Cardumem is proposed, in the context of the Grafoscopio community, where we have experimented with digital metatools and the notion of interpersonal wikis as a way to collect and care for personal and community knowledge and memory. Because of the connections of members in the Grafoscopio community with places in other communities and academia, our practices and infrastructures has been tested in different contexts: linguistic revitalizing for indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazonas, Role Playing games, diagnosis of community learning needs in information and communication technologies, and examples (1, 2) of personal blikis (blogs + wikis), among others.

With Cardumem, a DSL could be implemented, which would also be simple to learn, but which embodies more general concepts such as functional programming, pipelining, data injection and transformation, and which can be more easily reused and transported in other contexts. In this way, the gentle learning curve described above is preserved, while being generalized at the same time.

Cardumem is a prototype of a minimalist extensible wiki engine, inspired by TiddlyWiki and backwards compatible with its data, made by combining Lua/YueScript + HTMX/Datastar, for server-side hypermedia programming, instead of client-side JavaScript. Cardumem tries to introduce new syntax for what Jeremy Ruston, author of TiddlyWiki would call1 an "algebra of hypertext", while supporting various of the pragmatics (practices) we have in several communities and projects that already use TiddlyWiki, and hopefully empowering the practices we care more about and introducing new ones. With the new syntax we try to support a similar gentle curve between being a content creator and a functionaly creator, like in TiddlyWiki's while implementing a more parsimonious design with syntax/concepts that can be applied more fluently outside our wiki engine (like data piping, templating and functional programming).

civic tech

Smalltalk

metatools/malleability

knowledge impact

In my beginner’s guide to Roam, I completely left out the Daily Notes section to keep things simple. Let’s now have a look together. This is what a daily note with interstitial journaling looks like. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="674" height="717" src="https://viahtml.hypothes.is/proxy/im_/https://nesslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/interstitial-journaling-example.png" alt="" class="wp-image-8473" srcset="https://viahtml.hypothes.is/proxy/https://nesslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/interstitial-journaling-example.png 674w, https://viahtml.hypothes.is/proxy/https://nesslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/interstitial-journaling-example-282x300.png 282w" sizes="(max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px"/> Track time. Type /time to insert the current time, then type whatever you are thinking about.Track tasks. Type /todo to create to-do items. Check off these to-do items when done.Track content. When you stumble upon something interesting that would disturb your workflow, add it to master lists such as [[To read]]. You can see I have done it in this screenshot with an interesting-looking article that had nothing to do with the essay I was trying to write.Track ideas. Similarly, if you think of something else you’d like to do today, just add it as a to-do where and when you think about it. For people using the [[Today]], [[Tomorrow]], [[Someday]] system, you can also add that to the to-do items, or add a specific date, as I have done with “call Morgane.”Track well-being. I like to start my work day with a quick note checking in on how I feel, anything that’s been sometimes literally keeping me up at night, any major roadblock I’m anticipating for the day. It’s rarely longer than one bullet point, but it’s a great way to take care of my general well-being. I also finish the work day with a similar quick closing note.

Your interstitial journal is not only a journal, it’s a to-do list, a note-taking system, and a way to track your time meaningfully. As I mentioned, you can keep an interstitial journal anywhere. Even a text file would work well.

Proactive breaks: reflect on your previous task, plan for the next one, take your own mental pulse, jot down anything else that comes to mind so as to reduce your cognitive load.Procrastination breaks: become aware of these breaks and how long they actually take. When you create the habit of writing down all your breaks, it becomes easier to not open a new tab to “quickly” check Twitter. You don’t want to have to admit that failure to yourself.

Notice the mix of goals (“finish the first draft”), self-awareness (“fell into a Twitter blackhole”, “feeling anxious”), self-review (“good progress”), and actionable items (“call Anna”)? I love interstitial journaling because it’s a great way to make your breaks more mindful.

The basic idea of interstitial journaling is to write a few lines every time you take a break, and to track the exact time you are taking these notes. For instance: 10:04 - Going to finish the first draft of the mindful productivity article. 10:46 - I fell into a Twitter blackhole again! Back to work. 11:45 - Made good progress. Need to get ready for meeting with Charlie. 11:49 - Reviewed agenda and docs. Feeling a bit anxious, but I think it will go fine. Need to call Anna after the meeting to debrief.

Interstitial journaling is a productivity technique created by Tony Stubblebine. To my knowledge, it’s the simplest way to combine note-taking, tasks, and time tracking in one unique workflow. You don’t need any special software, but Roam Research makes it even easier to do thanks to the flexibility of daily notes. Interstitial journaling has had an amazing impact on my productivity and creativity, and I think many people would enjoy it.