savvy normie

In February 2024, I defended my second dissertation and earned the highest academic degree Russia awards. By June, I knew I wanted out. Out of this kind of research, out of this academic system and out of this country. Russia has two successive research d

I just got back from a few weeks of vacation, and now it's time to pick up my passion project right where I left off. But there's a problem: Even the thought of resuming this stalled project feels like an enormous undertaking. Instead of diving into my fi

On the surface it may seem that simplifying your (digital) life will feel like a breath of fresh air. In my experience it's the opposite of that. Complexity feels completely rational and comforting, while ruthless simplicity feels unnatural and wrong ever

Stop worrying about setting up a PKM system the right way. Stop worrying about atomic notes and "discovering connections". Stop worrying about the software you're using for it. Just do the thing that this PKM system is supposed to bring into existence. Th

For a guy who has already (gently) bashed Second Brains, it would be an unlikely move to quote Tiago Forte let alone write a whole post to promote his ideas. I have already gone on record saying that I think the "E" part of Tiago's CODE is probably the mo

See if you can relate to this. There's a stratum of conscious mental activity that keeps telling you something and/or that "just" makes you feel a certain way. But then there's another stratum that feels like it's definitely placed above this first stratu

A bit of backstory Ok, I gotta come clean. This is a clickbait title. It is misleading if understood literally. But it is actually true if interpreted right. Let me explain. I stopped trying to write anything for this blog in the fall of 2025 after postin

Starting any kind of "work" amidst what to me looks like chaos and an incessant stream of distractions is a challenge. Starting "creative" / "knowledge" work even more so, of course. Somehow along the way, I have internalized this idea that to do anything

The Overview (The Devices & Just a Bit of 'Why') My systems used to be a mess . They still are. Just a little less than before. Here, I will only talk about the main 'infrastructure', two levels deep - the devices and the software layer that allowed them

I think some people are just wired that way - they create complexity out of everything. Watches. Wardrobes. Second brains in Obsidian. Gigantic Zotero libraries. Notion workflows. Music collections. Self-hosted everything. Six devices. Eight browsers. Fif