🌌 Weekly Wondering 2023-W22
Using AI in your Second Brain, thinking critically, and balance
Welcome to another edition of Weekly Wondering, a sacred time where I share the resonating links, reflections and learnings from my past week to influence your next one ;)
This newsletter is my version of learning and thinking in public, giving me time to expand on ideas that may turn into more refined content in the future.
If you want to see more of my ideas (or to learn about who I am if you're new here), you can head to my digital notes garden.
✨ In My Life
This one is going to be a short one since I just got home from a long day without any writing prior throughout the week 😭
My published second brain update
Nothing major has happened, I've just been slowly chipping away at it with respect to my other responsibilities (see my ramblings header for more information).
Instead, I've been working on creating my YouTube content and refining my second brain systems, which leads me to...
A 3-part series on using AI for your second brain
I know I said I would upload a video on me restarting my vault, but after attending Tiago Forte's $75 AI workshop and being highly disappointed, I've felt a personal calling to make my free content better than his paid - to work on a 3-part series on how to use AI in your second brain (more specifically, Obsidian).
It will go over:
A tutorial on how to set up AI for ChatGPT, AI-based connections, and a personalized chatbot from your notes
Prompts and workflows I use to integrate these AI tools into Tiago Forte's personal knowledge management process, the CODE method
A real-life, start-to-finish process of using it (still undecided on the day in the life or following the reading of a book until the end)
I started working on the video end of Friday and gave myself the unrealistic expectation to finish it by Sunday, but expect it to be uploaded sometime throughout the week (very courageous of me to not post on the weekend for optimal viewership, I know).
🔗 Links to Thinks
I'll just share what I've highlighted recently and my annotations for each (💭 was made during highlight, normal bullet points were done just now to recall why I highlighted or add onto it)
Différance: How To Think Critically In The Age of Content
I think this guy is my favorite content creator on meaningful and philosophical reading thanks to both his ideas and writing style 😅
There’s a gradual shift of focus on the internet from content to personality . Aesthetic values and the charms of the presenter, in this case, overshadowed critic al assessments of arguments. When we say we want to “watch a YouTube video on a subject”, we say, “I want my favourite influencer to tell me what to think”. Personalities have short-circuited our ability to engage critically with information, and all we’re looking for are clear-cut answers for subjects that are supposed to be confusing. (View Highlight)
Similar to a previous video I watched where they argued that now even educational content is being prioritized as entertainment to keep people engaged and make them "feel" like they are doing something productive
when the bulk of our informational diet is fed to us by popular blog posts, viral YouTube videos, and Instagram reels, we no longer have space in our heads to assess what we’ve read or heard. Entertainment had, in a sense, masqueraded itself as truth. (View Highlight)
Only makes me want to keep reading a a non-negotiable habit every day like in the past, I'm afraid that once I do get back into it I'll have the attention span and critical thinking of a goldfish 😭
if we always try to reduce learning to clear-cut answers, we’re missing out on the joy of embracing ambiguities and deeper insights. (View Highlight)
💭 The problem of reading summaries instead of the textbook
This is why I love reading with Obsidian on the side so much - I get to log my thoughts in real-time which is supported by my Book Application Template
If we truly embrace confusion, we’ll be immune to the effects of mindless online information. We can suspend information and critically assess them before adopting them. In that sense, our reason is grounded and not easily moved by nonsense. And from that place, we can still enjoy content from our favourite creators, yet we can take a deeper pleasure in shades of subtler thoughts, reaching new insights that will allow us to live intelligently. (View Highlight)
💭 Argues for staying in confusion to think critically instead of conveniently searching for a quick solution
Once again, the importance of reading and
31 Lessons I’ve Learned About Money
Pretty self-explanatory, just some personal lessons from the stoic author Ryan Holiday that made me think.
I had this idea that I wanted to be a millionaire by 25. Where this number came from, I don’t know. I made it up, it was ego, and I didn’t hit it. But you know what the difference of getting there a little later was? Nothing. No one throws you a party. Accomplishments don’t change who you are. (View Highlight)
I think it actually is nicer to hit it early, but that's only if you have a purpose that will last longer than simply
The further away you are, the less the small difference will matter. Since I'm still 19, I have a long ways to go and shouldn't beat myself up if I don't exactly hit my goals
“Ryan,” he said, “What do you do with your money?” Basically, I just put it in the bank, I told him. “Then why are you doing so many things you dislike to earn more of it?” he replied. This insight changed the course of my business as well as my life. Making money is easier than most people think—knowing why and what for, and not being driven in the wrong direction to get it? Much harder. (View Highlight)
Obviously circumstances differ, but if you have the skills and history of making money online then it's important you be more picky with what offers you take since money isn't scarce anymore
In my case, even though consultations may pay a lot and people have been asking me for it, I don't want to do it just for the income, and would only want to start it again if I have the time and energy to immerse myself into it
I satisfy my fulfillment from volunteer work by just replying to comments and emails hehe
the money I was spending on ads made basically no positive impact on the world (if any impact at all), but articles and videos could at least be enjoyed by people (for free no less), even if they didn’t drive the same amount of ROI. In the long run, this content will be around forever and have a bigger and more meaningful reach.
Focus on playing positive-sum, long-term games that give people value
This has been especially fruitful in my own content through my efforts to respond to every comment and make my content available regardless of country
🚀 Actionable Tingz
Infusing AI with my voice-to-text rambles
If you've been reading this newsletter for a while, you're probably familiar with me using voice-to-text on my phone during walks to empty my mind in a stream of consciousness.
Recently I've been trying to do so by using Audiopen, and it's revolutionized the proccess.
Instead of pure text with no puncutation, you can choose the size of the summary in relation to the size of the raw transcription, and you can also choose the style of writing you want it to adopt (bullet point, creative, simple, etc).
I've just been using it to dump the events of a day for my daily summary, and it's done a good job of retaining information.
Of course, it won't be able to completely read your mind and know what to keep vs extract, but it was super convenient to have my thoughts cleaned up for me to just simply paste for the cost of one missing detail I noticed it left (but that might even be fixable by adjusting the settings).
I'm currently using the free version and find it useful, so I won't link the affiliate yet. You can check it out at
https://audiopen.ai/
😤 My Ramblings
Trying to balance everything all at once
I'm really driven to do a lot of things in my life, but the problem is the fact that I'm so passionate for a lot of things in my life.
I have:
my full time developer internship at SAP
my personal brand (YouTube, weekly newsletter)
my digital products (Ultimate Starter Vault and Obsidian University) and everything associated with it
the daily maintenance I want to do on my vault for writing, processing, and journalling
my fitness goals of going to the gym 5 times a week
my never-ending newsletter, YouTube, podcasts I save for later
all the notes and content I already have that I need to process
the old keystone habit of reading for an hour a day I want to bring back
my animes and games I want to play
the people I hold really close to in my life I try to make time for through activities and conversations since it was something I neglected a lot during my productivity no-life phase (friends, family, and you know who you are!)
the AI notes app I'm chatting and ideating on
the endless am
And on paper I think it's manageable, but lately I've just been having poor energy levels during the afternoon.
It might be because of a glucose spike after eating, or it might be because of me not taking actual, restful breaks, I'll be experimenting throughout the week to find causes and solutions.
I've been trying my best to rise to the occasion, with this week being the lowest for "unproductive" leisure:
7.5 hours of gaming (which was still with friends!)
2 hours of entertainment youtube
1.5 hours of mindless scrolling
It feels really good to have been so intentional and meaningful with my time, but it's just a weird feeling to know that it's still not enough to stay on top of everything I want to do.
As I was going through my old Weekly Wonderings to pull up an example of me mentioning voice-to-text, I came across this previous rambling on the importance of doing nothing and being mindful so I can focus on what I've already achieved.
I mentioned my usual tendencies of hyperfixating on goals and work, and how I need to balance it with more wandering and leisure like going on walks, paying attention to my surroundings in great detail.
But as I've had the past few months to do just that and "compensate" for my workaholic phase, I'm ready to get back into things.
It just feels weird being so fluid in my beliefs, to completely rearrange my values from relationship-oriented and Eastern-esque to more ambitious and deep work.
But I guess that's part of my goal to self-actualize? To continue experimenting with the different decisions I can make, whether it be a daily habit or long-term vision, to see how it has a butterfly effect on the rest of my perception of the world.
To mould into the version of myself that can best fit my current opportunities and situation, to treat life like a game and min/max it like I usually do.
Because to overcome my current situation, I can go different ways:
I can follow principles similar to “Four Thousand Weeks” so I can not feel the pressure and incentive to optimize my time and efforts
I can follow principles similar to “High Performance Habits” to grind it out and
I can follow principles from “Essentialism” to reduce my wide net of interests and focus on a core few things that are most important
Gotta love the paradox of choice 😎 I’ll probably continue trying to push through it as I miss this feeling of trying to balance it all hehe
But yeah, until next time since it’s past my bedtime and I had no intention of even writing this in the first place…