Eric Binnion

  • My Obsidian Workflow as of 2024-02

    I’ve been using Obsidian since 2022-01-31, so a little more than two years now. In that time, I’ve largely lurked in the community, absorbing the workflows and tips that others share.

    After a coworker started using Obsidian, I decided it was time to document my current processes in case they might be useful.

    Basic structure

    When I initially started, I only used daily notes, so I didn’t really need any structure. But, after a while, as I learned more and as I started using Obsidian for more than just daily notes, I attempted to adopt the PARA method. While this is a system that was recommended by Tiago Forte, the author of Building a Second Brain, this structure never really clicked for me.

    Fast forward to a few weeks ago where I see this tweet from James Bedford about his organizational structure. Immediately upon seeing this, this structure seemed to make more sense. I’ve now largely adopted this, but with some minor tweaking. Here’s what my current structure looks like:

    • 01 North Star
    • 02 Journals
    • 03 Commonplace
    • 04 Outputs
    • 05 Workspace
    • 06 People
    • 07 Utilities
    • 00 Home

    The primary tweak here is that I’ve added the People directory, which is where I put notes about family, friends, and coworkers.

    Daily notes as the driver

    Probably 90% of my day-to-day use of Obsidian is in daily notes. I find this to be the simplest and quickest way to boot up into a note.

    I also have no issues with stuffing things in daily notes, just in case I might need it in the future. I can use cmd + f to find it later. 😄

    My daily note template is relatively simple with just two sections: tasks and notes.

    I don’t use the tasks plugin. I just create tasks with markdown for a given day. If I’m not able to complete a task on a given day, I manually copy it to the next day. If I find that I have to keep copying a task, at some point, I just stop copying it because apparently it’s not that important.

    I learned this tip from my friend, Paolo Belcastro, who once described the same system to me, albeit on paper.

    The notes section is for everything else, including notes from 1:1s, meetings, quick ideas, a log of things I did, etc.

    While I have the Note Refactor plugin, I very rarely use it. I reserve refactoring for if there’s very large amount of text or when I need to reference a point across multiple notes.

    Obsidian Sync Over iCloud

    I used iCloud for syncing my notes between desktop and mobile for nearly two years. It was only recently where I hit an issue where the mobile app wouldn’t load and complained about some issues with iCloud.

    I’ve switched to Obsidian Sync and have anecdotally noticed that things seem to be running better.

    Readwise

    Before Readwise, I always felt that I was missing a critical piece of learning and reflection. I’d invest a lot of time into reading books and other material, but I didn’t have a good process to pull insights back out.

    Readwise has largely filled that gap for me with its ability to import Kindle highlights, saved tweets, and with their reader. Now, when I highlight anything, I know that it gets stored in Readwise, synced to Obsidian, and Readwise will resurface highlights to me over time.

    Logging Ideas

    This is perhaps the coolest and most useful integration that I have, at least for my sleep. 😄

    When I’m in bed and trying to sleep, I often have wandering thoughts that keep me up. I’ve found that if I just get the thought written down somewhere, then I can get it off of my mind and then I can go to sleep. But, this means that I need to open my phone up or turn a light on and find pen and paper.

    This process recently became much easier thanks to a couple of Siri shortcuts I created for use on my iPhone and Apple Watch.

    One shortcut to allow me to dictate an idea and have that idea get stored in iCloud drive as a txt file. Another shortcut to move those files from iCloud drive to my Obsidian vault.

    I found that having both shortcuts was necessary if I wanted to support using the shortcut on my Apple Watch. But, if I only wanted to use the shortcut on my iPhone then I could write the note directly to the Obsidian vault. But, the Apple Watch has a different filesystem and I wasn’t able to figure out how to write to my iPhone.

    Here are the links to the two shortcuts. Although the log idea shortcut should work out of the box, you will likely need to update the vault location for the sync shortcut to function correctly.

    Last thoughts

    My number one piece of advice for anyone getting started is to simply begin. Don’t worry too much about having the best workflow or structure. As issues naturally arise with your workflow, you’ll make tweaks and build what works best for you.

  • Bike in Downtown

    On Thursday, I rode the bike down town and got this picture while on 8th street.

  • Sunday Breakfast Ride to Nocona

    Last Sunday, I met up with the Sickheads MC in Bowie and then rode out to Nocona for bikes and brews. I took this picture of the bike at the Allsups on Wise street.

  • December Vacation in Mexico

    Sara and I went to Margaritaville in Cancun, Mexico with Wendy and Ethan for Christmas vacation.

    This was perhaps the first time ever that we’d gone on a vacation where we relaxed. Normally, we’re in a city where we’re trying to pack in as much as possible. This trip was all about relaxing and drinking unlimited mojitos. 😄

    Here are some photos.

  • Sci-fi Book Haul

    Last weekend, Sara and I went to the Half Price Books in Frisco and I got quite a haul for about $35.

  • New Year’s Eve Fireworks

    On New Year’s Eve, we went to Lake Arrowhead for a cookout and to shoot fireworks. I thought that this photo with the pile of fireworks in the background was a fun one to share. 😄

  • Fireplace installation

    With the weather in the teens in Texas, we finally got our new gas fireplace installed.

  • Motorcycle Gear Storage

    During the Thanksgiving break, I took advantage of a super deal on these motorcycle helmet and jacket holders on Amazon. Right now they’re running $49.99 for the 2-pack, but the 2-pack was running closer to $18 near Black Friday.

    So, I bought two 2-packs. The family that rides together… has to find a way to store all of their stuff together?

    But, with a busy month of December, I didn’t actually get around to cleaning the garage and then installing the racks until Christmas break. Here are a couple of photos to show how things turned out.

  • Smores

    We got a text a few days ago asking if we wanted s’mores. Of course. 😄

  • 2023 Family Photos

    Each Christmas, we gift our many parents family photos that my mom takes. This year was no different, though I did get a couple of pictures of my mom. 😄

  • 2023 Wise County Toy Run

    On December 3rd, I rode my new-to-me 2008 Harley Davidson Road King down to Decatur for the annual Wise County Toy Run. This was also my first toy run and first large group ride!

    Temperatures were a few degrees above freezing when I left home but the weather warmed up to a point where I was shedding layers by the time we left for the run.

    The biggest highlights of the toy run for me were:

    • Having police block intersections so that we didn’t have to stop.
    • Families lined the streets like a parade and waved as we rode by.
    • The sheer number of motorcycles that were there. See the video below.

    Overall, it was a ton of fun and I look forward to more group rides in the future.

  • Simplifying Interactions with Honesty

    I still remember my first ever in-person interaction with Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic. It was at a Grand Meetup in Park City. Matt stood directly behind me in the lunch line. I knew that this was my moment to say something.

    About the only thing that I knew about him at the time was that he liked photography. So, I turned around and said something to the effect of, “So, you like photos huh?” Matt responded with something brief. And then … I turned around and that was that. 😂

    In my current role, I am now responsible for a significant portion of the WordPress.com business unit and I report directly to Matt. Yes, Matt Mullenweg, the very same person that I couldn’t hold a conversation with years prior.

    In this new role, I also interact quite often with our CFO, heads of design, systems lead, and several other smart and influential people.

    How does honesty help?

    How did I get from the point where I couldn’t start a conversation with our CEO to being able to have frequent conversations with leaders from all over the company?

    First, time. 😄

    Second, at some point, I realized that communication was so much simpler if I was very honest. Being honest doesn’t mean being rude or mean. It means that I present my ideas or thoughts as they are.

    In this sense, being honest allows me to simplify the pipeline from idea to mouth and, more or less, completely bypass any concerns with what I’m saying, which seems to result in me being much less anxious when I have discussions with, well, anyone.

    Yea, but…

    Sure. There are probably quite a few counterpoints that you are considering.

    Is it honesty or courage to speak up?

    Does this hold true across cultures? Professions? Industries? Etc.

    How much does tact play into this?

    I’m not suggesting that being honest by itself is the full solution. But, in my experience, being very forward and honest definitely does simplify things.

  • Sara and Bike Time

  • Closed mouths don’t get fed

    Closed mouths don’t get fed.

    I’m not sure when I started to internalize this or where I initially read it. But, it’s something that has stuck with me for some time.

    Phrased differently, one might use:

    You don’t get what you don’t ask for.

    Or:

    What’s the worst that can happen? You get told “no”?

    But, I’ve always preferred the imagery of the former, which evokes a sense of urgency for me.

  • Hero loves babies

  • You’re all designers

    At a recent Automattic meetup I led a session between WordPress.com designers and engineers. As part of these discussions, the topic of roles and responsibilities came up.

    Specifically, some engineers were questioning whether they should also be product owners or analyze data.

    My response to this was probably a bit long winded, but was roughly that we’re all builders and needed to do whatever it took to get the job done.

    Pablo Honey, one of our heads of design, put it much more succintly:

    You’re all designers.

    Pablo Honey

  • Bike Ride with Sara

    Sara isn’t really a fan of riding motorcycles. Last time I took her, just around the block, she spent a large majority of time repeating, “I don’t like this.”

    So, I was super excited when she agreed to go for a quick bike ride this past weekend.

  • Germany Candy Haul

    This year marked the third time that I’ve been at Cloudfest in Rust, Germany. Ever since James Grierson introduced me to these Smarties while at my first Cloudfest, it has become a tradition to bring home as many as possible. This year, I brought back a whole pack of 20.

  • The things we remember and Bing

    I often find myself trying to reference a person or movie in a conversation but I can’t quite remember the name. This recently occurred for me when I was wanting to reference Ready Player One, so I gave Bing the information that I could recall and it helped me remember. 😄

  • Coffee shop musings

    Sara at Collective Coffee during a break from work.