DeveloPassion's Newsletter #132 - Back in the zone
Edition 132 of my newsletter, discussing Knowledge Management, Knowledge Work, Zen Productivity, Personal Organization, and more!
Welcome
Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩
Vacations are over... for July! We had a real blast on the Belgian coast! We've enjoyed the sun, the wind, the icy water, as well as (too much!) fresh Belgian beer ❤️. I now feel recharged, and super motivated!
It's now time for me to get back to work and re-open my solopreneurship lab 🎉 🚀
Ok, let's gooooo 🚀
The lab 🧪
The lab is open again. As I've explained last week, I took some time during my vacation to think about my next steps. I really want to work on my courses, but I also want to make progress on the Obsidian Publisher plugin. I really feel the need for a better publishing approach, and am certain that there's value there for many other content creators.
I've started by taking a look at my stats for the last month. I always find it interesting to see whether my inactivity can be felt in the numbers or not. In this case, everything has remained quite stable, which is good in a sense. I've sold 27 copies of the Obsidian Starter Kit ($809), 7 copies of the PKM Library ($100), and the MRR of this newsletter remained at $32.
The one part I'm disappointed about is the MRR of this newsletter. As I write edition after edition, week after week, I notice how little progress I manage to make. You are now 800+ subscribers, and I've only managed to convince 6 of you (❤️) that my work is worth supporting (i.e., 0.75%). This means that the perceived value of my work is too low, which means that most of you expect something more/different from me. And I need to find out what! If you have a minute or two, please take some time to reply to this mail to tell me why you're not willing to become a paid subscriber; no need for kindness, I just need raw honesty ;-)
This week, I will resume recording my Obsidian Starter Kit Course (i.e., the video course to accompany the Obsidian Starter Kit and its existing user guide. I thought about it a lot during my vacation and have decided to record a single video instead of many short sequences with a complicated outline. My rationale is that it'll take me less time to record, and to edit. Of course, I will probably make some mistakes here and there, but at least I'll make faster progress and will be able to gather feedback more quickly.
Last but not least, I also need to start looking for new freelancing clients (part-time & fully remote). My current contract is about to end, and I have nothing else in sight for now. The only alternative I have in mind is increasing the number of PKM Coaching sessions I organize...
New articles
No new articles this week, but I have multiple drafts to publish:
- One about the concept of continuous note-taking
- One discussing progress and its various forms
- One highlighting the importance of non-goals
- One exploring the concept of inertia and why fighting against it is key to success
- One article about why it's important to keep planting "seeds"
As you can see, there's quite a lot of coming, and my backlog is still a kilometer long 🚀. Don't hesitate to tell me what you would like me to write about!
Quotes of the week
- My overall goal is to get free of being forced to work — Vernon Richards
- The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything
Thinking and learning
Obsidian now has a cool roadmap:
A really cool lecture about writing:
On transformation essays:
Chris Wong
Indie Hacking and bootstrapping
Ayush ChaturvediOh the first 10K...
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/my-first-10-000-internet-dollars-46317e628f
Tech
Eugene Yan
AI
How to get ChatGPT to stop apologizing:
Arbel
Go Further
Sébastien Dubois
Sébastien Dubois
Sébastien Dubois
Want to go deeper?
Sébastien Dubois
About Sébastien
I'm Sébastien Dubois, and I'm on a mission to help knowledge workers escape information overload. After 20+ years in IT and seeing too many brilliant minds drowning in digital chaos, I've decided to help people build systems that actually work. Through the Knowii Community, my courses, products & services and my Website/Newsletter, I share practical and battle-tested systems.
I write about Knowledge Work, Personal Knowledge Management, Note-taking, Lifelong Learning, Personal Organization, Productivity, and more. I also craft lovely digital products and tools.
If you want to follow my work, then become a member and join our community.
Ready to get to the next level?
If you're tired of information overwhelm and ready to build a reliable knowledge system:
- 📚 KM for Beginners — 10+ hours of structured video lessons
- 🚀 Obsidian Starter Kit — Ready-made vault with 40+ templates
- 💼 Knowledge Worker Kit — Complete guides + lifetime community
- 🦉 1-on-1 Coaching — Personalized guidance
- 🎯 Join Knowii — Community + ALL courses & tools
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