# DeveloPassion's Newsletter 71 - New Chapter Hello everyone! I’m [Sébastien Dubois](https://dsebastien.net), your host. You’re receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion’s Newsletter. Thank you for being here with me ✨ If you enjoy this, please forward it to your friends 👍. If this email was forwarded to you, then don’t forget to subscribe and become a supporter. You can also follow me on [X](https://x.com/dSebastien), [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/dsebastien.net), and [Mastodon](https://pkm.social/@dsebastien). ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter Logo.png|DeveloPassion's Newsletter logo: lightbulb sprouting colorful idea nodes]] ## Welcome Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩 June is already gone. And with that, 50% of 2022 is now behind us! 😨. I hope you’re all ready to rock the next half of the year! 🚀 This month is the beginning of a new chapter of my life. I’m both enthusiastic and scared shitless. For those who don’t know, my life partner and I have decided to end our relationship. It was the hardest decision ever. But life is complex, and not all choices can be simple and straightforward. Sometimes, the obstacle is the way… Needless to say, the last months were extremely demanding, challenging, and exhausting. I’m still struggling, but I’m *proud* to have managed to keep coming back here with you, week after week. My daily note-taking has clearly helped me a lot through all this. Not only as a way to vent my thoughts and emotions, but also as a way to better understand myself and think more clearly. 100% would recommend! ## The Lab 🧪 In June, the lab did not explode, which is rather good news. The formulas are stable and even though I didn’t manage to start new experiments, the ongoing ones have continued gaining momentum. I’ve sold 40+ copies of the [Obsidian Starter Kit](https://www.store.dsebastien.net/product/obsidian-starter-kit) ($630) and continued improving it. I didn’t deliver as much content as I intended, but it’s definitely coming. The kit was [mentioned in the Obsidian Community Roundup newsletter](https://www.obsidianroundup.org/2022-06-04/) of Eleanor Konik. I’ve also sold 10 copies of the [Personal Knowledge Management Library](https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/pkm-library) ($200) and also improved it. I’ve received a ton of useful feedback, especially from [Raymond](https://x.com/rsims) (thanks again!). ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 71 - New Chapter - sales.png]]Caption: Sales in the last 30 days The [PKM subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalKnowledgeMgmt//) that I’ve launched has now almost 360 members. People keep coming back for new resources, and I really like sharing all the PKM goodness that I stumble upon. That experiment was clearly a Win-Win because it helps the community and also brings more visitors to my product pages and articles. I’m slowly approaching 2K followers on Twitter. I’m not in a hurry, but I clearly feel like it’s growing too slowly. The thing is that I know exactly why: I don’t tweet enough. More importantly, I don’t engage nearly enough! I failed to keep the momentum I had, and now struggle to resume interacting more efficiently and scheduling more tweets in advance. This month I’ve also decided to move my content over to Ghost, following the footsteps of Rosie with [Rosieland](https://rosie.land/). Ghost is really appealing as it provides a way to host multiple types of content such as articles and newsletters. In addition, it also makes it possible to target multiple audiences, manage subscriptions (with customizable tiers), etc. My main problem with the migration is the time and effort it will take for me to move everything over. Being a nerd, I’ve decided to go at it using my tool of choice: programming. After an interesting discussion with [Pete](https://x.com/PeterKnobloch), I suddenly wanted to create my first Obsidian plugin: [Obsidian Publisher](https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-publisher). The goal of the plugin is to make it a breeze to bulk publish or update notes as blog posts or newsletters, all from the comfort of Obsidian. My ultimate goal is also to handle cross-posting articles to Medium, DEV.to, Hashnode, etc. ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 71 - New Chapter - gsc stats.png]] Caption: Google Search Console stats (left = more recent) I’m also pleased with the momentum that my blog is getting. In June, impressions on Google Search went from 57K to 78K. I hope this trend will continue. With all the chaos in my life right now, I didn’t find the energy to try and launch the YouTube channel. That remains on hold for now. I’ll give that project another go in September! I also haven’t had the opportunity to get back in touch with André to continue working on our [focusd app](https://focusd.app/). Bummer! ## Things I've learned this month ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 71 - New Chapter - notes of the month.png]] Caption: How the notes I've taken in June fit with the rest of my knowledge base in Obsidian I’ve taken a ton of notes in June, which I find quite surprising given how little time I actually found to even breathe 😂 ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 71 - New Chapter - june notes.png]] Caption: Some of the notes I've taken in June Among those, here are a few cool ideas I’ve explored: - The 4 pillars of creativity (Anne-Laure Le Cunff) - The LATCH principle / The Five Hat Racks - “Ya ain’t gonna be Elon Musk (YAGBEM)”, a fun alternative to YAGNI - The steps to build a Second Brain (Tiago Forte) - How laziness leads to automation - The circle of learning - Write Once Read Never (WORN) - The lag between efforts and outcomes - How knowledge adds dimensions for us to see beauty in (Richard Feynman) - The types of empathy - The TOCLA approach to content creation - How solitude fuels productivity and creativity - How replying to mails with a scenario limits the burden on the recipient - Luck surface area - Stoic values - The fact that the opposite of distraction is traction - … and many more! I mentioned this a few times, but if those topics look interesting, tell me, and I’ll publish my notes! 🎉 ## Recent articles No new articles this week. I know it’s been a while, but the best I can offer you right now is a small poem I wrote last week, called “Freedom”: [[Freedom, dear freedom]] ## Quotes of the week - [[Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want]] - [[Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will]] ## Book of the week It’s been a while since I last recommended a book. Since Tiago’s book is out, I can’t help but point you toward it. I haven’t had the opportunity to grab a copy yet, but I’m sure it’s well worth the investment! LINK: [[Building a Second Brain (book)]] ## Tips of the week [[Don't try to create the perfect knowledge management system. Start small, accept imperfection and focus on continuous improvement]] ## How cool is that?! Beginner’s Guide to Handstands! Get your first handstand with this step-by-step handstand progression and handstand exercises. LINK: [How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days | Nerd Fitness](https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-handstands/) ## Thinking and learning links of the week A deep dive into the Feynman Technique, a method designed to learn through teaching. How can we upgrade it with a few teaching principles? LINK: [The Feynman Technique 2.0: How to Take Your Learning to the Next Level](https://themindcollection.com/the-feynman-technique/) Related: [[Feynman technique]] The science-fiction short story “The Last Question”, written by [[Isaac Asimov]] and read by Leonard Nimoy: LINK: [The Last Question - Isaac Asimov - Read by Leonard Nimoy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4) LINK: [PKM Weekly July 3 2022 – Issue 025 – Curtis McHale](https://curtismchale.ca/2022/07/03/pkm-weekly-july-3-2022-issue-025/?utm_campaign=newsletter-post-title_35&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailpoet) LINK: [50 Cognitive Biases - The Big Picture](https://ritholtz.com/2022/04/50-cognitive-biases/) Curse of Knowledge, Creative Incompetence & Concealing Your Talents: LINK: [3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on the Curse of Knowledge](https://chrismeyer.substack.com/p/curse-of-knowledge) LINK: [Markwhen](https://markwhen.com/) ## Tech links of the week LINK: [The Technium: Not Future-Proofing](https://kk.org/thetechnium/not-future-proofing/) LINK: [Why Duck Typing Is Safe - iRi](http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2954) Create a visual timeline of any codebase’s contribution history: LINK: [Git Timeline Generator | Preceden](https://www.preceden.com/git) LINK: [Gource - a software version control visualization tool](https://gource.io/) TypeScript enums can be valuable. However, it can sometimes be difficult to tell how they should be used and what they represent. LINK: [Why TypeScript enums suck - LogRocket Blog](https://blog.logrocket.com/why-typescript-enums-suck/) Canarytokens is a free tool that helps you discover you’ve been breached by having attackers announce themselves. The tokens allow you to implant traps around your network and notifies you as soon as they are triggered. LINK: [Know. Before it matters](https://canarytokens.org/generate) ## Indie Hacking and bootstrapping LINK: [If I hear one more person say “sell before you build” I'm going to puke | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31974053) LINK: [Anthony Castrio 💯 on Twitter: "Grew from ~$100 MRR to a bit over $300 MRR last week mostly through Twitter marketing. Funnel looked like this:" / Twitter](https://x.com/AnthonyCastrio/status/1542100577156362243?s=03&t=SGKjMiJ70gjM0OlVWjEKxA) LINK: [Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs? | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31930460) LINK: [What we learned in studying the most effective founders](https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/entrepreneurs/effective-founders-project/) LINK: [Bipp'd - Did you bip today?](https://bippd.com/) LINK: - [[10 Essential Knowledge Management Methods Every Professional Should Master (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/10-essential-knowledge-management-methods-every-professional-should-master/-every-professional-should-master// LINK: - [[Why Obsidian is All You Need - From Simple Notes to Complete Productivity (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/why-obsidian-is-all-you-need-from-simple-notes-to-complete-productivity// LINK: - [[The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Obsidian (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/the-ultimate-beginners-guide-to-obsidian// LINK: - [[Knowii Community]] - https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/knowii-community