An Update from CreaDev Labs: October 18, 2022

Hello there! I'm Brennan Davis, the creator of CreaDev Labs, a place of learning and experimentation on productivity, creativity, and personal knowledge management. Each week I share tips, experiments, and resources to help you build your very own productivity and knowledge management systems. If you're new around here, be sure to check out my archive of previous newsletter editions. If you enjoy this newsletter, please consider sharing with a friend!

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In a previous newsletter I talked about how I was working on starting a YouTube channel. I had hoped to have it going by the end of September. Well, September has come and gone, and I still haven't started my YouTube channel. There's a lot of work that goes into making videos, and I haven't quite figured out the right video production schedule. I also recently had some large projects come up that are taking precedence (one of which is for CreaDev Labs that I think is really exciting. More details to come on that later!).

I still fully intend to start a YouTube channel, and will continue to generate ideas, write scripts, create channel art, etc. so I'm well prepared when I'm ready to start filming. This is a great example of how plans can and will change, and the need for flexibility when they do. Productivity is all about experimenting, finding what works, and pivoting when necessary.

I'm learning a lot from my YouTube experience, even though I haven't done a whole lot so far. I look forward to sharing the lessons I learn from it all in the near future.

Questions or comments? Feel free to email me at brennan@creadevlabs.com

What's New on CreaDev Labs:

What I Like About the Bullet Journal
A list of my favorite features of the popular analog productivity system.

Summary of Atomic Habits: How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
A Sketchnoted summary of chapter 3 of James Clear's book "Atomic Habits"

Experiments:

I tried something new this past week when writing my articles for CreaDev Labs.

I created throw away notes in GoodNotes on my iPad and wrote the initial draft of each article by hand. I did this as a way of overcoming some writer's block I'd been having over one of the articles. Writing the draft out by hand allowed my brain to think about the article in a new way, and I found my writer's block was cleared. I was able to get a draft out in a fraction of the time it normally takes me to type one out. It also helped me to be more concise in my writing as it's more physical effort to write something by hand than to type it.

GoodNotes has the ability to convert handwritten text to typed text, so once I was done with my rough draft, I converted all my writing and copied it into Obsidian. I then discarded the note in GoodNotes, and did all my revisions in Obsidian. Like I mentioned already, I was able to get my articles done in a fraction of the time using this workflow. I'm going to continue using it and see if continues to improve my output.

Tip: The next time you experience a mental block when trying to perform a task, try changing up your approach. Doing something as simple as writing by hand instead of typing was enough of a difference to my brain to clear my mental block and allow me to work even more efficiently than I had been before.

What I'm Reading / Watching / Listening to:

Video: Bujo 101: The Rolling Weekly
This video talks about a simple approach to keeping track of a weekly task list in a Bullet Journal. I've been keeping my weekly task list in my task manager Things 3, and I find I don't end up looking at it much after setting it up during my weekly review. I'd like to try the method described in this video in hopes that it'll help me see my weekly task list more, and therefore get more of the tasks on it done.

Video: 10 Tips for More Productive Workspaces
My productivity system is often focused on my work tasks, and doesn't always extend to home. This video was helpful in generating some ideas on how to get better at home organization. I especially like the tips regarding cutting down on how much stuff I have. I'm not an extreme minimalist, but having less stuff to clean up is always a welcome thing.