(2021-10-20) Rosano Wetware Of Writing And Doing

Rosano on his Wetware of writing and doing. Originally presented at Tools for Thought Rocks on October 29, 2021 (with slides and timestamps). I talk often about my apps and their features, but rarely about how I use them day-to-day—partially to leave space for people to imagine their own workflows, but also because I didn't think it wouldn't be of interest to share mine

This changed after a conversation... It made me realize 1) that interfaces clearly communicating 'features' doesn't mean people appropriate them, 2) the importance of good affordances to help people go beyond merely 'using the app' to extending themselves in the process. The larger question to address here is: how can the environment better transmit what is possible so that those within it can take fuller advantage?

I practice a productivity trinity which can be summarized as:
Capture everything: get ideas out of your head as soon as possible.
Organize if needed: move it where you are likely to encounter it.
Purge: do it or delete it as soon as possible.

The mix of details below might seem chaotic, but they all relate to these three points in some way.

One objective of Capture everything is to keep going: I avoid interruptions like checking out links people send me and do everything later

delaying consumption has the benefit of obsoleting some things before you get to it.

Pocket is for reading because it syncs with my e-reader

and for checking out websites because I like to close all my browser tabs as soon as possible;

1Feed is for newsletters

Joybox is for audiovisual media segmented with tags for listening, watching, and passive consumption

Emoji Log is for personal tracking and time-bound journaling, like books I read or recipes I cook, or more personal thoughts and monitoring emotions

For everything else, there's Hyperdraft, which is mostly reference-oriented and not time-bound—it functions as: dashboards of to-dos for dozens of projects; space to mix private and public writing; an environment that spans the entire arc of 'capture, brainstorm, organize, outline, draft, write, publish' that is on all my devices and local-first, thus minimizing discontinuities from needing to be in a specific place or not having internet access; writing queues my for various newsletters and a templating system for Ephemerata; quick jot-pads for when I'm not sure where to put something; and a convenient place for Ideas increment automatically when they are captured. (digital garden)

uneasiness about being overwhelmed

serenity is stronger when you trust yourself to attend to them

Many of my strategies help me avoid being 'completist'

if I haven't moved on it in weeks, if it's expired or irrelevant now, into the void it goes. It took me a while to realize that 'delete' can mean "I don't want to be reminded of this"; we have to train digital systems to not show things 'forever'.

One rhythm I frequently engage in with enthusiasm is work digress cycle.

I've been surprised at how this idea of queues helps me 'write without magic'.

the queues function like buckets collecting drips of water

can be marked as prompts for finalizing, which for me implies taking a queue or list of items to sort, group, massage, tidy, and publish (intermediate packet)