As the book manuscript deadline approaches, these newsletters will be a bit tighter.
Automagically Updating Links
Why are linked notes so freaking amazing? There are a lot of reasons, but the one that is foundational and easy to overlook is automagically updating links.
An ideaverse automagically updates links (the internet does not)
Imagine if you actually titled the note from earlier “The similitudes that help with memory,” but a month later you had trouble finding it since the title was so lifeless. You decide you want a note title that is a more memorable encapsulation of the core idea. So you rename it to, “Memory by Blood, Mud, and Purple Cloaks.” Much better, you think.
But what if five other notes were already linked to the old title? Do those old notes still reference “similitudes?” No, they don't. They have all been automagically updated to reference your new note title.
I still can't get over how wildly liberating this is. Not even the actual internet has automagically updating links. If you change the URL for a web page of yours, any other web page on the internet that links to yours will no longer be able to find it. It will be a broken link. The relationship is severed. Yet, in your ideaverse, nothing breaks—allowing you to change note titles freely.
This makes titling and retitling your notes a completely new and powerful part of the thinking process itself, and it's something I personally do all the time.
To reiterate, the internet does not do this. The internet does not have automagically updating links. But our link-based note apps do. This is wild!
When I first experienced this with Obsidian in March of 2020, I was truly blown away. Before that, whenever I wanted to change one note, it usually meant manually changing a whole series of notes. Changing the title of one note created a cascade of janitorial work that I would end up doing. Basically overnight, all that janitorial work disappeared with the ability for us to automagically update links.
Have you taken automagically updating links for granted?
It might seem like table stakes today, but six years ago, this was part of the dawn of linked notes, and it's worth... noting.
Help Wanted: Google Docs into MS Word
Before I turn in the first version of the manuscript to the publisher, I will need to transfer it from Google Docs into Microsoft Word and follow the formatting requirements of Simon & Schuster.
LYT is looking for a Manuscript Transfer Assistant: someone who can transfer what I've written in Google Docs into a Microsoft Word file exactly as it's formatted in Docs.
I'm looking for a qualified freelance editor to do this on September 18th, starting early in the day and finishing by the end of the day.
This is a paid gig. $600. You must have experience doing professional formatting similar to publisher submissions. You will be vetted. Resumes are required. So are NDAs. A high level of trust is required. It's a ≈ 65K-word manuscript that includes callouts, diagrams, images, and endnotes.
If you are interested and meet the requirements, please fill out this form.
LYT Core Curriculum: Our 22 Days Have Begun!
The LYT Core Curriculum is part of the annual LYT Workshop that happens in February.
But because the workshop is so packed with live events, it gets shortchanged, which is a shame because it's amazing, so much so that, in our community, we are dedicating the next 22 days to exploring it together.
We had our kickoff session on Wednesday, where I shared the original 2020 graphic of idea emergence and, overall, the history of digital notes leading up to the Renaissance that truly kicked off in 2020.
Here's a snippet of that original graphic. Look at all the rectangles I used to talk about how a bunch of individual notes can start to feel like a forest you get lost in. That's why our maps of content allow us to gain perspective (the blue circle) and then the realization that maps of content actually become amazing places to do some of our best thinking (the green circle).
Idea Exchange