endure over time - We are at a turning point, similar to the printing press, where we can design these tools to achieve these goals Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think that’s why the term tools for thought kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes because it’s putting the tool at a higher level of importance than the thought in a weird way. And I think that the question that I’m wondering about is like, what are we doing on a civilizational level? When I say we, like everyone who’s involved in making and using tools for thought right now, what’s happening right now? Because it does feel like there’s something brewing, there’s like something that’s happening right now in this area that hasn’t, for some reason, it wasn’t happening 10 years ago or 20 years ago, it seems to be happening right now. And I do think we’re inventing some interesting new tools, and we’re making some interesting decisions about society or humanity in some way. And I feel like the things that we’ve been kind of talking about in this conversation are the things that we’re doing. We’re trying to unlock a way that people can have thoughts that they haven’t had before. Like maybe some of these tools can open up ideas and allow people to think more complex thoughts or accelerate their progress towards some sort of creative output that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get to without these tools. So that seems kind of cool and important. And then the other part is how did those ideas or creations or whatever you made, the outputs of the tool last for a long time, hopefully? I mean, maybe you make something very ephemeral and it’s not meant to last for a long time and that’s fine. But if you want them to be able to, they should. And I think that we’re at a turning point, like the printing press or something where we have the opportunity to kind of design these tools to hopefully pursue at least one or both of those goals. (Time 0:37:38)
Challenges in marketing a thinking-focused product: The importance of the epiphany Key takeaways: - Marketing a product for thinking can be challenging as the output is the epiphany - Thinking tools can help with achieving goals like a PhD dissertation or a software product - The thinking space allows for loose thoughts and open-ended exploration - Sketchbooks and other thinking spaces are meant for messy and combinatorial ideas - Transitioning to production tools after the aha moment is important Transcript: Speaker 2 Yeah, and that has been, I think, a challenge in just marketing a product to a wider audience that is fundamentally for thinking, which is the output is the epiphany. The output is the idea that you wouldn’t have had, as you said. And there may be pragmatically something where, again, you’re working on your PhD dissertation or your grand idea or your software product or whatever it is, and the thinking tools help you to achieve that. And maybe you’re copy-pasting some things out of it. And the way to me, it’s almost a feature that whatever it is, that plaintext file, that canvas or whatever form, the thinking space is taking, or even going to the physical world, right, the whiteboard or this sketchbook. It’s sort of a feature that my sketchbook, I can’t turn that into the finished artifact because the sketchbook is the place to have loose thoughts in a way that’s open-ended, that’s safe and private, that is just messy and combinatorial. And then when I feel like, okay, I’ve had the aha moment, this is the thing I need to say or do, now I’m going to move to those more kind of production tools. But that can seem confusing, I think, in some cases, because it sort of seems like you’re doing extra work and why. (Time 0:42:11) Thinking spaces are mean’t to be messy
The challenge of marketing a product for thinking and the role of thinking tools Key takeaways: - Marketing a product that facilitates thinking can be challenging - Thinking tools can help in achieving goals like completing a dissertation or developing a software product - Sketchbooks and other thinking spaces are valuable for generating loose, open-ended thoughts - Transitioning from thinking tools to production tools is necessary to execute ideas - Using externalized forms of thinking can be beneficial - The process may appear as extra work, but thinking is required regardless - Separate tools are needed to turn ideas into consumable or executable products - Being messy is difficult in a digital form Transcript: Speaker 2 Yeah, and that has been, I think, a challenge in just marketing a product to a wider audience that is fundamentally for thinking, which is the output is the epiphany. The output is the idea that you wouldn’t have had, as you said. And there may be pragmatically something where, again, you’re working on your PhD dissertation or your grand idea or your software product or whatever it is, and the thinking tools help you to achieve that. And maybe you’re copy-pasting some things out of it. And the way to me, it’s almost a feature that whatever it is, that plaintext file, that canvas or whatever form, the thinking space is taking, or even going to the physical world, right, the whiteboard or this sketchbook. It’s sort of a feature that my sketchbook, I can’t turn that into the finished artifact because the sketchbook is the place to have loose thoughts in a way that’s open-ended, that’s safe and private, that is just messy and combinatorial. And then when I feel like, okay, I’ve had the aha moment, this is the thing I need to say or do, now I’m going to move to those more kind of production tools. But that can seem confusing, I think, in some cases, because it sort of seems like you’re doing extra work and why. And I think of it as you’re doing the work you’re already doing in your head, but you’re doing it through this externalized form, as you said earlier, and that that is a help, even though it may, in a sense of what it looks like to an external person, look like I’m doing more work. But you have to do the thinking either way with or without the help, with or without the aid. And then there’s also that, how do you turn this into like a more production thing for consumption by other people or execute that idea? And that should just be a separate set of tools. Speaker 1 It is hard to be messy in a digital form. And I think that’s kind of, we’re trying to make that gradient (Time 0:42:11) It’s hard to be messy in digital tools