Last June, I stopped working on my previous newsletter. It was clear to me that I had fallen into the trap of performative publishing and was no longer embracing the initial curiosity I had when I first started to write.

I felt stuck in a creative autopilot mode: publish twice a week, experiment with marketing gimmicks, diligently track metrics, and daydream of monetization strategies.

The numbers game had consumed me. And I had lost the creative spark I once embraced before I fell into the trap of worrying about how my work would lead me to fame and riches. I was sprinting towards success. But the faster I went, the further success receded into the distance.

After some time away from my laptop, I realized I needed to focus on the craft, not the byproducts. I wanted to correct my course and start running towards curiosity and excellent ideas.

Though I felt confident about this new direction, I wasn’t sure where to start. Then one morning in early June, I stumbled back into Andy Matuschak’s framework on ideas, notes, & knowledge work.

The paragraph below is what got me out of my own head.

I stopped feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t getting the respect I wanted as a creator.

Had I done everything I could to be a top tier knowledge worker? What was I reading besides Twitter? What ideas was I cultivating? How was I practicing my copywriting? What frameworks was I developing?

To be clear, I’m still proud of my previous work and am not trying to bash on my diligent output. But the reality is that I was producing as a performer, not as a knowledge worker.

And it was time to change that. I wanted my ideas to carry weight and for my words to matter.

The first thing I did was change my north star. I no longer focused on the number of subscribers, views, etc. I took Andy’s suggestion below seriously.

If you had to set one metric to use as a leading indicator for yourself as a knowledge worker, the best I know might be the number of Evergreen notes per day

I showed up consistently for 6 months and worked on privately building out my Obsidian. There was no publishing, agenda, restrictions, etc. My task was simple: read what I enjoy, write down my ideas, and understand how my brain likes to learn and pattern match.

It felt intimidating seeing a blank knowledge graph. But as I got started, the notes started springing out of nowhere. I had 7 just in the first day! Here was my first note:

The core principle I learned about atomic notes from Andy is that that a knowledge graph is built around ideas - not people, things, dates, or companies.

For example, here are the titles of a few of my notes:

• focus on the craft, not the byproduct

• excellence in blogging

• train like an athlete

• jumping off the boat

• build a new internet, not a video chat

Notice how the notes mentioned aren’t associated to any single thing? Rather, each concept has many different examples and observations that improve my framework around that node in the graph. This helps me source and strengthen ideas from all parts of my life.

After sticking to this habit for a few months, I noticed myself observing notes everywhere. At the gym, on my walks, talking to friends, sitting at the coffee shop, in conversations with strangers, etc. And I got more and more excited to jot down how something that had happened helped clarify a certain idea in my head.

And now, 7 months into this practice, I totally understand why being a good, consistent blogger is downstream of being a prolific knowledge worker.

You have to embrace the fact that your best ideas will come when you’re away from your laptop.

You have to love the art of nurturing ideas.

You have to open minded enough to connect seemingly unrelated ideas.

And you have to be comfortable letting go of some ideas and trusting they’ll come back to you when the time is right.

It’s these core skills that enable great creators to prolifically produce. The best writers aren’t just writing to write…they’re writing to articulate their ideas. Subtle, but huge difference!

Even as I’m ramping up on Engineering Agency, the north star will still be how many notes I’m creating in my knowledge graph and how much love I’m giving my Obsidian.

These blog posts are just a communication of me collecting and cultivating the ideas and observations I come up with.

The most important epiphany for me in the last few months was that effective creative work is more akin to engineering than I thought.

In the Origins of Efficiency, Brian Potter discusses the concept of continuous process:

“In a continuous process, input materials are continuously transformed into outputs. Everything flows smoothly from one step to the next without delays, rework, or the accumulation of large inventories between process steps. The process, once a series of discrete steps, behinds to resemble a single, continuous transformation.”

I don’t think about writing a newsletter anymore. Rather, my job is to build a continuous knowledge transformation machine.

It’s been so hard to get the engine finally running that now I’ll do anything it takes to keep it on. To treat it with respect. To clean it. To keep making it better. To have it go faster.

For example, I recently installed an Obsidian plugin that will give me a random atomic note of mine from the past and have me review and update it. I’m also going to start scheduling tweets since I’m not great about posting consistently - the goal is to get as much feedback and external inputs from readers who are excited about my work (Pronoia tweeting). And I’m even thinking of organizing dinner parties with interesting people not in my normal purview so I can come across more interesting ideas (IRL information asymmetry).

The one thing I can say for a fact now is that the hardest part about being a creator is everything outside the craft. To be honest, writing is the easiest part of the process if all the other parts of your system are running well.

Though I felt like I was initially quitting on my dream of being a creator, the break I took from my previous newsletter was exactly what I needed to realize that I was running in the wrong direction.

As I continue to chase excellent ideas and improve my craft, I’m sure the byproducts I once lost sleep over will come running behind me.