Morning Coffee 102: March 25th

Video 2

Good morning. At the coffee shop with Rose. Writing most of today’s newsletter from scratch right before sending it out. Rose saw a toy on the videos she was watching, and without looking up said, “Hey! You gonna get me this?” I looked up and laughed and asked if she wanted it. She said yea and switched to the next video without mentioning it again. As always, I hope this letter finds you well.

The Box. Dragon’s Dogma 2. Traveling a huge open world with three other companions. No fast travel. Long walks (and huge battles). Searching for places to rest between locations to replenish health and create another save point. Very immersive.

Table of Contents

1. Ramping Up
2. Synology
3. The PARA Method
4. The Writing Process*
5. My Ulysses Setup*

Ramping Up

I’ve been getting things ready for the start of Q2 (April, May, and June). Most of Q1 was me getting healthy again, and then slowly ramping up for the next season. This is the last week of Q1. Use this week to make a plan (whatever that looks like for you), and when April starts, begin executing. I hope you’ll join me.

Synology

For a month now, I’ve been organizing my digital life inside of a Synology, with two 8TB Iron Wolf drives. Decades of files. Studio sessions, drafts, albums, assets, photos, and videos. I now have a central home for all of digital files. It’s been a fun process, moving all these files around and tidying up.

The PARA Method

I’ve been busy adding the PARA Method to Ulysses and the Files app. It’s making going through thousands of files much easier. A current project I’m working, an area in my life, or a variety of buckets for all the random topics I work on or reference throughout the week.

December’s Process

Two pieces that I didn’t get around to using in December (and now don’t even fit my current structure): The Writing Process and My Ulysses Setup. Sharing them now because they’re similar to today’s topic, I don’t want them to go to waste, and maybe you’ll still find them useful.

The Writing Process

Written December 3rd, 2023

The Writing Process is where all of my writing starts. It’s a single folder with three filters inside of it.

• Ideas
• Drafts
• Review

Ideas follows two simple conditions: modified in the last month, doesn’t have headers. Ideas are usually just a bunch of thoughts without any structure.

Drafts follows two simple conditions: modified in the last month, has headers. Ideas become drafts when they start having headers and gaining structure.

Review follows one simple condition: hasn’t been touched in over a month. This allows me to see what’s fallen through the cracks. If I haven’t edited a note in over a month, it’ll end up here for me to decide on (make more edits, or just delete it).

My Ulysses Setup

Written December 3rd, 2023

I’ve spent the last few weeks restructuring my Ulysses setup. I needed something that was clean and simple, but also has the power for each project that I have planned for the new year. This is where I landed.

Projects is the first section to focus on. This is where I separate all the big areas. Blogs is an archive of all my old blogs that I’ll reference in the future. Book is where write my new book. Learning is where I type church notes, book notes, and add quotes. Poetry is for my lyrics. It’s where I build out new albums and reference old ones for upcoming poetry books.

Next is the main section. This is where I spend most of my time. At the top, The Writing Process is where my ideas start. Each idea goes through three filters (Ideas, Drafts, Review) until being ready for the world. At the bottom is the Resources folder. It’s where the photos, systems, and templates live. I consider it the engine for Morning Coffee.

In the middle is Morning Coffee. This is where I build out my newsletters. I bring over a template from the Resources folder, and then fill in the holes until I get to the word count. The word count has a little circle on the right side of the folder title that slowly fills up and turns green when complete.

The last section is the external folder, where my actual website lives. Thanks to Blot and Dropbox, I can drag the newsletter down into the nashp.com folder and it’s instantly published.

This is Morning Coffee: a weekly newsletter that arrives in your inbox every Monday morning. I write about productivity, technology, and cool things I find on the internet. Buy me a coffee to keep it going.