Checklists

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Of all of the mental models on the list, this one might be the most familiar and one that you’ve used the most often. How often have you used checklists in your life? More importantly, how often have you ignored using a checklist (like running to the grocery store “for a few things”) and ended up wishing you had?

There are a huge variety of checklists you could create, but they often filter into three main buckets.

One-time checklists

This is likely the most common. We have a list of things to do or to purchase, so we write it down and cross them off as we go.

Reusable checklists

I use a few of these. I have some personal ones for various things (such as a default “travel” checklist), and we employ quite a few template-based checklists for projects that we’re working on.

Professional checklists

If you’re getting on an airplane or having surgery, you should really hope that the people in charge are using their checklists properly. In his fantastic book “The Checklist Manifesto“, author Atul Gawande explains how checklists have quite literally changed the world.

When it comes to checklists, Charlie Munger is certainly a fan:

I’m a great believer in solving hard problems by using a checklist. You need to get all the likely and unlikely answers before you; otherwise it’s easy to miss something important.

You can use fancy software or just a pen and paper, but writing out a checklist is a great way to stay on task and get things done without missing any steps along the way.

You don’t have the ability to waste my time

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There are perhaps some circumstances where the title of this post is wrong, but 99% of time-wasting is either something that you’re doing to yourself, or something that you shouldn’t be willing to put up with.

In the book “The Go-Giver“, Joe is concerned that he might be wasting Pindar’s time, but Pindar assures him that this isn’t possible. In fact, Pindar is discussing his “Condition” in order to make sure that he’s not the one wasting Joe’s time. From the book:

Joe nodded slowly. “I think I understand. You want to make sure I’m not wasting your time. Fair enough.” Pindar smiled. “Joe, no offense, but you don’t have that power.” Joe looked confused. “I mean, the power to waste my time. Only I can do that. And truthfully, it’s a vice I gave up a long time ago. The reason for my Condition is that I don’t want to see you wasting your time.”

Time Wasting

The idea of “wasting time” is interesting to me, as I certainly waste plenty of my own time. I’m wrapping up the end of watching “Better Call Saul”, and while it’s a fascinating and enjoyable show, is it really benefitting me in any way? You could perhaps argue that some downtime and entertainment is fine, and I think it is, but that’s where “wasting time” gets a little gray.

However, I also have calls/coffee with a lot of folks through the course of the week, and one could argue that some of those are time wasters. If they’re not a good fit for our services, am I wasting my time in meeting with them? Not at all. If I continued to meet with the same people over and over it could drift into time wasting, but that’s up to me to control.

If you keep your priorities straight, you and you alone can keep control of whether you’re wasting your time or not.

Pushing for “always” to achieve “usually”

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About a year ago, I mentioned a friend that was able to work out 3x weekly, which is something I struggle with. If I aim to work out three times in a week, it quickly slips to maybe once or twice. Instead, I plan to work out every day, and that filters down to “most days”, which is really what I’m after.

I’ve found that taking this approach is helpful in other areas as well.

“Weekly” calls

I have a good friend that I met during my time in the altMBA, and we like to chat frequently to help push one another forward. For a while, we tried to meet “fairly often”, but it would slip to months between calls. We changed it to a weekly call every Monday, and that’s worked perfectly.

It’s not that we talk every week. In fact, we rarely ever get two in a row. Instead, it becomes a couple times a month, which is perfect! By aiming for a weekly call, with the caveat that either of us can cancel if a client or other priority comes up, it’s led to a very solid cadence for us.

Blogging?

In theory, this is my plan with blogging too. My thought was to aim for “every day” and be happy with “a few times a week”, but I’ve generally been able to keep the pace of daily blogging going for almost two years straight (minus a brief break for COVID). I think the difference there is that I’m able to batch my posts ahead of time, which you can’t do with phone calls or exercise.

Now that I’ve seen how well the “push for always to achieve usually” has worked, I’m looking for other areas in my life where I can implement this. A few areas I’m working on:

  • Reaching out to old friends and connections. It’s on my list every day, but only happens a few times a week.
  • The same with reading. I have a goal to read from a book (or Blinkist) every day, but it doesn’t always happen.

I’m working to find more areas to add to this, so we’ll see where it goes. The only downside I’m seeing so far is that my daily list of tasks is getting a bit long, causing me to skip a few things more often. Maybe that’s ok, as it’ll keep me well-rounded while still working to keep fit, connected, and well-read, but we’ll see. I fear that over time, the longer daily list could become tiring, so I’ll have to work to keep it in check.

Do you have any always –> usually types of things that you do?

The promotion of problems

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We all have a list of problems that we’re working through, often put together on some kind of to-do list. It’s great to check things off the list, but it often seems like checking one thing off leads to putting something else on it. You’re not wrong.

In the book “The Personal MBA“, author Josh Kaufman shares a quote from Gerald Weinberg that sums this up perfectly:

Once you eliminate your number one problem, number two gets a promotion.

This also ties in nicely to my news post from a few days ago. Once the top story has been resolved or fades from view, something else is ready to take over the top spot. This isn’t a problem to be solved, but just a concept to consider.

When it comes to your to-do list, though, the never-ending list can be tough to deal with. That’s where I generally try to set a list of “big three” goals each day, and if I accomplish those I know I’ve done well. Knocking out a few more items on the to-do list might be fine, but I can feel accomplished if I finish those “big three”.

This concept is probably best known from Michael Hyatt’s “Full Focus Planner” (which I used for a while, and it was excellent), and you can read more about their system here: https://fullfocusplanner.com/system/

However you choose to tackle it, if you can set a short list of main goals for the day and work to accomplish those, having little extras pop up on your to-do list won’t be as much of a problem.

Organize your world’s information

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Part of Google’s original mission statement was to “organize the world’s information”. While they’re imperfect, I think they’ve done far more toward that goal than any other company in history. You can search for almost anything from “the world’s information” and they’ll find it for you.

While Google is great at organizing the world’s information, they’re less good at organizing your information.

Their personal tools, such as Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive, all have solid ways to search through your personal info. The problem is three-fold, though:

  1. Those are separate buckets, and you might not know where to start.
  2. The search features in those tools (particularly on Google Drive) are nowhere near as fast as a traditional Google Search.
  3. Much of your information isn’t in Google products. It could be in various Apple Tools, Evernote, Notion or even on paper. Being scattered can make it hard to find what you want.

This is a problem I’m constantly working on in my life, though I know it’s one that I will never fully solve. In my mind, though, the effort to continually improve it is worth it. Every day, I’m able to tighten things up just a tiny bit more and make it a little easier to find what I’m looking for.

Obsidian

My primary tool for that right now is Obsidian, though the exact tool you use isn’t the point of this post. As I pour more and more data into it, it becomes smarter about helping me find what I need.

The problem, of course, is that I still have a ton of information in various other products, and that’s not changing anytime soon.

My goal with Obsidian to be able to answer questions such as:

  • Who is that client we met with at the beginning of May?
  • Who said that great quote “xx”?
  • Why did I decide to start reading this book?
  • Who do I know that is an Enneagram 5?

Emails will still be in Gmail, photos in Google Photos, and long-form content in Google Drive. I hope some day one superapp can query all of them at once, though it seems unlikely. For now, if I can just get my core info into Obsidian, it’ll go a long way toward getting me quick answers about my world.

Write notes with propositional titles

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As I’m digging further into the Obsidian tool, I’ve also been taking a closer look at how I assemble my notes. I came across a fantastic article from Nick Seitz that dug into a lot of the first steps one might take with Obsidian, and it included the push to use “propositional titles”.

In short, he’s advising that you title your notes as a claim for what is expressed in the note, rather than vague thoughts about it. He offers three examples:

  • “Relationship between art and truth” becomes “Art is a means of disclosing reliable, true knowledge.”
  • “Literacy of Puritans in late 18th century America” becomes “American Puritans of the late 18th century were highly literate.”
  • “Learning through linking” becomes “Linking ideas together helps us remember ideas and use them.”

The reasoning behind this is essentially two-fold.

First, it makes it easier to see connections between two notes. If it’s super clear what the content of the note really is, you may be more apt to recognize that when trying to find more material. Rather than seeing a suggestive title, you’ll see a specific claim and you can quickly process the meaning of it.

Second, it will help you focus your writing. If you title it with a clear claim, you know exactly where your thoughts on that subject should begin and end.

Andy Matuschak offers another option and says that leaving note titles as questions can work too “because that position creates pressure to make the question get to the core of the matter“.

In any case, this is something I’m continuing to work on. While I do a pretty good job of tying notes together as needed, the titles are often an afterthought. As I work to tighten them up in the future, it should serve me well.

Moving from Roam Research to Obsidian

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been moving my primary notes database from Roam Research to Obsidian. It’s a move I’ve long known I was going to make, but I’ve been waiting for Obsidian to add a few more features to help me get there. They added them, and now I’ve moved.

It’s similar to when I was using an iPhone back in 2008-2010. I knew I’d switch to Android at some point, as I preferred the direction they were heading, but iPhone was the better choice for a while. Eventually Android filled in the gaps, and here we are.

Roam Research?

If you’re not familiar with Roam, this article I wrote from a few years ago is a good primer. To go a bit further, I’ve created quite a few videos that go deeper. Long story short, both Roam and Obsidian are note-taking tools, not wholly unlike Evernote and others.

At the end of the day, Roam and Obsidian are very similar, but I feel the the future is more bright with Obsidian and I’m glad I made the move.

Sync

The big difference between Roam and Obsidian is that Roam is web-based while Obsidian lives on your computer. I generally prefer web-based tools, but Obsidian has been developing a “sync” tool to keep your content synced between devices, and at this point that tool is finally fantastic. I’ve been using it to connect two Windows desktops, a Windows laptop, a Chromebook (with the Android app), my Android phone, and an iPad, and it’s been flawless keeping it all in sync.

While I plan to produce a bunch of videos about Obsidian in the coming weeks to dig in deeper, here are some initial thoughts on why I moved.

Pros

Privacy
Everything in Obsidian is stored locally, and if you choose to sync it (like I do) it’s all encrypted for protection. Roam does a good job with privacy, but by nature it’s not as secure.

Pricing
Roam is $15/mo, while Obsidian is free. However, the sync feature is $8/mo, so that chews into the gap a bit, but it’s still half the price.

Mobile
This is an area where you’d think Roam should win, being a cloud-based product, but the Obsidian mobile app is far better (particularly if you use Sync to keep it updated with your computer data).

Extensions
Roam has a few third-party browser extensions to help expand it, but they’re not officially supported. On the other hand, Obsidian has a library of nearly 1,000 extensions you can load to help it better fit what you need from a tool like this.

Aliases
This was always a minor annoyance in Roam; if I had a page called “Atlanta Braves” and a page called “Braves”, there was no way to tell the system to treat them as if they were a single page. Obsidian lets you do that.

Date formatting
I use these tools extensively for daily notes, and the date format in Roam was very specific, like “January 1st, 2023”. You had to be super careful with the “st” and such, or you’d end up linking elsewhere. Obsidian uses the more boring (but much more efficient) style of “2023-01-01”, and you can change that up if you want.

Cons

I think Obsidian is a better product now, but that’s not to say it’s perfect. Here are a few areas where it’s been a bit of a struggle.

Not web-based
I’ve covered this above, but I’d still prefer it to be a web-based tool merely for convenience.

Folders
In Roam, your notes are all free-floating in their system. With Obsidian, every note is literally a file on your computer and must be sorted out (or you can leave them all just cluttering things up). I’ve grown to like this, but it’s taken some getting used to.

Extensions Required
I mentioned above that I love Obsidian’s extensions, and I do, but they fill some gaps that Roam had natively. This isn’t a big con, as it allows the tool to be more lightweight yet extensible, but it’s been interesting tracking down the right extensions to make it work for me.

Migration is a pain
There are some tools to help move your notes over, depending on where you’re coming from, but it’s still a huge pain. I had nearly 7,500 notes, and I had to touch almost every one of them to get them sorted into the right place. However, this is also why I decided to move now; if I was going to move eventually, the longer I waited the more notes there’d be to move.

Tag filtering is weak
Roam has fantastic filtering of tags. For example, I can click “#books”, and then “#leadership” and then “#donereading” to quickly filter them down. Obsidian can do that, but it’s much more cumbersome. I expect this to improve over time.

Final thoughts

Overall, these tools are very similar. If you use Roam and you’re happy with it, there is no need to move. However, if you don’t have a solid note-taking system or you’re using something completely different, it might be worth checking out these options to see if they’d make things easier for you.

What does “done” look like?

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With most things that we work on, there is some end goal in sight.

Publish the website.

Mow the grass.

Run a marathon.

In some cases, though, there isn’t a “done” to be found. This blog is a great example of that, in that I have no end goal in mind. In most cases, though, clearly defining what “done” means is essential to actually getting there. As Brené Brown says, you should “paint done” to know what it looks like.

In his book “Effortless“, Greg McKeown simply says “The first step to Effortless Action is defining what “done” looks like.” He unpacks it further with:

“If you want to make something hard, indeed truly impossible, to complete, all you have to do is make the end goal as vague as possible.”

The reason for defining “done” is so that you know when to stop. For things like mowing the grass, it’s pretty easy to know when it’s done. For building and publishing a website, you never really finish it, so you need to have a clear picture of the initial goal so that you can actually hit publish for the first time.

How long to recover?

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When reading the book “Effortless” by Greg McKeown, he made a big push toward encouraging us to take small steps. It’s not unlike what I’ve talked about before with One Percent Can Make a Huge Difference, but he took it a bit further, saying:

“Do not do more today than you can completely recover from today. Do not do more this week than you can completely recover from this week.”

While I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not sure it’s always true. I find that there are times in life when it’s worth pushing harder, knowing you’ll need a few days to recover.

This can be true in a variety of ways, but is likely most true in exercise. If people followed McKeown’s advice when it came to running, no one would be able to run for the first time. If you’ve not run in a long time, even an easy mile will make you quite sore the next day. That’s expected and ok, and you just need to take a few days to recover.

Similarly, there are times when I know I won’t be able to get any writing done for a while (perhaps on a family vacation), so I’ll push very hard to get plenty done before we go. It’ll wear me out on writing, but I know I have extra time to recover.

I agree with McKeown’s overall point that we shouldn’t push ourselves to the point of total burnout, but I think it’s fine (and sometimes ideal) to push to a point where you’ll need a few days to recover. If you take everything too slow and gradual, you may never get where you want to go.

Progress moves at the speed of trust

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If you want to move your business forward, trust isn’t an optional component. People need to know they can trust you, and you need to learn to trust those around you.

Stephen Covey said it well:

“Trust always affects two measurable outcomes: speed and cost. When trust goes down—in a relationship, on a team, in a company, in an industry, with a customer—speed decreases with it. Everything takes longer. Simultaneously, costs increase. Redundancy processes, with everyone checking up on everyone else, cost more.”

This can manifest itself in many ways, and one of my favorite is email. I’ve said before that as I’ve learned to trust my team to do what’s asked of them, I’ve saved myself a ton of time. I can then take that time to help move our business forward in other ways.

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Developing that trust takes time, and there are no great shortcuts. This is one reason that we generally have more W-2 employees than contractors at GreenMellen. Contractors can be wonderful pieces of a team, but it takes longer for trust to develop. With our full-time staff, the hours (and trust) add up quickly, helping us all to make progress more quickly.