keep it cool
yeah so i'm blogging now. i wanted to start using my website for more than i currently use it for (an out of date platform to promote myself as a student fresh out of grad school).
i've been having fun writing in small bursts again via microblogging on bluesky (feel free to drop me a follow @justinshillingford.com). i'm feeling the creative itch again and wanted to express it via webdev. and a blog "platform" that i "control" felt like a good start. i think the next step (besides making this blog prettier) is getting it to support bluesky replies as comments.
anyway for my first post i wanted to talk about some of the digital tools i hope will help me keep myself together in the upcoming year.
todoist
todoist is the greatest to-do list app i've ever used, without question. fully featured without feeling too busy. and its karma system has been a great motivator for me in the past.
back during the first year of the covid pandemic, i used a mix of todoist and the gtd productivity method to keep up with my habits, establish new ones, and make it through the end of undergrad, a startup internship, and the entirety of my masters.
so i'm spinning up the gtd method again and using todoist as the main tool to follow the methodology. read more about this combo here.
obsidian
i love markdown. i'm writing this blog in markdown. and i'm doing so in the obsidian app.
obsidian is an app for composing and managing markdown files. the attractive thing about obsidian to me (besides the plugins and what feels like infinite customizability) is that everything is saved locally to .md files. i know i own these. if obsidian shuts down tomorrow, i'll be sad but i'll still have my notes.
taking inspiration from Cassidy Williams, i'm using the templater obsidian plugin to set up the basic frontmatter (a word i learned this week) for the blog posts. and like Cassidy, i export the markdown files to the github repo hosting my main website. once those markdown files are pushed, a github action runs that converts the markdown files to html and publishes them to an rss feed (i freaking love rss).
i'm also trying to use it to keep notes on trips (places to go/eat, itinerary, packing lists, etc.), gift ideas for my loved ones, a hopefully regular journal, and other stuff. this will be my notes hub.
structured
i'm a big fan of time blocking. it helps me keep up with my routines and i love a good routine. i've been using structured and i hope to use it even more in the upcoming year for more mindful time blocking. i haven't really put this one through its paces like the above 2 (especially todoist) so i don't have much to say about it. but it's been cool so far.
if any of these change or if anything interesting happens with them i'll write about it here.
but yeah i'll probably just use this space as a place to longform yap when i'm not in the mood for writing a bluesky thread.
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