WORKWORK3: Every Thought You Have is Rooted in The Past // My Personal Tech Stack
Inner Work
Inner Work is a deeply personal pursuit, but I recognized early the importance of being a student and gaining perspectives of others amidst my personal practice. In 2018 I completed my 200 hr yoga teacher training at SkyTing in New York. It was fundamental to building a toolbox of tools I can use when I’m going through something or want to achieve a certain outcome. One teaching that has stuck with me and I reference frequently is this idea that:
“Every thought you have is rooted in the past.”
It was a mind-blowing concept to me at the time. If you think about it literally, you can understand its truth:
Thought1: Wow the sky is so blue today.
Past: You can have that thought because you learned as a kid that the sky is the sky and that it’s blue. On a nice day, with no clouds, it’s very blue.
Thought2: Ouch! that hurt!
Past: You can recognize pain in your body because of the existence of no pain previously.
Thought3: My goal by the time I’m 35 I want to be making x amount of money and have x standards of living.
Past: Even future goals and visions are rooted in the past. Experiences over time you have gathered, conversations, entertainment, visuals of other people’s lives through content, etc. have all formed together to give you this vision of what you want your life to look like and the thought of getting there.
The reason this idea is so powerful to me is because it places such profound importance on the need to be present and to silence the citta vritti (the mind chatter). When you are present, you are not in the past or the vision of the future, but instead in the realm of infinite possibilities. Sometimes the idea of all thoughts being rooted in the past makes me anxious like there is no ability to create new. But that is where presence comes in. When you quiet the mind and you are truly present, that is where new can be created and formed. The tools that help me most to get there is the physical movement of asana (what people think of when they hear the word yoga) and meditation. Those are my most important tools used to reach presence and silence my past thoughts.
Outer Work
Having a toolbox with a bunch of tools you can leverage for Outer Work is also important. I’ve curated a list of the most important tools I use on a regular basis to plan, document, and be more efficient with my time across Tydo work and any personal work. These do not include any tools connected to budgeting/finances or tracking/analytics. Most are project management, communication, and documentation tools.
Sunsama - This is where I manage my to-do list. I can categorize my tasks, see my calendars in one place, add and remove tasks to my calendar for time blocking, add and remove emails from my inbox to my tasks, and it gives me a daily and weekly summary of how I’m spending my time by category.
Figma - For everything visual. This is my playground for diagrams, decks, one-off posts, landing page building, visualizing Tydo products, etc. I use it daily.
Vimcal - Where I schedule and enter meetings. It is the easiest way to schedule meetings with people while still coming across as personal and professional. No sending links to my calendar for people to book. I have always felt like that wasn’t personal enough. This lets me send times that work for me and they can book immediately through Vimcal if that’s easier.
Superhuman - Email! I mean the best feature is by far the ability to see when someone has read something you’ve sent. Additionally, I love the sorting features and hotkeys.
Notion - I use Notion primarily for Tydo documentation. This is where process and strategy is documented. I also work with agencies who use Notion as their project management tool.
Roam Research - This is where I document notes from things I’m reading. I have two folders: one for outer work-related research and one for inner work-related research. For outer work, I’m usually reading articles and documenting notes in real-time in Roam. For Inner Work, I usually read a book, mark it up with notes and underlining. When I’m done with the book, I revisit my notes and add any important ones to Roam. The reason I use Roam over something else is the ability to interlink concepts among different note-taking sessions. For example, if I’ve read multiple books that mention patience throughout my notes, I can then see all notes connected to patience.
Coda - For all Pink Skies work. This is where I take notes for my Mentorpass sessions, where I write WORKWORK, and where I keep certain databases of personal information.
Slack - Tydo daily communication, advisor brand communication, as well as any slack groups I’m in.
Discord - Some communities I am involved in have chosen to use Discord over Slack. That’s cool. Just a different vibe.
Webflow - Where Tydo’s website is currently built.
Squarespace - Where I am building my personal website. I am using Squarespace because it’s the easiest and most clean. If I had more design and Webflow chops, I’d build it there.
Beyond - This is the curation tool I have been testing. Unfortunately, they are about to shift the focus of their product and I will start using Coda for my curations once again. If you know of any other curation tools I should test out, please let me know!