Personal Knowledge Management (Second Brain)

In this episode, you'll learn about the PARA Method for organizing your notes and tasks, emphasizing the importance of balancing craftsmanship with delivering real customer value. Discover insights from Pieter Levels' success with straightforward tech stacks and recurring revenue from multiple startups. The discussion covers the power of building in public, optimizing productivity with personal CRMs and AI tools, and managing digital notes using Obsidian and Logseq. Tune in to explore practical challenges and solutions for enhancing your workflow and staying connected.

00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
00:20 Lex Friedman and Pieter Levels Interview Discussion
01:09 Frameworks and Developer Influencers
03:08 Peter's Success and Indie Hacking
05:23 Building and Shipping Products
05:43 Marketing and Influencer Impact
13:23 Personal Knowledge Management
22:25 Exploring Obsidian and PARA
23:02 Organizing Projects and Areas
23:43 Daily Logs and Workflows
26:42 Handling Digital Scraps and Notes
30:31 Plugins and Syncing Issues
34:34 AI Tools for Meetings and Transcriptions
38:07 AI Code Editors and Future Discussions
39:37 Conclusion and Next Week's Teaser

Creators & Guests

Host

CJ Avilla

Developer Advocate @StripeDev. Veteran. 📽 https://t.co/2UI0oEAnFK. Building with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript

Host

Colin Loretz

I like to build software and communities. Building software at @orbitmodel 🪐 Coworking at @renocollective 🎙Sharing software learnings on @buildandlearn_

What is Build and Learn?

A podcast about software development and developing ourselves as software engineers. Hosted by CJ Avilla and Colin Loretz.

CJ: What's up, Colin.

How's it going?

Colin: Pretty good.

We're back in the recording booth
talking today about the para system

or our attempts at organizing
the chaos that both of us have

for notes and all the fun things.

But before we get into that, have
you seen, there's like a, there's a

whole interview and a bunch of little
clips going around, from an interview

with Lex Friedman and Pieter Levels.

Have you seen this?

CJ: I haven't seen any of the clips
I saw that Orlando, made a comment

on LinkedIn about the fact that, Lex
could get Peter to come on, which,

Colin: I feel the same like
Peter going on Lex's show.

It's like, I don't, I wouldn't
say that Lex's audience is

like software developers.

So it's a little surprising to
me, but awesome for Peter and the

exposure and the conversation.

I haven't watched all of it yet, but I've
been watching some of the little clips

that are making their way around Twitter.

And there was one that I particularly
liked that I'll just like paraphrase

and we can talk about it a little bit.

and he starts it off as this is his
most controversial take is that there

are a bunch of frameworks and I'm
assuming he's talking about programming

language frameworks and things like
that, that have raised a bunch of money.

They're open source, they're available,
they're people can use them, but

they've raised a bunch of money.

And because they've raised money,
they've now built these platforms.

Those platforms are like added services
and hosting and, Lambda like features

in the cloud and all that fun stuff.

And.

Then they're going out and
paying developer influencers.

They're paying developers.

They're paying streamers to go talk
about their thing, do their thing.

And their argument is that then
they get a bunch of flack for

using just straight PHP, jQuery and
shipping and just building stuff.

And in Peter's bio, there's a bunch
of startups that they've built.

By themselves that have the monthly
recurring revenue of each of them

And so there's quite a few he's known
for building like a startup a month

and things like that and some making
like three grand a month some were

making like 30 grand a month and
with that you get a lot of people

who I see usually on Twitter talking
about tools and things and basically

Calling out that controversial take.

I didn't think it was that controversial,
but apparently all of Twitter thinks it

is all of the dev tool space thinks it is.

and what it makes me think of is
just that, the same thing happens

with rails is, Oh, it's too slow.

It's dead.

It's whatever it versus just like
shipping stuff for users and customers

and not, rearranging deck chairs on
the Titanic, is the tool important

Is it okay to talk about tools
and craftsmanship and all that?

Absolutely.

But like at the end of the day,
are you delivering for customers?

Are you trying to solve a real problem?

Does it matter if it was in PHP or react
or both, or, if Ruby is a few seconds

slower, in aggregate, then using rest,

CJ: Yeah,

Colin: think?

CJ: I have so many feelings about this.

first of all, I don't know any indie
hacker or any tech person who isn't

jealous of Peter's like monthly recurring
revenue from all his projects, right?

Like he's making hundreds of thousands
of dollars per month, if not millions

per month on A bunch of projects that
he's put out and a lot of them are

just little AI experiments or whatever.

so with that backdrop, I think a lot
of people get frustrated when they

learn that a lot of these companies
or startups that he's built are all

built with one single PHP file each or
something like that, where it's like,

and then, like some jQuery, some basic,
like very basic HTML, And what this

always reminds me about is like how
much time I have spent procrastinating

on shipping stuff by fine tuning
tools or like just getting the thing

right and getting the thing optimized
and making it fast and making it,

Colin: That's bike and
bike shedding, for example.

CJ: Exactly.

Yeah.

And for me personally, if I think
really hard about it, I think it's that.

I.

it's like the fear of rejection, right?

and maybe not like believing that the
thing that I want to put out will be

received well, and that I'll be like
judged negatively about that or something.

And so as a result, I procrastinate by
yeah, like you said, rearranging the

deck chairs on the Titanic or, yeah.

Bike shedding about, should this be in
react or should it be in Ruby or should

it be in whatever, yeah, I, in terms of
the question about rejecting frameworks

that want to become large and they do
so through influencers and to try to get

like more people to use them, I actually
don't know what the right answer is for

people who are building the frameworks.

if you think about someone
like Taylor Otwell and Laravel.

He's making plenty of money from the
small group of people that have, started

to use Laravel for their startups.

Like he's provided enough value
that he's able to buy Lamborghinis

and like all this crazy stuff.

And Vercel, has built like a
billion dollar plus business

on the back of next JS and some
of these JavaScript frameworks.

And.

Do I think that's wrong?

I know, not necessarily.

And do I also, do I, would I say that
the way that Peter's doing it is wrong?

No.

He's clearly like crushing it as an
individual, like indie hacker and

copying and pasting patterns that he
understands and knows for how to make

money online and build businesses online.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Like

at the end of the day, we're
trending towards this new, I like

organization of marketing and
how marketing works in general.

Like we start to, now we're starting
to trust and believe certain

influencers and what they say and those
influencers are creating the biggest

brands and the biggest companies.

If you look at like prime or.

Joe Rogan's alpha brain or,

Colin: you talking
about prime or primogen?

CJ: no, like prime is in like

Colin: That's the yeah.

CJ: yeah.

like a lot of the, a lot of the
times giant businesses are now

being built with an influencer co
founder or something like that.

And so I don't know if it's.

if it's bad to say that , framework
and framework companies are taking

the same approach of using like dev
influencers to grow their brand.

Colin: and he went on to talk
about Oh, you could just go

spin up a digital ocean box.

And I don't think it's bad that Vercell
exists because I love using Cloudflare

for a lot of the same things, Cloudflare
workers, things on the edge, like sure,

you can go put it on a DigitalOcean box.

You and I have been through the days of,
what, Slicehost, and all the different

hosting companies, Dreamhost, all
these things that have existed before.

I've admin'ed boxes.

I've done the Cloud DevOps stuff.

I've done Docker, I've done, people
are going and getting these like

Hertzner boxes in Germany and stuff.

And it's if you're trying to optimize for
the least dollars spent on this, sure.

There's a free plan on Vercel,
there's a free ish plan on Cloudflare.

And you can take this thing, you could
host something, I don't know if you

could host a PHP thing on Vercel,
but you can get, there are options,

even our beloved Heroku of old, there
were options for doing these deploy,

try things, and, this is channeling,
Aaron Francis, you can just do things.

It doesn't matter what language,
what framework, like just try things.

and Peter has made a really good effort
at making a dollar on the internet and

then taking that skill, like you said,
and learning how to make another dollar

and applying it to the next dollar.

And some people like, even myself,
like I'll call myself out here.

Like I, I am working on making my
first like pure dollar on the internet.

Like I've done consulting, I've done
other things, but it'd be really

nice to just have a thing where you
get your first sale for software

you wrote, for bits you wrote.

And honestly, at the end of the event,
it doesn't matter what it was written in.

a little bit of jealousy, sure.

digital ocean and all those,
I'm not going to do it all.

I'm like, I'm not going to go.

Deploy a cloud flare, open source option
to, to a distributed, like cluster of

digital ocean boxes or anything like that.

So, yeah, I don't know.

Pretty interesting.

I'm going to, I think I'm going to
have to watch the whole interview at

this point, but I was trying to avoid
it, but I think I'm getting sucked in.

CJ: me too.

I'm definitely inspired.

And the thing that.

I always think about when watching Peter
online is he's really great at building in

public and also he's very focused like the
stuff that he's shipping is not ancillary

garbage features he's shipping like the
core value that someone is looking for

when they come to one of his businesses.

So photo AI, it's like you upload
a couple of photos and then you can

generate new photos of yourself.

And so he's just making that
one feature work very well.

same with nomad list.

It was just like a giant list of
places where you could move and

some details about those places,

Colin: well, a nomad lists
was like a pain he had.

And intimately knew it and also
traveled around the world and was

able to create a lot of the data
himself and then crowdsourced it

and there's been lots of repeats.

And I think a lot of the things
I see now is that everyone's

oh, he just makes AI wrappers.

It's like you're trivializing the
work that he did, like almost half,

there's startups who are raising
shit tons of money on AI wrappers

too, you can't really knock it.

This is I hate, I don't know, I
hate the in the arena phrase too.

But there's a difference between building
something and then just commenting

on other people building something.

And it's okay if you're not
building something right now.

It's, maybe it's not your season
of life to be building something.

I have a little project list in my
Parasystem little folder of projects

that I could work on one day.

They're not all being worked on today.

CJ: Yeah.

I, a realization that I had
recently was how much I enjoy

building stuff just for me.

And that it doesn't matter if other
people see it or other people like it.

Like I want to just it's holding
space and creating like this safe

area for me to be creative and
build stuff just for myself, which

is like where I have the most fun.

And I think, being comfortable with
putting it out there like Peter is like

a D like the next step up, but like
just starting with just make it for you.

And if you think it's cool.

And you don't care about
criticism, then put it out there.

And, yeah, as we'll learn about in
the code system, maybe you can express

yourself, through these products or
whatever that you're building, but,

Colin: I have to wonder how much of
this is similar to the task management

stuff of telling somebody you're
going to do something gives you

the dopamine as much as doing it.

And discussing and bike shedding
gives you that I know something I

can jump in and fight for my opinion
or what I think should be better.

And it's Is tabs or spaces really going
to make a difference at the end of the

day versus can someone sign up and use it?

Can you use it for your own benefit?

I mean you've built so much software
just for yourself and I think about that

a lot because it's also different than
I've been helping somebody with their

with a Y Combinator application and It's
very interesting to watch like full on

engineer brain try to explain You the
thing that they've been building for

four years, and why they should be in YC.

And it's interesting because
it felt like a lot of it was

written by AI, but it wasn't.

and I was like, okay, what
problem are you solving for who?

And I don't want to hear about another
feature like pretend like we took your

keyboard away and you can't code anymore
It's time to put customer hat on it's

time to put not even marketing But just
like business model and who is it for and

what problem and do they actually have?

are you making a painkiller
or a vitamin type?

Conversation versus, it's
implemented this way in the database.

And like that is not the level
of detail that we are asking

for in a YC application.

So,

CJ: They want to know like the story
that you're going to be able to

tell that people will see their own
transformation in the story that

like the business is going to make
them a superpower because of X or

Colin: yeah.

Or they want, they, yeah, they want to
see a story, a clear path to making money.

And you want people to lean in.

I don't think people are leaning
in when you're like, we have

this like acid complete, database
that stores our user table.

And I'm like, ah, I
think we're good there.

Let's take some stuff out.

CJ: Interesting.

there are, I don't know if they know about
the Stripe, resources, but Stripe does

hold office hours for people who want
to get their YC applications reviewed.

And it's, they're reviewed by
people who used to work for

YC reviewing applications.

So it's a pretty solid resource.

I don't know how many people
out there know about that or

have used that, but yeah, I

Colin: the deadline is in five or six
days, so I don't think it's gonna happen.

CJ: All right.

Colin: But I have done my best to,
to help a little bit, but, yeah.

CJ: Should we talk about,
personal knowledge management?

Colin: do it.

I think, I think this one is,
this is a pain point I have.

I don't know if this is something
that you also feel deeply.

CJ: Yeah.

I, the way that I would take notes, either
I have a physical notebook on my desk.

I never go back and read
anything that I write down.

It's just I don't even
know why I write in it.

Colin: Yeah.

CJ: And then if I want to remember
something, I just email myself, right?

or I would just email myself

Colin: you use the notes app on Apple?

CJ: I do not know.

Colin: I do, but it's for like
throwaway stuff, like shopping lists,

packing lists, stuff like that.

This is an interesting topic because
it can easily become a little bike

Shetty itself around what tools
to use and what systems to use.

I think I mentioned it on past episode
where I still love text mate and

I use it to just spawn a bunch of
windows and have one is my work brain.

One is my today's personal errands brain.

And I just drop stuff there.

And the problem is if I don't save them.

Or sometimes I save them and never go
back to them, like you just mentioned.

but they're not connected.

If I, or lose my computer,
I lose all those notes.

If I don't, all that stuff.

so I've been trying to think through like
how to actually start using Obsidian.

just cause I like it as a tool.

That's probably not the right
way to choose one of these

tools, but, it does mark down.

It has a sidebar it, that
I can just jump around in.

It feels pretty comfortable to me.

It's not notion, but you could
use notion for all of this.

so there's the tools and then
there's the like process, right?

There's the management systems.

Which ones did you take a look at with

CJ: So I have only tried out one tool and
basically if you're listening at home and

you're like, what the hell is any of this
personal and knowledge management stuff?

Like I would boil it down to, it is like
note taking with a couple extra features.

So it's like, how do you do note taking?

Yeah, exactly.

Maybe I wonder, I'm curious,
like what your use cases are.

Like, what do you want out of your notes?

what are you, how are you
going to use them later?

I have a couple, but I'm curious

Colin: so like you, I also have a lot
of notebooks and I actually just moved

recently and now I have an entire
shelf of all of my past notebooks.

It's probably 12 years of notebooks.

And I don't always refer back to them
I used to have one where I was always

writing in it and keeping a pretty good,
like bullet journal, like daily list.

Going back through those now is
wild because some of the there's

I'll run across a goals list and
some of them are like so far fetched

and some of them I have done.

And I think one of them was
like, Speak at RailsConf.

And I was like, I did that.

I don't know when I wrote
that down, but that's amazing.

things like that, that it's just so crazy.

It's like literally like a form
of time travel to go back and put

yourself back in those, in your shoes
when you were writing those things.

I have all these disparate on paper,
but I also have this digital, like

just landmine minefield of notes.

And so I'm trying to add some
linkages there around what can I find?

and I picked up the book, I guess just
the para method from, Tiago Forte.

And I haven't read
their second brain book.

That would be the other thing that
people might've heard of is personal

management system, knowledge management,
or second building a second brain.

And what was, I was drawn to was just
these four categories of projects,

areas, resources, and archive.

I'm still running up against some
of the issues there where I'm just

like, not, I'm like, okay, this is
long term, this is a project for one

of my areas, this is a resource for
one of my areas, so where does it go?

Does it go in areas?

Does it go in resources?

I'm still like just putting things down
on paper and putting them in categories.

but for me, it's yeah, mostly like
long term storage and linkages between

concepts, ideas, turning a project.

That might just be a one line
item as a reminder for myself

into a full on project when I do
decide to pick it up as a project.

CJ: So it sounds like one of the
nice things from those old written

ones was time traveling back to
see what you were thinking before.

And also one of the ways that you
want to use it is to organize tasks

and projects and like over time
build out those tasks and projects.

And then, yeah, like I, part
of me questions whether I'll

go back and actually read the
notes, part of the notes, but.

Yeah, there were, there was a,
so the couple of use cases that I

find that I was using like sending
myself messages about one was ideas.

So if I had a, if I was brainstorming
something or, on the train or I'm,

just got out of the shower or, you, you
randomly have these ideas about whether

like it's a dev problem you're trying to
solve right now, business idea, something

you want to try a challenge or whatever.

So I would get these ideas and I would
email myself and just the subject would

be ideas and then I would go back through.

My ideas, emails to myself to try to
like mine, what should I work on next?

So that was one use case.

And then another was we
moved across the country.

And so we're meeting all these
new people and a lot of them were

meeting through our kids, friends.

And so it was really challenging to
remember Oh, so and so's friend's

mom's name is this and she's
into this and that or whatever.

And, I, we want it to be more intentional
and thoughtful about building our

network and kind of understanding the
people that we were interacting with.

So on the personal, like friendship
side, doing that, and then also on

the professional side, when I have one
on ones or meetings or I'm introduced

to new colleagues, I like to like.

try to understand their motivations
and, their interests and try to

find shared ground, to cover.

So for me, it was, it's almost like a CRM
in a way, just like taking notes about

those interactions and those people.

so that I can remember when I see someone
after I haven't seen them for nine

months, you bump into them or the kids are
going to have a play date or something.

You can be like, Oh yeah.

Hey, how's the, the remodel going or

Colin: you gotta find a minute
to duck behind the corner and

pull up your obsidian to go
find what this person's name is.

CJ: yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

and I do think it's it's a valuable thing.

I think people care when you remember
their name and you, when you're, when

you remember things about them and
it's very hard to do if you're meeting

tons of new people all the time and
I don't have a very good person, like

my actual memory is not super great.

And so I don't know, this seems to be one,
way to make that a little better, but.

Colin: Yeah, it is interesting because
I don't want to use it for tasks.

like the way I'm doing projects.

So to not to teach this, you should
go read the book if you're interested

in this, but like para is in projects,
areas, resources, and archive.

And so archive is interesting
because it's literally inactive

items from all of the categories.

Projects is like short term and I'm
trying to do it as if I am not actually

working on, this isn't a, I want to work
on it is, I have to be working on it.

Working on it.

It's in projects.

it doesn't mean I have to work on
it every day, but it's not like

the aspirational project folder.

It is the project folder.

And this is across all of my areas
of life, which is weird because

there's a whole category for areas.

And so I've been, those two things
have been at odds with each other, but

with areas I've been doing like long
term storage of like I think of like

my household operating system lives in
areas like personal fitness is in areas.

like health record, this is tricky
because like your health records would

maybe go under resources and reference.

And so it's almost like thinking of
a matrix of project area resource

archive across multiple dimensions,
like tags, categories, things like that.

but like when I'm writing down
stuff for a project, it's not

the items that I need to do.

It's.

The thoughts and ideas and
maybe I should try this.

Okay.

That didn't work.

it's more of a running
consciousness of that kind of stuff.

And then maybe it becomes like a
work log of next time I sit down

to do this, especially because the
project I'm working on, I don't always

know when I can work on it next.

So I write down okay, this didn't work.

Let's try this next time.

almost like future AI prompts to myself.

CJ: Yeah, okay.

and so for all of, generally
though, all the things in

Para you keep in Obsidian or?

Colin: Yeah.

So I've created four main folders.

and then a fifth one
that I added for inbox.

So if I'm wanting to write something
down, I don't have time to figure

out where the heck it goes.

I just throw it in the inbox
and then I process that later.

I found a rabbit hole of YouTube
videos of people talking about

obsidian and para and Zettelkasten.

Very easy to fall into the trap of
the tool and the plugins and making

all your folders look amazing.

Someone went as far as they have
their own custom CSS and it makes

it look like an actual physical
notebook inside of Obsidian.

but all I have is this.

which is inbox one projects,
areas, resources, and then archive.

and I think that's going to work for now.

And then each of those I have, for
projects I've been torn on whether

they should be folders or just notes.

like one long note for each project
or a whole folder for each one.

but then under areas I have basically
like work, life, fitness, health, right?

Those kinds of things.

and then resources, I'm honestly not
using this too much, but this is like

meant to be like taking other people's.

Articles and just like copy, paste
it in research, longstanding facts

that you can refer to and catalog,
which for me is usually just links.

So I don't know if I'm really
using that properly yet.

CJ: Got it.

It's interesting to hear that you're
like, like how you're organizing it

within Obsidian, the way that logs, log
seek, I'm going to call it log seek.

I don't know if it's log sec or
log seek, but the way that log

seek, has its like default mode
is you open up to a journal page.

Which gives you like today's
date in an empty bullet.

And then there's not like a question
of where stuff really goes by default.

You like just log stuff
in the, in today's date.

And as I'm writing it down, I guess
like sometimes I'll throw hashtags

on the end and I don't even know
if this is a similar, but I would

say I apply the area as a hashtag
to a bullet in today's journal.

So I'll write down, Oh,
I went for a run today.

Okay.

Me's felt rough hashtag
fitness or something.

And then like now that ends up, if I
click on the fitness hashtag, I can pull

up all the previous notes about fitness.

Oh, I did, 45 minute leg strength
day today and it was okay.

But whatever, I don't know, just
like random stuff about fitness.

For example, for me, I actually keep.

Everything about projects
outside of log seek.

I'm keeping it all in a personal linear.

So I just have a linear org that
is like my personal, like solo org,

I think it's free for one person.

and I have a bunch of
project ideas in there.

And when I think of stuff,
I go in and add tasks.

And if I'm working on it, then I'll
put it in progress or whatever.

but for me.

I don't know that it's become like a
habit, like a work habit that I follow.

And so I'm like, let me just see if I
can organize it on the personal side.

But as a result, I don't keep any
of the P from para in log seek.

Colin: think this is like
to do Matt management.

It, the best tool is the one
that you use and I, it's very

easy to go like the adrenaline
of changing tools is always fun.

You're always like, Oh,
I'm being so productive.

And again, rearranging deck chairs.

you're like, you didn't actually do any
work today, but you felt like you did.

everything's perfectly
fastidious and organized.

Obsidian has a button, and there's so many
plugins that I haven't played around with

that makes this a little bit easier, but
you press a button and it opens today's

log, so it does have what you're talking
about, and what I'm trying to use that

for, because I saw another coworker do
this, where they just, every day they

write down a work log of, what they
did, but also now when they do reviews,

they have all this stuff that they
can come back and like for performance

reviews, they can go search stuff,
but they also can refer back to like,

where did you leave the end of the day?

so you can get back into your flow faster.

and I want that because my work, it's I
also want to document how some days in

dev rel, I go from one thing to a vastly
different thing, to a different thing.

And then I'm like, what
the hell did I do today?

And did I actually get any work
done or am I getting distracted

by things I don't need?

But I don't really want to
put that on para and obsidian.

that's a different problem.

That feels like slow productivity.

That feels like that whole thing.

What I'm curious about for you is like
these note, they do not have just like

notes, digital scraps of paper that are
just somewhere that aren't in those dates.

CJ: not usually,

Colin: Cause I can give you some
examples of ones that I have.

like I have a code that I can use to go
buy something from an e commerce store.

where do I put that?

So I, right now it's in my inbox because
it's something I need to use soon.

So it's just hanging out there
and I would, should go process it.

I am running a D and D
campaign or I'm going to be.

And so I wasn't sure if this
was an area or a project, but I

now have a D and D folder inside
that I have a campaign folder.

And I'm starting to write out like the
story arc because we're not using a book

where I'm like building my own world.

So like I'm starting to write out
the campaign arc and the themes and

things are going to have to think about
so that I can refer to them later.

This is like writing,

CJ: Yeah.

Yeah.

If it, I think if it's like longer
form stuff like that, I don't

know, planning a vacation or.

Colin: Yeah, all the places
you might stay the hotels.

Yeah.

CJ: Yeah.

I think a lot of that ends up in Google
docs, honestly, like just because

then I can share it with other people.

log seek does not have
great multiplayer stuff.

Yeah.

so there's not like any way
for me to share like any of the

stuff that's in there with other

Colin: Oh, I see.

So you're because you'll probably
be doing that like with the family.

You'll want to get input.

CJ: If it's, yeah, if it's like personal,
then I likely want to share it with the

Colin: Yeah.

CJ: If it's work related, I
want to share it with coworkers.

And so it always just ends
up in some shareable place.

Colin: True.

Yeah, I do have the, I have
Notions and Google Docs and we

have Google Docs for the show.

So that's interesting too,
because yeah, I don't think

Obsidian has multiplayer either.

Maybe there's a plugin, but
I do have syncing working.

So I have one vault that syncs to my
personal computer, my work computer,

but I have it fully encrypted.

It's not always open.

With that one, I have to be careful.

I just don't want it to ever look
like I'm ever doing non work stuff

on a work machine during work time.

So I have the vault like
vault literally locked.

interesting.

Yeah.

I haven't read Cal Newport's.

Digital minimalism book.

And I have a feeling that this will
hit on a lot of this stuff too.

It's just I feel like I have so many
of those little digital scraps of paper

and they're like, maybe there's a full
thought in between 20 of them, but

because I picked them all up, differently.

Like I don't always connect them.

And I think I also, I'm not trying to
save every thought I've ever had either.

so it's, it is like when I buy a
really good new notebook, I'm always

like afraid to write something in it.

And you're like, Oh, this is
only for my best thoughts, which

is not what a notebook is for.

again, best notebook is the one you
use, the one you carry with you.

So I've been trying not to be too
precious with it and just throw

things in here and I can, drop a tag.

I think this has tags similar to what
you're talking about with hashtags too.

I think you just use like square brackets.

and so you could say like podcasts.

And then now when you click on that,
it'll bring up all the notes that have.

That as well.

CJ: Nice.

Yeah.

There's two different kinds of links
or tags or something in log seek,

one is the two square bracket thing.

And then the other one
is just hashtag whatever.

I don't know the difference.

there's like a concept of like pages
and the concept of like links things.

But, yeah, I'm like three weeks into
this, so we'll see how it evolves.

And yeah, are you using any plugins?

I know that we skimmed
right past that, but yeah.

Colin: I have a few, so I have,
Excalibur as a plugin, that I'm excited

about to do, brainstorming and stuff.

Um, I'm using the syncing as a
plugin and I'm just paying obsidian,

because I want it to just work.

It does work with iCloud syncing.

If you're in the Apple ecosystem.

I wasn't sure how.

if it actually was sinking.

So I'm just using the built in actual one.

they tell you like, don't try to
use our sink and also store it in

iCloud cause it will have conflicts.

so you gotta be careful of that.

Some people have done get
backing of their obsidian.

I don't want to deal with that.

So I'll just say take my money.

community plugins for some reason,
the thing that's not obvious to

me is I don't think plugins sink.

I need to figure that out.

Cause I know I have them somewhere
else, but there's ones that like

change the colors of your sidebar
and make it easier to search.

And there's a command palette inside of
obsidian, like there is in every app now.

So you get just access to things.

There's a GPT co pilot.

That you can throw in
your own API key and use.

so yeah, it's been a fun little thing.

It's weird because it syncs, but when I'm
in Obsidian, it feels like I'm offline.

versus if I'm in a Google doc,
like I'm very much online.

CJ: Yeah, it definitely having the
separation of it being a standalone

app makes that feel different in a way.

the only plugin I'm using, I
think is a Google calendar sync.

So it's so jank, first of all, like
all of the plugin, the entire plugin

ecosystem, super jank, all the syncing
jank, the mobile app jank, like it's

all I don't know if I picked the wrong

Colin: I think it's not all
built in PHP and jQuery, is it?

CJ: yeah,

Colin: a beautiful

CJ: yeah, the log seek, I don't know, what
I read was that they're rebuilding it to

be, instead of using flat files, they're
going to rebuild it to be database backed

so that you can have multiplayer and
you can't have all this stuff, but yeah,

sometimes I'll open up the mobile app.

So I only have it syncing on
my desktop and on my phone.

And when I open it up on my phone,
sometimes it's which version do you want?

I'm like, Oh my gosh, is this 2005?

Like you can't figure out which one,
or merge them or, yeah, which one wins?

come on.

Colin: Interesting.

does this actually have a CRM built in?

I see there's like relationships
is one of the core models

CJ: It, it might, I need to
look like deeper into that.

I'm just using pages,

Colin: or maybe, yeah, maybe it's just
creating a page for per person and they're

just saying like what you can use it for.

CJ: Yeah, I think that
might be how it works.

There might also be plugins
that give you like templates.

So like when you create a page for a
person that like adds their contact

details and their address and some
other stuff, but I'm just like

adding, like dropping in raw notes.

Colin: Next you're going to
have a LinkedIn plugin and

CJ: there was a, like a
personal CRM a long time ago.

this is like 2012 called, contactually,
I think they're out of business

now maybe, but it was amazing.

And it used to sync like your Facebook
messages, your Gmail messages.

Your text message, like it seems like
all of your personal interactions

with people and you could mark certain
contacts as I want to keep in contact

then every month or every three
months or every, once a year at least.

And then it would bubble up people that
you haven't contacted in a long time.

So you could remember to reach out
to them and see how things are going.

I loved it.

It was awesome.

But then like a bunch of those
APIs got locked down more.

And so they removed access to.

Messages and some other features that
just crippled the usability of the thing.

And so I dream of getting back to that
sort of CRM experience one day, but for

now we're going to have to live with this.

Colin: let's just say it
feels like a great rails app.

CJ: yeah.

have you used any of these tools
that like records or Otter.

ai or one of the things that you can join
your meeting and it'll write the meeting

notes for you or transcribe it for you.

Colin: We have one at
discord that we built.

CJ: Oh, that's right.

Okay.

Yeah.

I forgot you guys have
an internal one, right?

Colin: Yeah, I think it just uses
whisper though, so like I don't think

that we built the model or anything like
that But we have it just for that and

outside of discord I don't think I really
have a need for anything like that.

So I haven't really played with it.

CJ: So I built something, I played with a
bunch of them and I've, we have meetings.

So like the engineering team, we meet
on tuple and the broader team meets

on Google meet and we meet with other
people sometimes on zoom or whatever.

And I was like, I just want like a general
personal meeting transcriber thing.

And so I wrote this little
script that, records calls.

With, FFmpeg.

And, so it will record all the audio on
the machine and then it pipes the audio

file to whisper and transcribes all of it.

And then it takes all of the
transcript and passes it to open

AI to pull out, what are the high
level takeaways and the action items?

And it dumps that into a markdown file.

That's bulleted.

So I could just, after I'm done
with a call, I just do control C.

And then, I copy the contents of
the Markdown file into my log seek.

And so then I have this, like voice
version of a meeting that I just had,

which I, think is freaking awesome.

um, I'll put up a link to the GitHub repo.

it's all public.

It's just

Colin: So you do this for work

CJ: of, yeah, we're like work meetings
and personal meetings and whatever.

Like it's just,

Colin: do you find like how do
people on the call feel about it?

do you tell them like
hey, I'm recording this

CJ: I don't, but it's, It's the same
as if I was like taking notes, right?

Colin: Yeah, it's not like you're

CJ: and I'm not using the

Colin: the audio

CJ: right?

Yeah,

Colin: but does it have to
join the meeting with you?

CJ: no, it like listens to the
local, like local audio input output.

Yeah.

Microphone.

It doesn't do like whisper can
do the diarization or whatever to

pick out different speakers, but
it doesn't know who said what.

And.

So at the end of the day, and also
it's just, it's taking the raw audio,

transcribing it locally, and then
taking that local transcript that's

not tied to any person's name or
anything, and then summarizing that and

then giving me the, the takeaways and

Colin: Yeah.

Ours does join the discord
call, which is good.

So people know it's there and then
it will spit out like, these are

the people who are in the call
based on just us being there.

We don't have to say anything.

so it knows who's in the room
and then it knows who talked and

then it pulls out action items.

Which is pretty slick.

Who is gonna do them, who's
responsible for them, and then,

I think we mentioned it, it then
creates a little screenplay based on

maybe Star Wars, aliens, whatever.

It just comes up with a little screenplay,
it's like a little sci fi thing,

CJ: Yeah, that's fun.

That's super fun.

Yeah.

I tried tactic, which we tried a couple
of them and they all felt pretty.

I don't know, if it was, if it felt
intrusive or if it was intrusive,

a couple of them like took over
giant parts of the screen when we

were in, Google meet or whatever.

I think part of the, part of this solution
that's nice is that it's not dependent on

a browser or like, zoom app or something.

It's just all just using your local audio.

Colin: Nice.

in that vein, I've been playing around
with some new AI, like code editor things.

Have you played much with those?

We can talk about this next week,
but, I have started to use cursor on

my personal machine and, pretty sure
we're not allowed to use it at work.

I've been playing with
it on my personal things.

I will just say cursor
plus rails is awesome.

Insane like holy crap so we can dig into
that I already was having conversations

with co pilot and stuff but like cursor
just I think Brian castle is already

like how do they not just get acquired by
microsoft like in a weird way It's just

like a fork of vs code that has ai built
into it Which is what that's already a

microsoft product and I guess it's the
pros and cons of Open source or open

sourcing your, your tool chain in general.

But,

CJ: Totally.

Colin: it's been pretty good.

CJ: On your recommendation, installed
and played around with cursor for a bit.

And it is pretty mind blowing.

And I love being able to at mention
like different files and different

like folder paths and things, and
just be like, go find me this, or

let's talk about that or whatever.

very cool.

Colin: I say, let's save
it for the next one.

Cause, and the thing I want you to
think about is whether or not you

think it's like coming for your job,
because I, I'm curious what you think

for it, like there's all those AI
developers that you can hire and stuff.

So I'm curious your take on that, but.

We will talk about and dive
into the AI world next week.

CJ: That, that is a great cliffhanger.

Thanks for listening.

You can head over to build and learn.

dev to check out all the links to the
resources that we talked about today.

And, yeah, we'll see you next time.

Colin: All right.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.