Voicenotes Believer Plan, which is a single payment for life, will stop being offered at some point this week. The email they sent does not specify a date, but I just checked, and it is still available when I write this.
If you are still on the fence, this could be the perfect opportunity to buy it. And if you decide to do it, please consider using my affiliate link. You will pay the same amount, but I will receive a small commission.
The email also mentions some upcoming features that I’m really curious to try:
- Meeting note-taker with timestamps, speakers, and insights.
- Share notes with other accounts for work and personal use.
- Intelligent insights based on past notes.
- Desktop app & Chrome extension.
The inspiration behind the Timeline System
A brief history of the pitfalls and struggles that ended up leading me to create the Timeline System. And how Evernote helped me twice.
Years ago, when I worked for big corporations, I quickly realized how much of a problem it was not to have a good system for organizing information and keeping up with activities.
After trying many existing options, it became clear to me that they often felt rigid and unnatural, forcing users to adapt to the system rather than the other way around.
The closest I got to something that would work in a more intentional way was Agile, which I studied for many years. I ended up adapting some of its core concepts to Kanban boards, which I still use to help companies. But it is far from ideal for managing life. Anyway, this learning experience led me to Kaizen, which also heavily influenced the way I see mindful work.
Back to my journey. I knew my system needed to output information based on how we move things around. In addition to that, it had to do more than one thing with a single action from us, the users.
Some examples of the system accomplishing that are the auto-updated number of notes in the Action Containers and the dynamically created list of tasks, as shown in the video below.
Another important “discovery”, was the realization that time passes. In other words, there’s nothing we can do about it.
Time. Will. Pass.
The good news, is that it will democratically happen in the same way for all of us. However, if there’s no way to slow it down, accelerate it, or go back or forward, we are nothing but slaves to time. In other words, the most accurate representation of our lives is a timeline.
The third element was the recognition that human memory is much worse than many of us believe it to be. There are several great books on this topic, but there’s one I enjoyed the most: Memory Illusion by Julia Shaw. And that’s why I strongly believe that a system will only be truly efficient if it starts with good note-taking.
If we put all the above together, we have the Action Containers representing all the work in progress and, at the same time, clearly showing us the number of activities going on. Then, there’s the Static Containers, which help us with all the information we constantly need and wish we were able to always remember. Think of them as a memory caches.
Finally, there’s the Timeline, to where everything goes. That’s your long-term memory. It’s a representation of everything that happened in your life. And because it is chronologically ordered and categorized with tags, you can go to a specific moment and that will trigger other memories. Going there is like recollecting facts when someone shows you a picture of something you don’t remember happening. It’s almost a flashback experience.
If you haven’t, please watch the video below. It will help you understand the Timeline System dynamics.
Ditching the Kanban Board
Although notes are a much better way to store information, a Kanban board is unbelievably better at representing the current state of activities in progress. One might think that it is possible to address the problem by making cards as rich in information as notes. That’s technically possible using, for example, an Obsidian plugin that I tried for a while. However, it ends up creating another issue. We would require a multitude of boards to manage all aspects of our lives, which, in turn, makes the system excessively complex.
Notes it is
If you look back to my first videos, you will notice how I was struggling with making it work with multiple Filtered Notes Widgets on Evernote Home. I could never find a seamless solution, and Evernote made my life even harder when they removed Home from the mobile client. Yes, I’m aware that it is still there, but it is so many clicks away that it feels like it is not there.
Anyway, that forced me to go back to using the Shortcuts area to replicate the mess I created on Evernote Home. Little did I know that its constraints would push me in the direction of figuring out the solution that I had been seeking for a considerable amount of time. Interestingly, many years ago, after fighting with how Evernote organizes our notes, I realized how powerful chronology is.
Evernote’s features probably make it the best place to run the Timeline System, but I didn’t want it to be exclusive to one app. So the next step was to make it as simple as possible to enable it to run in as many apps as I could.
That was not an easy task, but to be honest, the hardest part has been figuring out a way to explain how the system works and all its benefits in a way that it’s easy to understand. After so many years, it all happens naturally when I’m doing things or teaching my clients. But putting that in words has been a challenge.
Anyway, after the first video explaining how to set it up on Evernote, there’s now the one below explaining how I’m using the system on Obsidian.
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Because it was the first time I asked AI to create an image for a post, I didn’t know if I could simply use it. So I asked for permission 😊. By the way, I always say please and thank you when I talk to Gemini.
(…) Thank you. Can I use this image in my article?
— Yes, you can definitely use the image in your article. As an AI language model, I don’t have ownership rights over the images I generate. They are intended for your personal use. Please note that if you are using the image in a commercial context, you might want to consider adding a credit line like “Image generated by Gemini AI.” This can help clarify the image’s origin.
— Would you like me to help you with anything else?
— No. Thank you.
The problem with Evernote’s AI, is Evernote
Navigating Evernote’s AI Journey: Balancing Privacy and Functionality.
Although Evernote has gradually evolved into a more collaborative space, it has been a place for personal note-taking since its inception. Furthermore, the company has consistently emphasized its privacy-first approach throughout the years.
If we compare that to how AI normally works, I believe it is a bit difficult to create an environment that will make both pro and against AI users happy and comfortable with the app experience.
An immersive AI experience like we see on Voicenotes would mean giving the Large Language Model access to all the notes and everything in our Evernote. Some people would never accept something like this, but that is precisely how to create an outstanding experience of fully interacting with our notes and all the memories and knowledge we have saved over the years.
I appreciate the way Bending Spoons approaches this challenge by always asking permission when the topic is AI, but that means there is no complete or fully immersive experience going on. For example, as I explain in the video below, AI-Powered Search sends just a handful of notes to the LLM.
Perhaps the solution is to give users choices. Option number one would be the current one, with a pop-up constantly reminding us that part of the information is being sent to the AI model. Option two would be to add a setting that would allow us to select which notebooks can be fully scanned by AI. The other ones would be susceptible to the current opt-in system.
I believe this approach would also be useful to make the proposed chatting with Evernote to be something with a higher degree of quality in the answers.
And since I’m playing with the idea of options, why not a ‘turn off all AI’ toggle? This would disable all current and future AI features, giving skeptical users the confidence that they would never accidentally send notes to the AI Model.
What about you? Which group are you part of? Privacy first or AI superpowers?
This is the perfect device for an immersive and mindful music experience.
Why can’t companies simply leave perfect tech alone? Okay, we all know why, but well-built things are so special.
Every so often, a piece of equipment reaches a point where I believe new versions should not be released anymore, and it should be sold that way forever. I’m not talking about perfection; there’s no such thing. But there are these rare cases where moving forward would only disrupt a delicate and elegant balance. That’s how I see so many things that came and went, like the iPod in its 5.5 model.
The so-called 5.5 generation, also known as iPod video, which came after the 5, is a terrible device for watching movies. Not so much because of the small screen as because of the even smaller battery. But it was an okay device for keeping family pictures back then, and it was such a great music player.
Even its imperfections were among its best features. I recall being so impressed by the animations and other fancy elements on the more modern iPod Classic interface, but little did I know that all that was a detour. The 5.5 arranges our music collection using a very basic interface, which is all one needs to find the perfect tune, click, and listen.
Not to mention how mindful it is to know the name of the singer, the title of the album and even the name of the song you are looking for, and gracefully find it using the click wheel.
The distractions created by the beautiful interfaces on modern phones have nothing to do with getting into the flow when listening to music.
Then, there was the storage capacity. Being able to carry all my music library with me was something magical back then, and it still is. Yes, I still use my iPod, which brings us to another great feature.
Another positive technical aspect of the iPod 5 and 5.5 is the ease with which it is possible to take them apart. Their successor, the Classic, on the other hand, is a classic example of Apple’s policy of making it harder for users to repair their devices.
As a Maker, I love to make, fix, and improve things, and that’s what I did with my iPod. To be honest, things got a little out of control, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Fixing the iPod 5.5 audio cable
The first modification I made was replacing the original spinning hard drive with a Compact Flash adaptor, which I later replaced with an SD adaptor. That not only prolongs the battery life, but after all these years, spinning drives are likely to stop working eventually. The battery was also replaced, but that can’t be considered a modification, right?
After that, I decided it was time to replace the click wheel because of a small dent. Talking about it, can we stop for a moment and appreciate how remarkable the click wheel is in terms of innovation? Such a simple and intuitive interface enables access to every single feature of the iPod. Which reminded me of a beautiful passage in Steve Job’s biography about the sleep button that gives me chills.
Anyway, I bought some parts online, and when they arrived, I started to take apart the iPod using an iFixit guide. The only issue with these devices is how breakable the old plastics are after so many years. And, yes, I broke a small lever that holds a flat cable in place. Great! Instead of resolving an insignificant aesthetic issue, I was left with a broken iPod.
That piece not only holds the cable in place, but it also keeps the circuits inside in contact with the board below. So, duct tape would not do it. I’m pretty sure I would find this part online, but there’s no way I would be able to replace it, as I don’t have the skills or the tools. The iPod then went into a drawer, where it remained for a good number of months.
A few days ago, I had an idea. Perhaps, if I could insert the cable into the connector and slide a thin piece of plastic above it, I could create enough pressure to force the cable to come in contact with the board below. After trying many materials, I finally found one that did the job.
Next, I had to make sure everything was working fine. Yes, it was. I did it! The last piece of the puzzle was to figure out how to make that MacGyver-inspired solution stay in place.
I have a generic double-sided tape with a foam inside that I avoid at all costs because it is the opposite of what 3M sells. It’s always difficult to remove it from anything, which means it’s perfect for my hack. You can see it in the picture above, showing the iPod circuits board. It’s the red rectangle.
Lesson learned
The iPod is not meant to be in pristine condition. It exists to play music, which is something to listen to, not to look at. And before you start talking about vinyl records and cassette tapes, I grew up listening to those, and I can appreciate how the experience can also be immersive. But I see the iPod 5.5 in the right spot to bring together the best of the past and current experiences of appreciating music.
It can hold my entire music library, and thanks to the SD adaptor hack, I can even expand the storage space if I need to. Then, there’s the click wheel, which makes the music selection as manual as it can be in a digital music player, without adding any friction to the process. And, believe it or not, I’m still able to use Apple Music on my modern MacBook to synchronize all my music with this masterpiece of its era.
My music. No subscription.
Have I mentioned it even has a headphone jack?
An almost hidden setting on Mastodon Lists brought joy to my feed again
Tired of your Mastodon timeline being overrun with noise from big accounts? I’m using a simple trick to reclaim my feed and focus on the conversations that matter most.
When I started using Mastodon, all the conversation going on made me feel like I was going back to the old days on Twitter. I found it so enjoyable that it eventually became my primary social media platform, and it remains so to this day. However, at some point, all those remarkable conversations disappeared.
It took me a while to understand what was happening, but I eventually figured it out. As news and tech groups started joining Mastodon and other ActivityPub platforms, I naturally began following the ones I cared about. But because they post so often, regular people’s thoughts and conversations are constantly drowned out.
I tried so many strategies, for example, unfollowing some news and tech accounts, but that didn’t make the others more prominent. As usual, the solution was right in front of me all the time. Using the Lists feature on its own wouldn’t work, but there is a configuration I missed all this time. There’s a way to hide from the timeline everything that is in a list.
The solution I came up with was creating the News and Tech lists, adding the respective accounts to each one, and setting both to ‘Hide the posts there from home’, aka the main feed. I’m loving this. The conversations are back to my feed, and I can always go to a list to check the sea of posts there.
If you would like to try it, here’s how you do it:
First, you have to add the accounts to a list. This will take time, but it will be worth it. Go to a profile, click the tree dots, and select ‘Add or Remove from Lists’.
Don’t worry if you don’t have any lists, you can use the ‘Add’ button to create them on the fly. If you already have a list, just use the add button.
Repeat the above for all the accounts, and stay with me. There’s a last step. Click the Lists icon on the sidebar. This is how you’ll be able to read all the posts from each list, but for now, they are still showing up on your main timeline. Open one of the Lists and click on the gear. Switch on the ‘Hide this post from home’ option, and there you have it.
The old posts will still be on your home, but from this point on, the new publications will only be shown inside each list.
I love this. It’s a simple and elegant solution that provides me with the best of both worlds. Great conversations and thoughts are back on my main feed, and when I want to check the news, it’s just a matter of going to one of my Lists.
I was jogging as if nothing had happened, and suddenly I saw this big tree blocking the path I usually take.
We’ve been getting “Severe Weather” and “Coastal Event” warnings for a few days, and today we woke up to severe winds. Then, about noon, the weather started to return to the norm, and I could even run at the end of the day. Things were not so normal, though. There were branches and scattered materials everywhere.
Porto went from wildfires to storms and strong winds in the span of a few weeks. It seems to me that Mother Nature is pretty unhappy with us humans.
First, explain what it is, then make it look nice
Picasso once said, Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. In other words, one must be doing it — putting itself into the zone — to finally find the solution.
This is evident in Picasso’s museum in Málaga, Claude Monet’s house and garden in Giverny, or Van Gogh’s museum in Amsterdam, where you can see these master’s art in a chronological order, starting from the beginning of their careers.
It’s been a while since I’ve published anything on my blog, but this doesn’t mean I’m not writing. On the contrary, I’ve been incessantly working on my book. But that, on the other hand, doesn’t imply that I’ve made a lot of progress. In reality, it was only today, after starting the third draft, that I was finally happy with the book format.
In addition to Picasso’s mantra, what helped me find my way was a strategy I use when I can’t figure out a solution. What frequently helps is to first explain what it is, then make it look nice. Ironically, that doesn’t seem like it applies to understanding art.
Anyway, when I restarted the book for the third time, I did it from the middle, explaining what the Containers of Information are. It was then that I gradually began noticing that parts of it connected to many things I had already written in the two previous drafts, which I started repurposing.
Another strategy I tried was to use Obsidian Canvas to create a simple diagram of how the book should be structured. That’s what you see at the beginning of this video, but that was also a first draft. I moved those boxes around a lot and created new ones until I finally found the structure I was looking for.
Some people might see it as working twice or three times, as it was in this case, but if that means a book structured in a way that’s easier to understand, I’m fine with it. Furthermore, the parts that have already been written are being put to good use in a different order in this new version, which leaves me with a mystery to solve: how could authors do it with typewriters or, before that, pen and paper?
Those were the real geniuses.
✍️ PS. If you are not familiar with the Containers of Information concept, you can learn more about it by watching the first part of the video below. Even if you are not an Obsidian user.
My cluttered workspace 🫣
I took the pictures below to illustrate a point in a conversation I was having on Mastodon, but something unexpected ended up happening.
I arranged my desk so that I can comfortably type on the K380 and, at the same time, easily reach the Touch ID sensor on my MacBook Air. At my right, not visible, there’s a Mac Mini and another screen where I produce my videos. I use the same keyboard and trackpad through Apple Continuity.
It took me many trials and errors, but I love this arrangement. Not only that, I’m proud of my creation. I built several of the parts, including the sliding extension for the keyboard. Everything is easily accessible and highly efficient. Now, can you guess how the AI-generated captions of the pictures start the description of my desk?
“A cluttered workspace”. 🤪
The video below will give you an idea of my workspace. It’s from 2023, and I have made minor adjustments, as predicted at the end of the video. Nevertheless, the computers and most of the items remain the same.
Apple is still in a much better position
Based on the videos I watched, the Orion AR glasses appear to be a huge step in the right direction. However, when I look at the entire kit, I cannot help but think that Apple is still in a much better position.
All the data processing being done by that little brick can probably be handled by an iPhone. As for the wristband, guess what? There’s an Apple Watch that, by the way, already knows a thing or two about gestures. Additionally, I’m pretty sure Apple is gathering a lot of data from its own AR headset users. But, the most important element is the well-known walled garden.
If Apple feels threatened by a future commercial version of Meta’s product, I bet they will release a kit similar to the one I described above.
Strip down Evernote and go back to basics to focus on notes.
Tired of Evernote’s clutter? Too many features overwhelming you? This is how you can strip it down to a pure note-taking app.
Those of you who have already watched the video at the end of this article, know how happy I was when I first tried that new Sidebar Configuration feature. I was both nostalgic and overjoyed to see my decade-old companion working as a note-taking app again.
If that’s also your goal, here are some tips to convert Evernote into a plain, simple#note-taking app. But first, make sure you have the correct version. The settings below are only available on version 10.107.3 or later.
Removing Distractions
Click on your name in the top-left corner of the screen, open the Settings menu and go to the Sidebar tab.
Uncheck the Show Task and Event Creation buttons option to remove the big, super-distracting purple and red buttons from below the Note button. However, as a reminder—or tip—they are still accessible by clicking on the three dots.
The Show note counts is an important element in my Timeline System and I kept it checked. As for Show recent notes, I prefer them on the Home page because I can see the thumbnails. As a side note, both of these settings have always existed.
We’ll soon get back to the last option on that list. For now, scroll down to the section below and click to close as many eyes as possible 🤣. Jokes apart, Here’s what I left visible on my sidebar:
- Home
- Shortcuts
- Note
- Notebooks
We are not done yet, but I need to take a moment to share a tip with those of you who love keyboard shortcuts.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Even if you remove, for example, Home from the side menu, you’ll still be able to use the option + command + 1 keyboard shortcut on a Mac to open Evernote Home. And that’s true for many other items. To open the Tasks page, you can use option + command + 3. The Calendar is option + command + 5.
To see all the available shortcuts (Mac or Windows), click on the keyboard icon on the lower-left side of the Evernote desktop app and go to the Navigation section.
Hiding Everything
Let’s return to the top section of the Sidebar tab and discuss the Group hidden options in More. This will create a four-square icon that will provide you with access to the items you just made hidden.
I want the cleanest sidebar as possible and, in my case, I also unchecked this option. But, as everything else in this article, this is just how I’m doing things on my Evernote. There are many combinations that you can and should explore to find what’s the best for you.
Only Notes
We are almost there. If note-taking is your focus, go to the Application tab, and select Start on Notes under the When opening Evernote section. This will open Evernote on your notes list as it used to be before Evernote 10 was introduced.
Congratulations! Your Evernote is back as a note-taking app now. But if you need it, there’s always a calendar and list of tasks a click away on Home. To learn how I set up a minimal Evernote Home, you can watch this other video.
Express Your Love
Now, if you truly love Evernote and take many notes every day, why not automatically open the app when you turn on your computer? Since you are already on the Application tab, check the Open Evernote at start-up option. That’s how you show your true love 💚
Have Fun 😆
Finally, go watch the video below to make fun of me trying to find the Show Task and Event Creation buttons option.
Of course, I’m always trying to convince my family and friends. But whenever I work with a company or any organization, I invite them to create a Mastodon or other Fediverse account. I must admit that the conversion rate is fairly low, but I’m happy to be doing my small part in promoting such a great space.
The more I use the Supernote, the more I appreciate how the system incorporates chronology everywhere. Check out the Recent Files section. It fits perfectly with my Timeline System. How cool is that? Not to mention the Last Opened Document/Note. I use these three buttons all the time.
Recently, I realized why I find reading e-books to be much more comfortable than paper books. I thought it was something related to weight, shape, size, etc., but it turns out to be something that makes more sense.
Reading the electronic version of Mountbatten has proven to be considerably more comfortable and fluid, and that’s what prompted me to start exploring this situation. The pages in the real book are pretty big, and the book itself is super heavy, but none of that is related to the act of reading.
The customizable font and line spacing make all the difference. I noticed this the other day while I was flipping through a book at a bookstore. My eyes were uncomfortable with the lines. Picking up a random book off the shelf confirmed my theory. Again, the lines seemed to be too close together.
Maybe I got used to spacing the lines, maybe my eyes are getting worse, whatever the reason is, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is how simple it is to fix this when reading e-books 😉
Have a lovely week, Vlad.
PS. If you’re looking for some inspiration for books to read, you can always check out my library.
I'm often surprised by how simplifying things can end up being a daunting task
Several months ago, I got stuck trying to code a complicated set of rules to try to automate the process of building my newsletter, while also making it more intuitive for readers to understand. That turned out to be a huge task because I’m not a developer, and I went back to the laborious manual process.
However, for some unknown reason, my brain refuses to let go of some projects and continues to secretly work on them. After a few days, years, or hours, when I’m lucky, these bursts of insight begin to emerge in no particular order or interval. For example, In June, I was here doing something completely unrelated, and my brain asked me this:
🧠 “—Why don’t you just send an email for each article you post?”
It was indeed a good idea. It’s not only much easier technically speaking, but Substack, the platform I was already using, had that feature. So, it was just a matter of copying the post from my blog and pasting it on Substack. In hindsight, I don’t even remember why I decided to send a monthly compilation of posts.
Of course, the new plan came with its own set of problems. Because that made things so much easier, at some point I decided to post the articles across more platforms, which led me back to a time-consuming task. Not to mention that I’m unsure if it’s worth the effort.
Little did I know, my brain had been secretly plotting to automate the process I gave up many months ago, and today it came up with another brilliant insight:
🧠 “—Compared to what you attempted to do in the past, I’m pretty sure it is much easier to create an automation on your blog platform to send a single article instead of that compilation.”
That’s a great idea, I thought. And here we are. This is a test article to make sure posts like this get sent automatically. If everything goes as planned, I will be able to centralize all the processes of posting and sending the newsletter in a single place. And it will all be done on its own. Finally!
Update: It worked!
It is amazing that, while trying to simplify a situation, we often end up making things even more complicated. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, sometimes it’s just a matter of turning things around a little to see how simple a solution can be.