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Calm productivity for academics
Category: Video
Simple guide to writing effective AI prompts
Writing effective AI prompts is crucial for academics looking to reduce administrative workload. Using a simple framework of defining the AI’s role, stating your goal, and providing clear instructions can help you get better results. Learn how to write AI prompts that free up time for meaningful academic work.
Streamline your research with AI PDF analysis tools in the browser
Looking for a smarter way to work with research papers? Learn how to leverage AI PDF analysis tools built into Edge browser’s Copilot sidebar for immediate document processing and analysis. This powerful feature helps academics engage with research materials more efficiently, though some advanced features require an Enterprise license.
Academic writing workflow with Obsidian
Transform your fragmented academic writing workflow into an integrated system that enhances your thinking and productivity. Learn why traditional approaches to managing academic writing across multiple platforms may be holding you back, and explore how connected note-taking tools like Obsidian can create a more natural, sustainable writing environment.
Types of notes
Knowing about the different types of notes you’re taking helps inform your approach to note-taking in general.
Use a weekly review to close open loops
As academics, we carry countless mental threads throughout our week — unfinished tasks, half-formed ideas, looming deadlines, and scattered notes. Left unattended, these “open loops” consume valuable mental bandwidth, even during times when we should be resting and recharging. Every Friday afternoon, I dedicate time to what might be my most valuable productivity ritual: the…
Creative thinking with Obsidian
For academics, the early stages of a writing project should be a time of exploration and discovery. Yet the tools we use often constrain our thinking in subtle but powerful ways. Most of us default to writing in linear documents like Google Docs or Word. While these tools excel at many things – including collaborating…
Managing information in my personal learning environment
In this video I demonstrate how I manage information in my personal learning environment. I talk about the flow of information, from deciding what to pay attention to, then how to filter, capture, and process it, and finally how I share it.
Quickly capture the essence of a new idea
In this video I walk you through an example showing how I quickly the essence of a new idea, so that I can come back to it later when I have more time.
Expanding a note stub into a permanent note
In this video I walk through the process of taking a note stub (i.e. a “dump” of content) and expanding it into a more comprehensive and useful permanent note.
Capture literature notes from video with Zotero
In this video I describe the workflow I use to capture literature notes from video with Zotero.
Using a ‘Now’ file to prioritise projects
I came across the idea of using a ‘Now’ file in the middle of last year and have incorporated it into my weekly review. The basic idea is that you keep track of all the big projects in your life, and that you consult this file every time you get the ‘opportunity’ to take on…