Linking Your Thinking

The Fall of the Note "Taker"

Suddenly, my notes felt lost to me. Where did it all go wrong?

It was a joy in the beginning. But as my digital library grew, something happened. My notes started to disappear. Not literally, but I couldn't find them because there was so much junk clogging up my searches. ‍ Too much NOISE drowning out the SIGNAL. ‍ Like a chronic headache, a terrible sensation followed me everywhere. My digital thoughts felt locked away. Somehow, I gave myself “digital dementia.” ‍ How did this happen? How does my joy evaporate?

And how did I overcome it?

This is the exact system of "fluid frameworks" I’ve used to build my personal digital library with thousands of notes.

It's helped me develop my thinking, expand my businesses, produce fulfilling creative projects, and engage in countless compelling conversations.

From 2008 to 2015, I used Evernote. My notes were great at first. But just like the creepy character in the movie offering our heroes candy, the initial sweetness lured me into a trap that I barely escaped from!

My notes still have the scars to show for it. Scars like horrendously formatted text and links that no longer work. ‍ ​For the past six years, I discovered a better way to organize my ideas—and build them too.‍ ​​Yes, it's based on linking notes together. But it's equally based on an emergent structure that can organically support your notes over time.

Linking Your Thinking provides me a method. A process I now use to grow my ideas. ‍Before I took this workshop I had thousands of notes on Evernote. They contain everything that interest me, but these notes make me feel anxious because there was not an easy way to find them or have them related.

‍Now I have more clarity in putting my ideas in order.

Mapping My Way Out

Even as I sank into Evernote's trap of digital madness, I was clawing back. I developed a basic system of using “Map" notes, which were basically “notes with links to other notes." ‍I used these "Map" notes to grow, develop, and manage a fitness boxing business — expanding it in the US, Scandinavia, and Saudi Arabia. I also used it extensively to produce two indie feature films—along with a bunch of other common uses like writing, tracking, and journaling. ‍ The Maps—now called MOCs for "Maps of Content"—worked, but the health of my digital note system continued to fail. After several years, just the thought of opening Evernote created anxiety for me. The happiness I used to feel using my digital note library was experiencing “death by a thousand cuts”.

I am so grateful for this community of such talented and intelligent people.

I am always learning new things from them and getting questions answered by a very warm and curious crowd. I really love this workshop and community and can't believe how much it has helped me grow in such short period of time.

It's making me rethink how I organize way more than notes in Obsidian. So glad that I took the leap.

I left Evernote and went to plain text in 2015. I adopted the Zettelkasten Method and started linking my thinking. But even that was not enough to scale my thoughts. I craved a higher level to view and develop my thoughts. I craved my maps. So I continued to develop my mapping system. ‍I used my MOCs (map notes) as the foundation for my entrance into the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.

In the span of one year, I went from being a PA (essentially getting people coffee), to being the assistant editor on a feature film (working for a brilliant Emmy winning editor), to getting my first credit as an editor (a 5x upgrade in pay). ‍ While being in the right place at the right time certainly played a role, so did having a system of digital notes that I could develop and trust. I used it to accelerate my career by extensively developing 4 major MOCs under the topics of: The Industry, Relationships, Storytelling, and the Craft of Editing. ‍I felt I had a few special ideas — like MOCs — that I hadn’t seen elsewhere else.

But I also figured it was just a cognitive bias I had. That's when the Obsidian beta came around. That's when I shared the "Linking Your Thinking" Frameworks in a starter kit now known as the LYT Kit.

"You write them like you're going to read them again" was a huge revelation. Being able to give yourself different types of context, depending on where you are, has been... one of the most valuable lessons for me across any of the parts of this that we're talking about.

The Linking Your Thinking (LYT) System solves the two biggest problems in PKM: too much structure and too little. ‍1. Too much structure The biggest problem with Microsoft Word and even Evernote was how dependent they are on folders (not to mention crippling “feature-bloat”). ‍Our brains don’t work naturally within a folder-dominant framework. It makes it difficult to develop ideas. ‍2. Too little structure The "Folder Rebellion" has now gone mainstream with apps like The Archive, Roam, and Obsidian. They all rely on LINKS as the main way of relating notes. ‍ Links are an evolutionary leap over folders. Links encourage the development of your ideas to more closely resemble how our brains actually work. ‍ But the problem with only using links is how claustrophobic it can feel… ‍ It's like navigating Mirkwood Forest at night—with only a torch. Sure it’s adventurous, but sometimes you want the birds-eye view.

(Remember the LYT Kit? It's now been downloaded over 25,000 times!)

1. You can develop ideas quickly and effortlessly using direct links.
2. You can zoom out and confidently see the bigger picture at any time!

The Rise of The Note “Maker”

Before the 2020s, a note was just a note. A note was something you took, used, and tossed.

Let's call this: "Churn and Burn". But now, in the Age of the [[Linked]] Note things are different. Now notes can grow and evolve with other notes, to form a living system of related thoughts that you can develop throughout your lifetime.

Let's call this: "Know and Grow".THE ANSWER ISN'T MORE NOTES... IT'S BETTER NOTES. ‍ Thinking through linking your ideas is seriously a revolution. Sure, the internet has had links for decades, but now regular peons like you and me can create links as quickly as we can think of them — without any programming, and in a way that is future-proofed! ‍ We stand on the cusp of this new age of thinking, and like a great frontier, the opportunities stretch out before us. ‍ But with this superpower finally at our fingertips, it's important to have a flexible system you can: customize, scale, and trust.

At first, I was a bit hesitant in joining the workshop because of the price... but I went with my gut, and it was/is so worth the money. The workshop makes you look into why you need a PKM in the first place and what it could do for you. At the end of the workshop, a new world has opened up, and you will realize this is just the beginning of the journey.

Create your Custom PKM System NOW!

You have the ability to create FAST notes. You have the ability to create LINKED notes. You just have to figure out a way to: make, grow, develop, and scale your ideas now—and into the future.

With Linking Your Thinking, my prime directive is helping you get more joy out of your digital notes, on your way to accomplishing valuable things with them.

Is This Workshop for You?

• A life-long learner, a raconteur, or any sort of curious, open mind
• A writer or researcher or student
• An independent thinker who is interested in many things
• Feeling discouraged with information overload
• Tired of being disorganized with your valuable notes
• Sharing your unique insights. Like, how you found wildly interesting links between Frankenstein, Ex Machina, and Greek theater—and how they all relate to the use of digital and physical use of masks in society—and you want to be able to share that insight today—as well as ten years from now (with whatever added complexities Life has thrown your way—like what using a mask means in the politicized society dealing with a pandemic).
• Build and create things
• Enhance your working memory when dealing with complex ideas
• Never lose the ideas and hard-earned insights you've had
• Construct a well-formed essay or write a book
• Develop a living system of related thoughts that you can tend to throughout your lifetime—and then maybe even pass it on to your relatives as the gift they never knew they wanted ;)
• Never worry about forgetting your valuable ideas
• Keep Optionality: the ability to pivot or shift careers, side projects at the drop of a hat (or the onset of a pandemic!)

Please Don't Sign Up If You're Still Chasing "Shiny"

This workshop is NOT for you if you want to keep chasing:

• Rigid "one size fits all" systems
• The latest apps
• Hyper productivity
• Fragile over-optimizations

Before I took this workshop, I had unanswered problems with my productivity flow that I could only begin to solve.

I continued to float from app to app to app like so many other people.

Now that I've gone through it, I feel confident that I no longer need to do that - my system now is it. I'll still be with this when I'm 120 years old.

What will I experience in this 6-week workshop?

Every Tuesday, live 60-minute super sessions

1. You review the latest curriculum insights.
2. You get hands-on time in breakout rooms.
3. You rapidly develop your systems and ideas.
4. You get and receive feedback to instantly iterate.
5. Plus an extra 20+ minutes of Q&A after hours.

Every Wednesday, live 60-minute sense-making sessions

1. These are high-value training sessions where you work your note-making muscles.
2. Strengthen and rebuild your muscles of thinking critically, creatively, connectively—and generatively—all at the same time.
3. You receive 60+ minutes of video and exercises each week.
4. Each unit covers crucial elements of the latest PKM theory and practice.

What is offered in this 6-week workshop?

1. 8 live super sessions (90+ minutes of lessons, exercises, breakout rooms, and Q&As).
2. 4 sense-making sessions (60+ minutes of hands-on sense-making).
3. A private online forum filled with diverse thinkers all interested in knowledge management. This is a home you never knew you wanted.
4. An opportunity to show and share your progress with your peers. These "showcase" sessions are a great way to galvanize your efforts and learn from an amazing gathering of great thinkers.
5. A complementary workbook for the workshop.
6. Results to your PKM personality based on LYT's proprietary "PKM Planet" survey.
7. Lifetime access to the workshop curriculum.
8. Lifetime access to curriculum updates.
9. Lifetime access to the community forum.
10. Lifetime access to all the recordings from your workshop.

The Linking Your Thinking Curriculum

If you're tired of switching apps and chasing the shiny stuff—and you're ready to regain a sense of trust and mastery with your digital notes... ‍ ​And you're okay with putting in the work...​Then I promise you, that you can start 2022 with your own personalized, flexible, future-proof PKM system. ​ It will be a system that can give you peace of mind and tremendous joy.​ It will be a system you can create and grow with—over decades. It's time to take your thinking to another level!

Your Investment Details

Workshop

Workshop+

Six weeks of intensive interactions with: ‍ 1) great content 2) great people 3) great organization/production 4) great help to go over whatever issues emerged during the workshop 5) extremely friendly staff willing to help at ANY time even though I was a novice in many areas 6) It was even funny; I had a lot of fun and had many laughs together with my Cohort. The biggest thing I am taking away is one of the most pleasant experiences in my entire life.

If you are looking for a "language" to exchange information between your most inner-self and the external world, this workshop will get you on the way.

The Linking your thinking workshop helped me use my OWN brain when I write or make sense of all the data incoming. And to align what I do in those depths to what my core values and bigger mission is in life.

The experience I liked the most was the idea of making sharp choices: question everything. Especially your own assumptions and hidden ways of thinking and doing.

This was a game changer for me. My PKM is a direct reflection of me and not some half-modelled, half-copied system of someone else.

Moving from note-taker to note-maker is one of the most powerful ways you can improve the quality of your own thinking.

This workshop will show you how to harness the power of idea emergence to improve your thinking, engage with the work of other thinkers, boost your creativity and make each day more productive.

I especially liked the Discourse community. Certain members of our cohort have been terrific about sharing their successes, failures, attempts, frustrations, aspirations and their organizational strategies, and I loved those interactions.

Nick has used his digital notes to develop, grow, and manage a fitness boxing business—keeping it business for over a decade and expanding it in the US, Scandinavia, and Saudi Arabia.

He's used his digital notes to produce and act in two indie feature films, along with a bunch of other typical uses like writing, tracking, and journaling.

Most recently, Nick used his digital notes as the foundation for his entrance into the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, where he accelerated his career by developing 4 major MOCs under the topics of: The Industry, Relationships, Storytelling, and the Craft of Editing.

In the span of one year, he went from being a PA (essentially getting people coffee), to being the assistant editor on a feature film (working for a brilliant Emmy winning editor), to getting his first credit as an editor (a 5x upgrade in pay).

While being in the "right place at the right time" certainly played a role, so did having a system of digital notes that he could develop and trust — notes that have been compounding in value for him with each passing year.