I tested the app Super Productivity. I really liked the integration with the calendar, since I'd like to integrate timeblocking and taskmanagement in one app.
However, compared to Things, it is not as smooth. Either I am stuck in my way or Things is just the better fit right now.
Still, I lack the visual appeal of time blocking. I could do it in the calender as Things also shows my calendars at the top of my today's task list. But I want to make the time blocks the central interface how I interact with my day.
I can trick Things by using tags. But the solution doesn't feel clean.
I think this problem is a distraction. I work in time blocks anyway. Perhaps, I crave external structure and validation because it is often annoying to plan each day without a clear framework if the day was planned optimally.
In training, I can provide myself with such an external framework. I plan my training week for 2-4 months at a time and then I just focus on execution. Each training day is informed by the last week's training. Easy, straightforward and because of the simplicity of training, I know without one iota of a doubt if I executed the training correctly. No [Deus deceptor] could trick me.
At least, I trained myself to consistently write 100 words per minute. Still, it is too slow for my need to not feel this constant foot on the break when I write. My suspicion is that a lot of the strange skips of content that happen when I write happen, because I already thought the content and my mind moved on.
So, another task on my skill ToDo: Relearn proper 10-finger typing. (I am not using my pinkies properly)
Perhaps, it will be viable to learn another keyboard layout like neo 2.
2025-11-19 Reading First Thing in The Morning Doesn't Feel Nice
I don't like to start with reading. I think I'll switch to something more active.
Perhaps, reading doesn't reach the intensity threshold in the morning? I have no problem with jumping out of bed and writing. But reading is another story. So, either I can make my reading more active, increasing the intensity or I have to switch to another activity for the morning practice.
Or it might be the material? Perhaps, I experiment and process something that is for fun (some fantasy source book?) to see if the material is the issue.
I decided to start my morning with writing. Writing is sufficiently intense and stimulating. So, that works.
Interestingly, My biological clock is resisting to work earlier than 3am. It might be just a mental block, looking at the clock and thinking "Nope".
But when I slept well, trained lightly and everything else lined up 3am would be 7 hours of sleep. So, it should be enough.
I wonder if I truly miss the days at which I could write in the evening. I get the night owls and their romantic feelings towards the late evening and nights, alone with the muse.
@Sascha said: 2025-11-25 Morning Writing Works Better
I decided to start my morning with writing. Writing is sufficiently intense and stimulating. So, that works.
Interestingly, My biological clock is resisting to work earlier than 3am. It might be just a mental block, looking at the clock and thinking "Nope".
But when I slept well, trained lightly and everything else lined up 3am would be 7 hours of sleep. So, it should be enough.
I wonder if I truly miss the days at which I could write in the evening. I get the night owls and their romantic feelings towards the late evening and nights, alone with the muse.
Can we say you are low on lateral stimulation and trying to balance that by starting with writing? Just curious. Playing with different workflows since my brain chemistry is fucked up.
Selen. Psychology freak.
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
@Sascha said: 2025-11-19 Reading First Thing in The Morning Doesn't Feel Nice
I don't like to start with reading. I think I'll switch to something more active.
In my case, when I wake up in the morning, various thoughts come to mind, and this seems to last for two to three hours. However, when I read first thing in the morning, I felt like I was (1) suppressing the thoughts and (2) forcing myself to focus on the information in front of me.
On the other hand, when I write in the morning, the thoughts that come to me are simply expressed, so the process feels smooth and unimpeded.
I wrote a 1500 word long article from scratch. It is an extended answer to a question asked on Reddit about rewriting. So, while the writing started with a spark, it still was not prepared by outlining or anything like that.
I am not so sure if such writing will be part of the morning routine. I woke up early today (3am) and wrote for 2h. The article is almost completely edited and finished. I just need to write a paragraph to provide the context of it.
So, theoretically, I could write a medium-length article per day.
At least, this experiment gave me a positive result: Writing can be done early morning. So, reading will not be part of my morning routine.
I couldn't bring myself to process a fantasy source book to see if stimulation is the missing key to a productive morning session for me. Perhaps, it is a "bitter" pill that I have to swallow.
My goal is to create a very stable and predictable morning practice with the same type of action every morning. I am after those sweet performance gains of creating a good and strong habit.
@iylock I feel the same, too. In my case, I feel that reading fell victim to overstimulation. Even when I was in my teens, I'd read for 8 hours with no problem. Sure, it was for fun and I picked the books just for that reason. But even in university, I still would read a book a day (not everyday), even if it was technical. So, I will still make an effort to make reading papers work, since it would improve my workflow quite a bit.
Then at 8am: Running with a tank top seems to be enough to reactivate my cold adaptation (I use to do 30min to-neck immersion in 0°C/24°F water with not shivering). Doing my morning run later also gives me the chance to get natural light in my face and eyes.
I tweaked my carb intake a little bit (alternating low carb and high carb)
My energy seem to have recovered to the level of my early/mid 30s. (I am training much less and less intensive which helps a lot).
So, this old man got some years to run before he needs to start walking.
This means that I will retest reading and processing papers in the morning to test if my problems were an energy issue.
This morning, my work was scattered. I couldn't identify a good focus, so I cleaned up the tabs in the browser, processed article ideas and such. So, low-value busy work I could've done when low on energy.
The main reason was that I couldn't figure out anything that wasn't editing the manuscript. In hindsight, I should've fallen back to editing as a safety measure. However, I am still committed to use my morning hours to develop a stable and structured practice, doing one type of practice 6 times per week.
At least, I have to pick a core activity for the next weeks.
Either I am focussing on one project or I am focussing on a type of task (processing books, writing articles, editing articles).
But what I am currently doing is to slowly solve the problem. Long thinking is not a term that I like. It seems an inappropriate reification of just being persistent when you work on a problem. But perhaps, I am past the zeitgeist which happens often.
Within this week, I'll have to make a decision.
Either I will focus on one project (the finishing of the English translation will be the next one but just for 2 weeks or something like that) or I will focus on zeroing into a topic.
I settled to focus on editing the manuscript. This will give me a couple of days to delay my decision.
It is likely that I will come up with a project that I will pursue each morning and then the rest of the available time in my schedule. I'll have to take care about alignment. The project needs to move a lot of goals forward.
2025-12-17 Operationalisation and Automation of Thinking?
A hot and controversial topic: How to extend your thinking with AI without atrophying your own mind. I am slowly getting an idea on how to create prompts that provide me with very specific material that I can then process and feedback to my own thinking.
2025-12-18 Closing My Experiment "Obsidian = Writing App?"
I am using Things 3 for my task management. It lacks project management features. I can't manage complex projects in things properly, or perhaps I am just on feature hunting and managing would be just fine.
I also miss a time boxing feature and a tighter integration with calendar. I tried quite some other apps, but none of them convince otherwise.
So, tried Obsidian for some of the features and then thought that with a couple of plugins, I would be able to merge writing management with writing. Then I returned to the iA Writer to write something and the difference is striking. It is not that I can produce more. Writing with the Writer is just less mental strain.
So, I will use the WikiLink Feature to organise my writing in the iA Writer (I'll create a makeshift Kanban).
Currently, my morning sessions are just part of the regular time allocated to work. So, nothing special about that. But I am set up properly energetically and mentally. I can't fathom how people get stuff done with messed up mitochondria and the garbage fuel they run on. I feel like shit if I am not set up.
0405 Waking Up
0405-0420 Getting Ready
0420-0450 Morning run
0500-0700 Work
0700-0800 Getting Family ready
0800-0830 Training
0830-1230 Work
1230-1300 Training
1300-1400 Lunch + Dog (I eat outside to safe time)
1400-1730 Work (except for Saturdays if some family time is planned)
1730-2030 Family Time
I tested:
Wake up and immediately start to work, then do the run and the workout from 0800-0900
Run and do my morning workout right afterwards
Run, work, train
First option means, I can see sunlight in the morning which is a plus, but I can't take the long break from work. Second option reduces my first work window too much. I think I'll settle for the third option this winter.
This morning I hit two birds with one stone: Writing a podcast script and tested two of the apps.
Both are beautiful apps. What I don't get about Bear is that there is no typewriter mode, even though there was a hefty user request for years now.
I think I'll even switch back to numbers for my training planing. Obsidian did fine. But, I don't know, Obsidian feels unrestful. The current trajectory is that it will be demoted to an image generation tool: Excalidraw + Canvas.
Based on my research on habits, there is a difference between not engaging with content/behaviors and not having them available in the first place.
I have minor problems with getting distracted in the afternoon when I start to run low on energy. My internet access is restricted anyway (e.g. If I identify a harmful, self-reinforcing behavior, I block access to it permanently. So, I never play incremental games, because my mind is very vulnerable to these games).
So, I apply the magic number of 4. I restrict access to everything that I engage with when I am low on energy for 4 days per week. (I would restrict it permanently if I wouldn't need to engage with it at all. I can't restrict YouTube permanently for example) 4 days per week seems to be the threshold of specific habits to develop. So, I am just bellow that line.
It works. Based on (weak) empirical evidence and my strong placebo effect.
Just changing the major writing font from Lato to Avenir Next made a surprising big difference. I like it way more.
I am giving Bear a chance for organising my Podcast. So far, it works fine. The main benefit is that I can use my notes directly for a distraction free environment for solo episodes.
I will finally move writing completely to iA Writer again and will use smart folders or a site with wikilinks for organisation.
Obsidian will be used for client notes and I will experiment with a separate vault for project notes.
I am still heavily flirting with Mellel to manage medium (50 pages) ebooks that I postponed for a decade (!) because I didn't care about publishing. But I might be reasonable and stay with Pages for now.
I installed VS Code + LateX workshop. I will tame this lolly gagger, but I have to take my time. (Does anybody know a good tutorial for that combo?)
Easy workflow for notes on the fly: Voice recorder -> mp3 -> NotebookLM -> process the notes. To bad that my voice recorder is not connecting to my computer anymore.
Easy workflow for notes on the fly: Voice recorder -> mp3 -> NotebookLM -> process the notes. To bad that my voice recorder is not connecting to my computer anymore.
Sascha, have you tried something like Whisper Dictation on iOS? Yes, there is a cost involved, but the software is very good. I use a sister product called MacWhisper on my laptop (which is available through Setapp).
I am anticipating the most pressing bottle neck with Bear: It lacks text manipulation functionality. I like the result, but I don't like to get there in Bear.
I am slowly rediscovering my voice in my podcast. My method is basically to publish MVPs for elements of my work "How to Live a Good Life in Modern Times".
The good news is:
I have enough material for the rest of my life already prepared in my Zettelkasten. So, having material is solved for the rest of my life.
I seem to hit the nerve of the time nicely. The algorithm tries its best to promote my content and without any marketing (even no social media accounts) organic growth is accelerating. Given this dynamic, I am projected to hit commercial viability within a year (means: the Podcast alone can create a reasonable income)
I'll develop in conjunction the workflows and ideas on "Zettelkasten for Podcasting". Perhaps, I will take a detour: After creating the most mature version of the Zettelkasten 101 course (which comes after the book), I might create a small specialised course on "Using the Zettelkasten Method for Podcasting". Perhaps, I wait until my own podcast is successful enough to function as social proof.
But it feels nice to use my Zettelkasten again for its intended purpose.
Public answer to Peter (since it might be interesting to other's, too): The titles and topics of the episodes:
Is life an adventure? Direct answer to the question. What is an adventure? Is it a working framework to life style design?
All about Zone 2 training How it works, why it works, how to implement it in your training schedule.
Ben Richter - What if Nietzsche raises children? On Nietzsche as a diagnostic tool for the modern phenomenons.
Which training plan fits to me? Types of training plans, their effects, how they influence how life feels.
Lectures of the Hero's Journey Practical application of the hero's journey by Joseph Campbell
Training the Heart What the stimulus for better heart health is and how to apply it with various training intensities and modalities.
Elias Gudwis - How to Engage in Philosophy, so it matters for life How to make philosophy more than mental masturbation.
Systematic Meditation Without BS My own biography regarding meditation, how to think practically about meditation and how to work with meditation as a tool.
All content is based on my own work. At least for now, there is always a development involved that improves ideas that I took from others using my theory on knowledge value.
Comments
2025-11-18 ADHD tools for non-ADHD
I tested the app Super Productivity. I really liked the integration with the calendar, since I'd like to integrate timeblocking and taskmanagement in one app.
However, compared to Things, it is not as smooth. Either I am stuck in my way or Things is just the better fit right now.
Still, I lack the visual appeal of time blocking. I could do it in the calender as Things also shows my calendars at the top of my today's task list. But I want to make the time blocks the central interface how I interact with my day.
I can trick Things by using tags. But the solution doesn't feel clean.
I think this problem is a distraction. I work in time blocks anyway. Perhaps, I crave external structure and validation because it is often annoying to plan each day without a clear framework if the day was planned optimally.
In training, I can provide myself with such an external framework. I plan my training week for 2-4 months at a time and then I just focus on execution. Each training day is informed by the last week's training. Easy, straightforward and because of the simplicity of training, I know without one iota of a doubt if I executed the training correctly. No [Deus deceptor] could trick me.
At least, I trained myself to consistently write 100 words per minute. Still, it is too slow for my need to not feel this constant foot on the break when I write. My suspicion is that a lot of the strange skips of content that happen when I write happen, because I already thought the content and my mind moved on.
So, another task on my skill ToDo: Relearn proper 10-finger typing. (I am not using my pinkies properly)
Perhaps, it will be viable to learn another keyboard layout like neo 2.
I am a Zettler
That's 3.5h later, does the old lady not mind the extra sleep?
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
2025-11-19 Reading First Thing in The Morning Doesn't Feel Nice
I don't like to start with reading. I think I'll switch to something more active.
Perhaps, reading doesn't reach the intensity threshold in the morning? I have no problem with jumping out of bed and writing. But reading is another story. So, either I can make my reading more active, increasing the intensity or I have to switch to another activity for the morning practice.
Or it might be the material? Perhaps, I experiment and process something that is for fun (some fantasy source book?) to see if the material is the issue.
I am a Zettler
2025-11-25 Morning Writing Works Better
I decided to start my morning with writing. Writing is sufficiently intense and stimulating. So, that works.
Interestingly, My biological clock is resisting to work earlier than 3am. It might be just a mental block, looking at the clock and thinking "Nope".
But when I slept well, trained lightly and everything else lined up 3am would be 7 hours of sleep. So, it should be enough.
I wonder if I truly miss the days at which I could write in the evening. I get the night owls and their romantic feelings towards the late evening and nights, alone with the muse.
I am a Zettler
Can we say you are low on lateral stimulation and trying to balance that by starting with writing? Just curious. Playing with different workflows since my brain chemistry is fucked up.
Selen. Psychology freak.
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
What do you mean by "lateral stimulation"? Never heard that term.
I am a Zettler
In my case, when I wake up in the morning, various thoughts come to mind, and this seems to last for two to three hours. However, when I read first thing in the morning, I felt like I was (1) suppressing the thoughts and (2) forcing myself to focus on the information in front of me.
On the other hand, when I write in the morning, the thoughts that come to me are simply expressed, so the process feels smooth and unimpeded.
2025-12-01 Writing works somewhat
I wrote a 1500 word long article from scratch. It is an extended answer to a question asked on Reddit about rewriting. So, while the writing started with a spark, it still was not prepared by outlining or anything like that.
I am not so sure if such writing will be part of the morning routine. I woke up early today (3am) and wrote for 2h. The article is almost completely edited and finished. I just need to write a paragraph to provide the context of it.
So, theoretically, I could write a medium-length article per day.
At least, this experiment gave me a positive result: Writing can be done early morning. So, reading will not be part of my morning routine.
I couldn't bring myself to process a fantasy source book to see if stimulation is the missing key to a productive morning session for me. Perhaps, it is a "bitter" pill that I have to swallow.
My goal is to create a very stable and predictable morning practice with the same type of action every morning. I am after those sweet performance gains of creating a good and strong habit.
@iylock I feel the same, too. In my case, I feel that reading fell victim to overstimulation. Even when I was in my teens, I'd read for 8 hours with no problem. Sure, it was for fun and I picked the books just for that reason. But even in university, I still would read a book a day (not everyday), even if it was technical. So, I will still make an effort to make reading papers work, since it would improve my workflow quite a bit.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-02 Biohacking For President
Morning energy increases. My evening drink is.
MCT-oil
valerian + zinc + vitamin C + magnesium
Then at 8am: Running with a tank top seems to be enough to reactivate my cold adaptation (I use to do 30min to-neck immersion in 0°C/24°F water with not shivering). Doing my morning run later also gives me the chance to get natural light in my face and eyes.
I tweaked my carb intake a little bit (alternating low carb and high carb)
My energy seem to have recovered to the level of my early/mid 30s. (I am training much less and less intensive which helps a lot).
So, this old man got some years to run before he needs to start walking.
This means that I will retest reading and processing papers in the morning to test if my problems were an energy issue.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-03 It is time to tie everything together
This morning, my work was scattered. I couldn't identify a good focus, so I cleaned up the tabs in the browser, processed article ideas and such. So, low-value busy work I could've done when low on energy.
The main reason was that I couldn't figure out anything that wasn't editing the manuscript. In hindsight, I should've fallen back to editing as a safety measure. However, I am still committed to use my morning hours to develop a stable and structured practice, doing one type of practice 6 times per week.
At least, I have to pick a core activity for the next weeks.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-04 Long Thinking
Either I am focussing on one project or I am focussing on a type of task (processing books, writing articles, editing articles).
But what I am currently doing is to slowly solve the problem. Long thinking is not a term that I like. It seems an inappropriate reification of just being persistent when you work on a problem. But perhaps, I am past the zeitgeist which happens often.
Within this week, I'll have to make a decision.
Either I will focus on one project (the finishing of the English translation will be the next one but just for 2 weeks or something like that) or I will focus on zeroing into a topic.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-05 Settling
I settled to focus on editing the manuscript. This will give me a couple of days to delay my decision.
It is likely that I will come up with a project that I will pursue each morning and then the rest of the available time in my schedule. I'll have to take care about alignment. The project needs to move a lot of goals forward.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-08 Morning Practice?
So, as announced: The manuscript doesn't yield any meaningful work for my morning shift. That means, I have to pick something else.
I might process three books (two by Scott Young and one by McPherson).
I am a Zettler
2025-12-17 Operationalisation and Automation of Thinking?
A hot and controversial topic: How to extend your thinking with AI without atrophying your own mind. I am slowly getting an idea on how to create prompts that provide me with very specific material that I can then process and feedback to my own thinking.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-18 Closing My Experiment "Obsidian = Writing App?"
I am using Things 3 for my task management. It lacks project management features. I can't manage complex projects in things properly, or perhaps I am just on feature hunting and managing would be just fine.
I also miss a time boxing feature and a tighter integration with calendar. I tried quite some other apps, but none of them convince otherwise.
So, tried Obsidian for some of the features and then thought that with a couple of plugins, I would be able to merge writing management with writing. Then I returned to the iA Writer to write something and the difference is striking. It is not that I can produce more. Writing with the Writer is just less mental strain.
So, I will use the WikiLink Feature to organise my writing in the iA Writer (I'll create a makeshift Kanban).
Currently, my morning sessions are just part of the regular time allocated to work. So, nothing special about that. But I am set up properly energetically and mentally. I can't fathom how people get stuff done with messed up mitochondria and the garbage fuel they run on. I feel like shit if I am not set up.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-18 Again, shuffling around the workload
0405 Waking Up
0405-0420 Getting Ready
0420-0450 Morning run
0500-0700 Work
0700-0800 Getting Family ready
0800-0830 Training
0830-1230 Work
1230-1300 Training
1300-1400 Lunch + Dog (I eat outside to safe time)
1400-1730 Work (except for Saturdays if some family time is planned)
1730-2030 Family Time
I tested:
First option means, I can see sunlight in the morning which is a plus, but I can't take the long break from work. Second option reduces my first work window too much. I think I'll settle for the third option this winter.
Experimenting gets annoying. I crave stability.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-19 Testing Bear and Paper
This morning I hit two birds with one stone: Writing a podcast script and tested two of the apps.
Both are beautiful apps. What I don't get about Bear is that there is no typewriter mode, even though there was a hefty user request for years now.
I think I'll even switch back to numbers for my training planing. Obsidian did fine. But, I don't know, Obsidian feels unrestful. The current trajectory is that it will be demoted to an image generation tool: Excalidraw + Canvas.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-22 Spoiled by The Archive
Since I played with quite some apps, I feel that I am spoiled with The Archive. I think that I got overly sensitive towards clutter in the UI.
The decision I have to make is whether I will let an app help me organise my article writing or reduce it to a folder system.
I am diving a little bit too deep into fonts now. But so far, it paid off.
The question in mind is whether I actually need visual access to all of the article drafts in there varying stages of completion.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-22 Increasing restrictions to the Web
Based on my research on habits, there is a difference between not engaging with content/behaviors and not having them available in the first place.
I have minor problems with getting distracted in the afternoon when I start to run low on energy. My internet access is restricted anyway (e.g. If I identify a harmful, self-reinforcing behavior, I block access to it permanently. So, I never play incremental games, because my mind is very vulnerable to these games).
So, I apply the magic number of 4. I restrict access to everything that I engage with when I am low on energy for 4 days per week. (I would restrict it permanently if I wouldn't need to engage with it at all. I can't restrict YouTube permanently for example) 4 days per week seems to be the threshold of specific habits to develop. So, I am just bellow that line.
It works. Based on (weak) empirical evidence and my strong placebo effect.
I am a Zettler
2025-12-31 Random Thoughts
Happy new Year to you all!
I am a Zettler
Sascha, have you tried something like Whisper Dictation on iOS? Yes, there is a cost involved, but the software is very good. I use a sister product called MacWhisper on my laptop (which is available through Setapp).
I don't own any smartphone.
(Which is the reason I use(d) a voice recorder)
I am a Zettler
2026-01-01 Beautiful, but weak
I am anticipating the most pressing bottle neck with Bear: It lacks text manipulation functionality. I like the result, but I don't like to get there in Bear.
I am a Zettler
2026-01-01 Major change for the knowledge flower
It is now the knowledge clover. I removed simplicity (dissolved its elements to the other values).
I am a Zettler
2026-01-02 Slowly Re-Engaging
I am slowly rediscovering my voice in my podcast. My method is basically to publish MVPs for elements of my work "How to Live a Good Life in Modern Times".
The good news is:
I'll develop in conjunction the workflows and ideas on "Zettelkasten for Podcasting". Perhaps, I will take a detour: After creating the most mature version of the Zettelkasten 101 course (which comes after the book), I might create a small specialised course on "Using the Zettelkasten Method for Podcasting". Perhaps, I wait until my own podcast is successful enough to function as social proof.
But it feels nice to use my Zettelkasten again for its intended purpose.
I am a Zettler
Public answer to Peter (since it might be interesting to other's, too): The titles and topics of the episodes:
All content is based on my own work. At least for now, there is always a development involved that improves ideas that I took from others using my theory on knowledge value.
I am a Zettler
2026-01-09 App Hopping
I am a Zettler