🔆 I'll help you...learn faster, manage ideas better, & create inspired work more often.
♻️ Worked for: HBO, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, & UCLA.
🤿 Trained employees at: MIT, Team USA, Nike & Harvard.
❓What if you could improve how you did your thinking? What effect would that have on everything else you do?
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Please Copy My Example of Notemaking
Published 6 months ago • 6 min read
Hey friends,
I've felt like a different person these last few weeks. I've worked less. I've forced myself to not do the usual routine. Instead of sitting at the desk, I'll sit on the floor. Instead of lifting heavier weights, I'll crawl on the ground. I'm exploring spirituality in a way I haven't for the past decade. I'm wondering about the role psychedelics play in spirituality. I literally bought a book called "The Way of the Shaman"!
I'm wondering how to classify things like "mind" and "body", along with things like "soul" and "spirit" and "heart". After much soul-searching (heehee), here's my current framework: Body, Soul (Mind & Heart), and Spirit.
These three form a Venn diagram of sorts. I was most surprised by soul. I didn't think it covered the mind, but my research suggested it did. How do you classify these things? What's your mental model?
You may be wondering why I care about this sort of stuff, but I care because I mean it when I talk about your PKM being holistic.
Linking Your Thinking has never just been about the cold, intellectual pursuit of objective facts. It's been about the pursuit of meaning, which requires a variation of temperatures, some quite hot.
Yesterday and today, I am at YouTube's VidCon outside of Los Angeles. It's so empowering. If you are not attending live events, you may be missing out on deeply nourishing opportunities for the soul.
I hope some of you join me at the Second Brain Summit Oct 3-4th. We'll have special LYT meetups on the 5th too. Maybe including a warm stroll down the Venice beach boardwalk...
There is a big announcement for Writing Original Works coming soon.
I am studying fascia, the connective tissue of the body.
Here's a trusted athletic perspective on fascia from Bill Parisi, someone I've followed since 2009 when I used his speed training methodology to train middle school kids in athletic performance.
This might be for you if...teams and even academic institutions that want a a shared knowledge base
Good for...When you want to go from PKM to CKM: Collaborative Knowledge Management.
Notemaking
Kintsugi
"I am the physical manifestation of a growth mindset."
Kintsugi is the Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery with golden paste, where the "brokenness" is the beauty—an ode to the object's history—rather than for it to be discarded or hidden.
Spark to Remark
It's about repairing objects, but it's really about embracing flaws and imperfections.
It's important because it transforms breakage into beauty, teaching us resilience and appreciation for imperfection.
A beautiful example of Kintsugi
Relate
It is similar to Wabi-sabi because both concepts find beauty in flaws and imperfections.
It is different from Wabi-sabi because Kintsugi is a physical repair process, while Wabi-sabi is a broader aesthetic philosophy.
It causes a renewed appreciation for damaged objects.
It contributes to a sustainable practice by encouraging the reuse of items.
The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
💡 What do these concepts remind you of? I can think of a few answers, but the correct answer isn't from me—it's from you—because the correct answer is the one that is personally meaningful.
YOUR TURN
COPY THIS INTO YOUR IDEAVERSE.
JUST CREATE A NOTE CALLED "KINTSUGI" AND PASTE.
YOU CAN LITERALLY DO THIS FOR ANY IDEA YOU COME ACROSS!
LYT Product Update
Ideaverse Pro
Experiments that may make it into 1.5 or 2.0
You don't need my system to create your own ideaverse, but thousands of people have benefitted from owning a complete working version of a trusted reference: my ideaverse. Well, I'm working on going from version 1.0 to 1.5. I want to work in public on this. Here are the main updates so far:
Moving “xstra” stuff out of Atlas and into x (see screenshot)
A sneak peek at the revised ACE-x foldering system
Testing out the "Folder notes" plugin, which cleans up the Efforts folder.
Changing Effort names: On to "In Progress" and Ongoing to "Ambient".
Creating a simplified Home note without the fancy callouts.
Adding a robust "outputs" workflow to the Home note.
Adding a brand new, customized theme that allows serif fonts to shine.
Everyone who bought Ideaverse Pro in the last 12 months will instantly get access to 1.5 when it drops.
Today, society loves Van Gogh's artwork. We understand he was a passionate person who painted in bold brushstrokes. But recently while in the Netherlands, I went to the Van Gogh museum and took a guided tour. It was deeply impactful, especially near the end, when I welled up in tears.
Van Gogh's last piece of art, painted in 1890.
It was that kind of unstoppable tearing up that happens when you're in public and don't want to burst out crying. His final artwork suddenly made so much sense. It was infused with terrible loneliness. I suddenly became so sad for Vincent. He was so lonely. A few years earlier, he had written to all of his Paris friends to join him in the French countryside. Two sent him paintings. One showed up. But he and that friend had a violent falling out in which Vincent cut off his own ear. After that, Vincent was completely alone, with only a mental health doctor and his brother who kept up with him. Before his fateful end, he painted this painting, "Tree Roots". I felt his pain.
Karen has become a trusted friend and creative confidante. She shines as a beacon in the LYT community and beyond.
Nine years after early retirement, Karen feels like her work as an educator, author and facilitator was a lifetime ago. She is now fully absorbed in doing her best to live poet Mary Oliver’s Instructions for Life — “Pay attention. Be amazed. Tell about it.”
The storage capacity of the first commercial computer disk drive, released by IBM in 1957. Surprisingly, that could still hold hundreds of plain-text markdown notes today!
1918
The premiere of Gustav Holst’s The Planets orchestral suite, one of my personal favorites. Holst had composed this suite over three years after being inspired during a discussion with friends about astrology (and not astronomy as I'd thought).
It's a weird feeling to be trying to do less lately. I suppose the one exception is this newsletter. I'm trying to create a format that reliably compels me (and sometimes the team) to give you an intellectually stimulating reading experience that is still personal—and at times—revealing. Does this issue strike a good balance?
Stay Connected,
Nick Milo Milodragovich
P.S...I am at VidCon outside of Los Angeles. It's been so informative. I've basically fallen backwards into being a Creator (and YouTuber) and this conference is filling in some many knowledge gaps! Here's me with friends Tiago Forte and Kevin Espiritu after the YouTube keynote.
To respond to this newsletter, just hit reply. I love getting replies, and read all of them, but I have sadly come to the conclusion I can't realistically reply to most. Trust me, I hate this. But, well, Life puts limits on all of us. Thank you for your understanding. (And if you received this email from a friend, and would like to subscribe, please go here.)
🎟️ Want to sponsor a newsletter (45,000+ subs)? Get in touch.
🔆 I'll help you...learn faster, manage ideas better, & create inspired work more often.
♻️ Worked for: HBO, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, & UCLA.
🤿 Trained employees at: MIT, Team USA, Nike & Harvard.
❓What if you could improve how you did your thinking? What effect would that have on everything else you do?
Hey friends, As most of you know, I recently went on a personal retreat. I spent the first two hours reviewing every aspect of my life. This epic life audit made a major impact on me, so much so that I want to equip you with the template to do your own. Get the Obsidian template and follow along on YouTube » Your hidden benefit for doing this exercise isn't your final score, it's the hidden emotions and deeper understandings that bubble up, because they will create clarity in where you are in...
Hey friends, You know that amazing Writing Original Works workshop we ran in May? Well, we are remaking it as a self-paced course. It launches July 26th. Watch my intro into the WOW self-paced course » I've got multiple quick things to share on upcoming updates to products (like Ideaverse 1.5), future videos, and other cool Obsidian-related things. Watch 7-8 updates from me » I've been doing YouTube all wrong. For a while now, I've been hyper-focused on all the stuff that happens AFTER...
Hey friends, Today, I'm around Butte, Montana celebrating the Fourth of July holiday with my extended family. During the festivities, Butte transforms into a kind of war-zone with Roman Candles and Artillery Shells blasting across streets and rooftops. However, all of that stopped at 10:31pm on July 3rd when the city's show began. It lasted for 20 minutes. Here's a clip in the middle of the action: While America is far from perfect, these communal, small-town vibes where everyone is a part of...