Events

About 14 months ago, I shared the first version of the LYT Kit on the Obsidian forums. I was blown away by the interest. So I continued to share some of the ideas underpinning it—especially MOCs. On the forums I wrote:

> This starter kit is designed to get you immediately hands-on with ways to manage your digital notes. Experiment. Learn by doing. See what methods work for you.

It's now been downloaded over 20,000 times. But I haven't really explained 

 the LYT Kit can help you manage your knowledge and how it can get you 

That's why you are invited to this Sunday's live event:

On Sunday, here are some of topics I will cover:

The new download won't be available for a few weeks, unless you come to Sunday's live event. Feel free to 

I'll try answer the most upvoted ones on Sunday!

LYT Kit v5 - Overview and Q&A

—of The Sweet Setup and the Focused Podcast—climbs the LYT House to chat about everything from his fascinating ability to read so many books to his new Obsidian course—and everything in between. 

Mike is the Executive Editor of The Sweet Setup where he helps people to be more productive and creative with their Apple-branded technology. He’s also the co-host of the Focused and Bookworm podcasts and posts his sketchnote videos at his personal site (link below).

LYT House with Mike Schmitz

—of MacSparky, the Focused podcast, the Mac Power Users podcast, the amazing MacSparky Field Guides—and self-proclaimed but accurate "Internet Rascal" climbs the LYT House to chat with Nick about how he is using Obsidian and maybe even to screenshare a thing or two. After that, there will be an AMA session with David.

David Sparks is a nerd who podcasts about getting more out of your Apple Technology, Automating your life, and getting more focused. 

 where he writes about finding the best tools, hardware, and workflows for using Apple products to get work done. 

David’s favorite thing to do is build the 

. When not doing all that stuff, David practices a bit of law.

LYT House with David Sparks

Every LYT Workshop has 4 hands-on sensemaking sessions. 

They are high-value training sessions where we work the note-making muscles. From a list of things, we rapidly make meaning and generate ideas and insights.

These “LYT sprints” are not just a fun exercise; they are a way to rebuild our muscles of thinking 

"Sensemaking through note-making" is so vitally important that I want to invite you to a free hands-on, interactive session where we will all work together.

Sensemaking 101 - Hands-on Session!

 works at the intersection of technology, psychology, design, and the application of those disciplines to the advancement of education. He uses design and systems thinking to search for strategic opportunities for change.

I'm always impressed and enriched by Ryan's perspectives and am excited talk with him. I know he has a presentation to share, I'll pepper in questions as we go, and then we'll open it up for an AMA session for everyone.

A PhD candidate in Management (Information Systems) and systemic designer. And a recent dad.

My mission is to help changemakers change their worlds. 

I do this by advancing research and practice in a few areas: systemic design for strategic change in wicked problems, data design for knowledge innovation and collective intelligence, and experience design for teaching and learning. 

That's the bio that’s supposed to make me sound smart. Basically, I'm a systemic designer trying to help people think and learn. 

My wife’s in medicine, focused on healthcare for older adults. My dog’s a greyhound who gave up racing for a role in treat quality control, and my daughter’s currently studying cognition, communications, and kinesiology. 

You may have also bumped into Ryan in the Obsidian forums, where he is a moderator. 

LYT House with Ryan J.A. Murphy

 is a freelance software engineer specializing in database application development and interactive data visualizations. He studied filmmaking and philosophy at Emerson College in Boston, and graduated in 1997. Joe is also a photographer.

Joe is also the brilliant mind behind VisualzingSEP.com, a mesmerizing visual search engine of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I mean, 

LYT House with Joseph DiCastro

 helps thousands of readers get the most out of their digital highlights.

They are a beloved app used by thousands of people. Their app pulls in and syncs highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, Pocket, iBooks, and more.

Their app also integrates with note apps like Evernote, Notion, Roam...and now...

Dan and Erin will be joining me and we are going to focus on their new integration with Obsidian. I'll ask them my questions. They will screenshare. I will screenshare. And they will field your questions.

LYT House with Readwise

 known for "Primary" the 2021 Winner of the Obsidian Theme of the Year.

Cecil is the creator of "Primary" — Obsidian October 2021's Best Theme — praised for its warm comforting experience, attention to detail and elegant color palette. Coincidentally a color aficionado, interdisciplinary advocate, and game designer, she is now on the path to share her culminated knowledge to her fellow future color connoisseurs.

Here are some images of the Primary theme

Color Theory & UI Design with Cecilia May

, a seasoned facilitator in live sessions involving lateral thinking and collaborative brainstorming.

Register now. Details will come later this week...

Co-Inspiration sessions are for people who want to 

 and see their goals and challenges in a fresh perspective, providing 

 and overcome obstacles in personal and professional life.

It is a dynamic, fun and effective process, used by 

ideas, collective intelligence, unthought-of solutions and deep questions

, covering a wide range of topics from lifestyle to social issues to corporate innovation.

In facilitated sessions, each participant presents a current challenge / question, and others co-create as many ideas, inspiration and solutions as possible to 

connect unseen dots, tap into the power of collective intelligence

 and help the presenter generate new possibilities and take action, for:

teams, productivity, strategic decisions, projects, startups, questions in business and personal life, goals and objectives

Idea Clocks & Co-Inspiration with Christian Sextl

Come and ask questions about your Obsidian Flight School experience so far. 

If you haven’t purchased, come anyways and let’s talk about Lean Forward Learning!

I decided to do this event as a thanks for all the support on 

Obsidian Flight School Q&A + AMA

, an advocate of visual thinking and an Excalidraw wizard.

Zsolt is the CIO for Refining and Marketing at a regional Oil and Gas company in Europe.

Zsolt loves to spend his free time exploring Visual approaches to thinking and to organizing information. He is developing the 

 striving to fully integrate sketchnotes and images into his PKM workflows.

- Zsolt's Obsidian Workflows (DNP, Meeting Notes)

- Migrating from TheBrain to Obsidian (LATCH)

- Visual PKM ideas on my mind (e.g. Fantasy Map)

When he is not riding his bike, hiking, unicycling, skiing, or spelunking... Zsolt loves to read, write, draw and develop software. He has a long time fascination with personal knowledge management tools and techniques, including a close to 20 years long journey with TheBrain, a flirt with Roam Research, and most recently a deep interest in Obsidian.

Visual Thinking & Excalidraw with Zsolt Viczián

 is a learning strategist at the University of Toronto currently focusing on learning domains and how stress and emotions affect cognitive learning and performance. Her work draws on social cognitive neuroscience and somatic psychology, using holistic models of learning that incorporate emotional, social, and behavioral aspects and borrow from Indigenous wisdoms.

Learning, Habits & Indigenous Wisdoms with Ellyn Kerr

Learn the art of Linking Your Thinking. ​ 

Our next workshop starts on February 8th. Join soon! 

LYT Workshop - 2022 Launch Party

LYT Kit 6 Premiere

A former college football player, coach, and 3x national champion, Nick worked as a civil engineer, co-founded an international fitness boxing business, produced two indie feature films, and most recently, joined the Editors Guild to work on Breaking Bad the movie and Better Call Saul. At every turn, his digital notes were invaluable to support his efforts. 

Now, Nick is helping to spark a learning revolution by guiding others to "link their thinking", generate value, and rediscover the inherent joy of thinking itself.

About the Linking Your Thinking Conference

The LYT Conference provides a full—and free—week of practical examples using linked notes so you can take your thinking to the next level.  

Attend 15 live sessions on topics such as research, journaling, personal retreats, how folder-based paradigms might complement link-based ones, Zettelkasten, and much more.

When you register for this event, we'll add you to our newsletter where we share insights and resources on how to improve at linking your thinking. The newsletter goes out every week and you can unsubscribe at any time of course.

Nick Milo: Keynote + How to take and make notes during the conference

Each week, Francesco organizes a meeting with himself - a small 1hr time period where he can explore topics ranging from business structure to personal health. 

Francesco has been helping people find productivity software through Keep Productive for many years now - helping people both discover and grow with their tools. Recently they launched Bento - a new app focused on helping you do less, but more meaningful tasks - now available on iOS and set to come to Android.

Francesco D'Alessio: Creating Effective, Productive Meetings with Yourself

Hi, I'm Vicky! Born left-handed but raised as a righty. Trained as a lawyer, practiced as a management consultant, but experimenting as a creative. I'm a Chinese Canadian in Japan experimenting with the intersection of disciplines, ideas, & identities on YouTube, Substack, and Twitter. → Using Zettelkasten in Obsidian

Fei-Ling Tseng loves cities and is currently using writing and note-making to articulate a comprehensive understanding of what a good city is, and how they can contribute to the good life. She grew up in Norway and is currently working as an Urban Planner in Toronto, Canada.

Vicky Zhao & Fei-Ling Tseng: The Compass of Zettelkasten Thinking: Associative Thinking Made Easy

Most of us have little time to learn. But we're always learning, even in small bursts throughout the day. The question is: how can we remember the useful bits? In this session, Ramses Oudt (community manager at Logseq) showcases how he captures what he learns. Using the power of outlines, links and queries, he's able to feed his brain and turn his notes into a personal wiki.

A teacher by training, Ramses became a technical consultant through self-education. By learning in bits and pieces, he's been able to pivot into completely different careers—while making the process fun.

Find out more about Ramses and his work here:

Ramses Oudt: The Power of Keeping a Learn Log

In this session, you will walk away with:

For twenty years Bob has taught in environments as diverse as punk warehouses, the public education system, residential living rooms, online Zoom rooms, and at the college level. 

He is the former managing editor of Parabola Magazine, is a prolific essayist, has been blogging under a variety of pseudonyms since 2001, is a decades-long zine maker, and an active voice in the online PKM scene. Bob is the author of Sitting with Spirits: Exploring the Unseen World In the Margins of Christianity; The House of I Am Mirrors: And Other Poems; Acupressure For Beginners; and The Power of Stretching. 

Bob writes the weekly newsletter, “The High Pony,” covering PKM, creativity, and productivity from a spiritual and socio-economic perspective. He also surfs off the coast of NY, practices Chinese bodywork, and has a daily Ashtanga Yoga practice.

Find out more about Bob and his work here:

The LYT Conference provides a full—and free—week of practical examples using linked notes so you can take your thinking to the next level. 

Bob Doto: Zettelkasten 101: A Primer on All Things Zettel

Eleanor Konik studied philosophy and religion before graduating from law school in 2011. These days, she runs the Obsidian community newsletter and spends the bits of time left over writing stories and articles that bring history—and magic—to life. In the process, she also takes a lot of notes ;)

The LYT Conference provides a full—and free—week of practical examples using linked notes so you can take your thinking to the next level.

Eleanor Konik: Synthesizing Research into Useful Notes Without Plugins

Mike helps busy people be more productive and creative. He co-hosts the Bookworm and Focused podcasts, screencasts for The Sweet Setup, and his writing on productivity and creativity can be found in various places around the Internet. 

Links to all Mike's projects can be found at 

Mike Schmitz: Gaining Clarity with an Obsidian-Based Personal Retreat

How to use Obsidian outside of Obsidian with links and URLs and other such awesomeness.

David Sparks has been a nerd his entire life. The first computer he learned to program was a Radio Shack Color Computer that he didn't exactly own but took spent hours a day programming on the show floor of the nearest Radio Shack store. 

Eventually, David found his way to the Apple II, and then the Mac and it was love at first sight. David has been using Apple products for as long as there have been Apple Products. Along the way, David spent 28 years practicing law and using his Mac to eat other lawyers' lunches. 

In a world where technology is increasingly conspiring to steal our focus and attention, David's goal is to teach you how to be more productive with Apple technology.

David Sparks: How to use Obsidian outside of Obsidian

Leah Ferguson is an experiential graphic designer, specializing in wayfinding and user experience in the digital and built environment. With a goal of helping people find their way and make connections in complex environments, she has used graphic design, research, and strategy to improve experiences. 

Leah is an advocate for accessible and inclusive spaces, and believes that if she's done her job right, the experience should feel intuitive. Her work on airports has taken her across the world from Calgary to Singapore, and most recently, the Harvey Milk Terminal at San Francisco International Airport. 

All the while, she spends her time geeking out over technology and automation, and finding frictionless ways to get things done.

Leah Ferguson: Start and End Your Day With a Daily Note

For more than two years, Tracy has been writing about and teaching digital self-awareness for Tools for Thought practitioners. For almost nine years, Tracy has kept a consistent, day-to-day, journaling practice. Soon after, friends asked me to help them solve specific problems with sets of prompts. 

From there, Tracy began writing and talking about journaling. Her most popular prompts and techniques help put a dent in anxiety, tame negative self-talk, and open a healthy dialog between our three selves. 

Tracy began a broadcasting career as a talking Christmas tree (seriously). As a television journalist, she covered Bill Clinton as governor and president-elect. She has been a DJ at a local radio station, and she participates weekly in a 12-step program for anger, resentment, and control issues. 

Tracy lives in rural Western Arkansas with her 80+ year old mom, a cat named MizAstor, and an ancient, active Shih Tzu named Mr. Winchester.

Tracy Winchell: Linked Thinking for Better "Now" Decisions: How to Leverage Ongoing Conversations Among Your 3 Selves

Nicole is a Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs with over a decade of experience in breaking software and learning to build it back up again. She has lived in the Philippines, the US, Australia, and now the Netherlands, picking up a few languages along the way. She makes videos on YouTube about Obsidian and other digital tools for min/maxing life, plays tabletop roleplaying games five times a week, and dreams about open-sourcing all the things.

Nicole van der Hoeven: Use It or Lose It: What to Do With All Those Notes

August Bradley helps people who feel they’re not progressing in life to achieve what matters most to them by implementing a Life Operating System called Pillars, Pipelines & Vaults (PPV). 

August runs the Notion Life Design course and is close to launching the Notion for Teams course. He shares his thoughts on Life Design via YouTube, Newsletter, and Twitter.

August Bradley & Nick Milo Discussion: PKM within broader Life Operating Systems

Bianca Pereira is on a journey to make research easier and inclusive. As a researcher herself, she believes the three differences between a struggling researcher and a prolific researcher are: knowledge of the hidden rules of academia, a personal knowledge management system, and skills on research communication. 

So, after 12 years working with Computer Science research in industry-academia partnerships, Bianca now dedicates her time to unveiling The Hidden Rules of Academia to first generation postgrad students, teaching and coaching Personal Knowledge Management with emphasis in research, and providing hands-on workshops in Research Communication.

Bianca Pereira: PKM for Research: Foundations of Idea Management

Founder of Nifty Fox Creative and ex-social researcher, Laura has created atomic visuals for organisations all over the world to make the complex simple & drive change - from Siemens & NatWest, through to the UN, international parliaments & over 50 universities.​

Atomic visuals helped Laura: 📈 Build a six figure business, in 18 months 👍 Sell out Pencil Pirates in its first cohort, making over $30k in revenue 🐥 Increase Twitter audience by 4500% in 90 days​

Laura Evans-Hill: The Th(ink) Tank: How to use atomic visuals to organise your ideas

A former college football player, coach, and 3x national champion, Nick worked as a civil engineer, co-founded an international fitness boxing business, produced two indie feature films, and most recently, joined the Editors Guild to work on Breaking Bad the movie and Better Call Saul. At every turn, his digital notes were invaluable to support his efforts.

​Now, Nick is helping to spark a learning revolution by guiding others to "link their thinking", generate value, and rediscover the inherent joy of thinking itself.

Nick Milo: Live Sensemaking!

Have questions about LYT Workshop? Join us here where Nick Milo and members of the LYT Support Team are hosting a live event on this Sunday, May 29 at 9AM PDT (

It’ll include an overview of the workshop—including a peak into the curriculum. 

Nick will also answer your questions in a Q&A at the end. 

Tour & Q&A for Linking Your Thinking's Workshop 8

​A former college football player, coach, and 3x national champion, Nick worked as a civil engineer, co-founded an international fitness boxing business, produced two indie feature films, and most recently, joined the Editors Guild to work on Breaking Bad the movie and Better Call Saul. At every turn, his digital notes were invaluable to support his efforts.

The "Linking Your Thinking" Conference is a week of free sessions that explores how ideas work, how ideas grow, and how linking ideas may impact our creativity in practical and powerful ways.

13 live sessions on topics such as creativity, ideation, next-gen thinking tools, the frontiers of extended cognition, the joys and importance of culture, note-making, zettelkasten, crafting time, and much more.

When you register for this event, we'll add you to our newsletter where we share insights and resources on how to improve at linking your thinking. The newsletter goes out every week and you can unsubscribe at any time of course. 

Nick Milo: Using the NoMa Method during The Idea Exchange

Anne-Laure Le Cunff is the founder of Ness Labs, a community for knowledge workers to be more productive and creative while taking care of their mental health.

She’s an ex-Googler and holds a MSc in Neuroscience from King’s College London. Her work has been featured in WIRED, Rolling Stone, and more.

 for weekly food for thought around combinational creativity and mindful productivity.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff & Nick Milo: How can we do Combinational Creativity?

Zettelkasten & LYT: What are the differences?

The man behind The Cultural Tutor, the wildly successful Twitter account covering all things "culture"

 and Twitter handle The Cultural Tutor, hails from the parochial backwaters of England. He most recently worked at McDonald’s. And before that as a nightwatchman, when he spent the long night shifts reading and writing. He also has a law degree; but he never had any intention of becoming a lawyer.

Sheehan quit his job at McDonald’s in May and started a Twitter account which now has 260,000 followers. The Cultural Tutor was born. He also runs a weekly newsletter called Areopagus. It features seven short lessons on an historical figure, art, architecture, rhetoric, writing, and a relatable historical anecdote. Plus the question of the week, to explore critical thinking.

This is just the beginning; the future is very bright. He is now a Writer-in-Residence at 

. They pay for his books - and he writes online.

The Cultural Tutor (@culturaltutor) / Twitter

The Cultural Tutor: Learning the Language of Culture with Sheehan Quirke

Ece Kural has a PhD in International Relations, is the co-founder and CEO of the Knowledge Management Platform Scrintal. Her research interests lie in the intersection of environmental politics and global governance. She is particularly interested in finding novel ways in measuring and evaluating social legitimacy and effectiveness of the global governance responses. How global governance institutions cope with climate induced environmental change and the related security risks was the focus of her dissertation project.

Ece Kural: Scrintal Interview / Walkthrough

Yolanda Gibb works with teams and organisations around the world on projects related to entrepreneurship, inclusion, institutional capacity building, policy, among others. Pulling together strands of knowledge from different disciplines to obtain new insights and address problems has always been part of what she does. Building her PKM using some of the principles of LYT and Obsidian have enabled her to re-think her approach to knowledge development and make it better along the way.

Yolanda Gibb: How a mindset of Ambidextrous Creativity can get you generating AND exploiting your ideas?

Peter is a last-year PhD student at the University of Bristol in the UK, where he has worked on making 3D models reusable for designers. Throughout the pandemic, he realised how some of the concepts that he had borrowed from computer science translate well to note-taking in describing the relationship between notes and the compounding cost of taking bad notes. To take some time off the PhD, he loves climbing, reading and watching fantasy.

Peter Rosso: How I Use LYT Frameworks in Roam and for Thesis Writing

So, after 12 years working with Computer Science research in industry-academia partnerships, Bianca now dedicates her time to unveiling The Hidden Rules of Academia to first generation postgrad students, teaching and coaching Personal Knowledge Management with emphasis in research, and providing hands-on 

Maggie Delano is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at 

 and has research interests that include the development of monitoring systems for chronic diseases and inclusive engineering design.

Joel is exploring the tools & ideas that help us close (or question) the gaps between expectations and reality regarding our self-control and decision-making.

systems that support creative knowledge work

, in domains such as design and scientific discovery. His long-term research vision is of a world filled with 

creativity support systems that are open and sustainable

The Research Roundtable

Mike Vardy is a writer, productivity strategist, and the creator of the time management methodology and philosophy known as TimeCrafting.

In addition to being the founder and chief writer at Productivityist, he continues to contribute guest articles to several blogs on the topic of productivity, time, and task management, including 99u, The Huffington Post, SUCCESS Magazine, and Lifehacker. He has served as Managing Editor at Lifehack, and as an editor at The Next Web and WorkAwesome.

Mike Vardy: What does Timecrafting look like?

Joey Cofone is Founder & CEO of Baronfig, an award-winning designer and entrepreneur, and author of 

Joey has designed and art directed over 100 products from zero to launch. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, Bon Appétit, Quartz, Mashable, Gizmodo, and Print, among others. Joey was named a New Visual Artist and, separately, Wunderkind designer, by Print magazine.

Joey strives to make work that appeals to curious minds—work that’s beautiful, smart, and communicative. He believes that design is the least of a designer’s worries, that story is at the heart of all tasks, and jumping off cliffs is the only way to grow.

He lives in New York City with his wife, Ariana, and his dog (and writing buddy), Luigi.

, or say hello on Twitter and Instagram via @joeycofone.

You can get a copy of the book—and other useful tools—at 

Joey Cofone: Are there laws to creativity?

Priya Mohan is studying Electronics engineering, but is also interested in several other STEM fields too. Priya found Obsidian, and subsequently LYT, about one year ago and has found ways of note making and sense making she’d never imagined before!

Priya Mohan: Design Thinking Strategies to solve complex problems in STEM

Danny is an internet academic researching educational science to push our understanding of learning, skill acquisition, and our mental potential.

Danny Hatcher & Nick Milo: How does Extended Cognition actually work?

Nick Milo: REDACTED + Close to The Idea Exchange

If you are interested in the 9th LYT Workshop, or want to ask Nick anything else, come join!

LYT Workshop Q&A: Ask Nick Anything 

Obsidian Flight School 2.0 Presentation & Q&A

If you have questions about the workshop, join me for a walkthrough and Q&A. 

This will be a fairly cozy event, which means I really get to interact with you and answer your questions. I’m looking forward to this and I hope you join.

Live Workshop Walkthrough and Q&A

In this live event, you'll be hearing from our LYT Workshop alumni about their experiences during the workshop, as well as hearing more from our subject-matter experts. 

This live event is a great way to learn more about the LYT Workshop and connect with other alumni who have used it to achieve their PKM goals. 

Don't miss this opportunity to learn everything you need to know about the LYT Workshop and how it can help you build your custom personal knowledge system.

LYT Workshop: Alumni Experiences & Expert Sessions

During the LYT Workshop 10, Nick will be personally leading eight sensemaking session events. These are critical parts of the LYT Workshop and you won't want to miss this free session.

Free Sensemaking Session with Nick Milo

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Curious about "How to set up ACE and manage efforts in Obsidian"?

Then join me for a free training on how to organize everything in Obsidian. We'll cover: