Keeping up with regular blog posts is a challenge. To do it, I've churned through a few different organizational systems. Sometimes I have to change them due to actual life circumstances changing; other times, due to the old one just wearing off[1].
Well, my life circumstances have changed again. I'm on medical leave right now recovering from surgery[2], and I have been writing less this year anyway. So it's that time again: new system, baby.
This post isn't a how-to. It's not a prescription for your own organizational system. Rather, let it be an invitation to examine your own systems, and decide whether they're serving you or not.
So what am I replacing?
Before this change, my system involved Obsidian and LunaTask:
When I get an intrusive thought about how I definitely need to try to make a transistor at home in my garage[3], I put that in my list of ideas. This list of ideas contains some ridiculously bad ideas, and some very good ideas. But the thing is, I can't tell which is which when I have the idea! The ideas have to sit and marinate, and then eventually one sticks in my head long enough that it turns itself into a blog post. With most of the already completed ideas removed, that file is over 150 lines long right now.
LunaTask is used to get these ideas from my brain over the finish line. I have a project called "Writing" which is kanban style. Each blog post I earnestly intend to write gets added into it, and then I keep track of which ones are waiting, in progress, and completed. This is mostly useful for posts which require code to go along with them, or which require research[4]. Posts like this one that are all prose without research go pretty fast and never enter LunaTask.
The thing is, this has been showing cracks. I've stopped recording blog post ideas all that much this year, because I've been stressed from "global events" (I'm a trans woman, my wife is an immigrant, etc.) and preparing for multiple surgeries. And tracking things in LunaTask is just not working for me at all, because it's disconnected from idea tracking but ends up being its own idea tracking, since I just really want to write all the posts.
To be honest, I'm not 100% sure why LunaTask isn't working for me right now for this. It might just be that I need to perturb the system a bit to make a change. But no matter what the cause, it's time to change it.
The new system is simpler than the old, because I'm removing a tool. I'm taking LunaTask out of my blog toolkit, and switching to tracking everything in Obsidian.
The new system is going to be smaller:
I'm using a task tracking plugin in Obsidian for the recurring tasks, because there are some things I need to do on a regular schedule. If I want to publish on Monday, that means that the post needs to be written before the weekend and edited before Monday.
I'm not using task tracking for actual posts because I know from personal experience that it ends up similar to my ideas page but with structure. I'm also not using Obsidian's Bases for this, because a raw text file is just the lowest friction way I've found to do what I need. A raw text file lets me move things around freely, add notes however and wherever I want, and do freeform brain dumps. Structure is a little tyrant that kills my motivation at certain phases, so bye bye structure, we're doing a coup here.
* * *
So far, so good with the new system. I'm sure I'll be onto another one eventually. The most important thing, I've found, is to remain mindful of whether or not the systems are working for you. Change them once they stop working.
There's this phenomenon where self-help productivity books almost always help you when you adopt a new system. But the help doesn't last forever! It seems that changing your system helps in some way, perhaps from the increased awareness and mindfulness, or maybe from new dopamine. ↩
It was a planned gender affirming surgery. The recovery is long and challenging, but I'm recovering very well. I'm very thankful for the support I have from my friends, family, and community. ↩
How hard can it be? The hubris of a software engineer knows no bounds, except for that refactor you know you should do but that you think is just a little too hard. (And yes, making a transistor would be very hard, and no, I'm not going to do it. Probably. The thoughts are still here.) ↩
I have a partially written post on Lyme disease which I do intend to complete, but it's a topic that I really want to be careful around. And so it languishes. ↩
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