my digital ecosystem

I have a fascination with systems, networks, and automation. I’m a systems nerd perpetually iterating on my personal systems for writing, working, learning, and managing digital data, files, and knowledge.

I also have a passion for everything nature and outdoors. Permaculture, farming, ecosystems, environmentalism—I believe in the connection between humans and the earth, and always find myself thinking about the relationship between entities, wondering about the role each entity might play in connection to a larger system.

Early in 2020 I discovered a community of folks passionate about building their own personal wikis, productivity systems, and digital gardens. Several community members also share a love of permaculture and systems thinking. I was hooked.

After much experimentation and exploration of new practices and tools, I’ve made significant improvements to my learning and knowledge management system. It’s considered a work in progress, however, as it’s always being iterated on and improved as my needs evolve and change.

While the system is intended to facilitate writing, I’ve come to learn that It’s not a writing system, it’s a thinking system whose byproduct is writing.

Here’s what I’m working with right now

• Drafts is for immediate note capture and works in progress.
• Obsidian is for tending my digital garden.
• Things is for getting shit done.
• Readwise is for serendipity and delight.
• Roam Research has recently become my go to system for everything related to research, learning, thinking, and managing knowledge (and possibly tasks and reading materials, too). I may write more on Roam in the future but for now here’s Why I like Roam over Bear for improving my thinking.
• Evernote is for long-term storage.
• Day One is for personal journaling since 2013.
• Ulysses is for long form writing projects.
• Alfred is for automation and central control.

Each app serves a discrete and distinguished purpose within my digital ecosystem.

Most of those can be deeplinked to from any other app, so relevant notes and information are almost always a click away if I make sure to include those links.

That said…how amazing would it be to see all the multidirectional links across apps? Evernote could show you all the related journals in Day One, tasks in Things, and research in Roam. Bidirectional links between apps would greatly improve interoperability of concepts and ideas. After all, A knowledge worker’s toolkit needs to be well-rounded.

Originally I said Bear is for networked thinking but lately I’ve been Tinkering with Roam Research and am finding that it might actually end up replacing most of the stack above. It’s already taken me away from Bear, which was my favorite app for a long time. It’s too early to fully commit as I’m just getting myself up and running, but the potential I feel from a few weeks of use is unreal.

UPDATE: Why I like Roam over Bear for improving my thinking

I made this site to learn through discourse. Your thoughts here👇 or on Twitter are encouraged!