(2023-06-28) Kohalyk Spatial Computing Infinite Canvas And New Perspectives

Chad Kohalyk on Spatial Computing, Infinite Canvas, and new perspectives. My zettelkasten practice certainly needs a rethink. I still love Obsidian though, it is by far my most used daily app.

Recently the Metamuse podcast (Ep 81) hosted Stephan Ango, the CEO of Obsidian. It included some conversation on evergreen notes and how Stephan thinks about them. I like his technique about distilling the idea down to a memorable phrase (eg. “cross the chasm” or “everything is a remix”). (naming, meme)

but what happens when you have so much and so diverse info coming at you at once that you can’t make sense of which way is up, nevermind the time-luxury to distill ideas into pithy quotes?

That is where the other part of the Metamuse interview comes in: last year Obsidian released its new Canvas feature. It was interesting hearing the makers of Muse.app talk to the Obsidian CEO about “spatial computing.”

2D spatial computing is usually referred to as infinite canvas. The infinite canvas is not really a clear category but more of a characteristic used by all sorts of things like drawing apps, mindmappers, outliners, UML diagrammers, and “thinking” apps like Muse.app.

There are a ton of others on https://infinitecanvas.tools/ Omnigraffle; Xmind; Sketch; Lucidchart; draw.io; Mindnode; Mindmeister; Scapple; OneNote; Goodnotes; Notability; Miro; Whimsical; Figma; Excalidraw; tldraw; Muse; Zoom whiteboard; Apple’s Freeform; and most recently the Canvas feature of Obsidian

I keep trying infinite canvas apps, but unfortunately none really stuck. This is surprising considering how much of a huge whiteboarder I am!

When you are faced with a pile of note fragments, unsure as to what is up or down, Nick Milo recommends you reorient yourself by making a map. (roadmap page)

When you have reached a mental squeeze point, maybe try using an infinite canvas app to give yourself a new perspective – and map yourself out of the forest!