Blog

Resources For Modern Workers

New content weekly to help you build your personal digital systems for productivity, self-improvement, knowledge, creativity & team work.

Browse By The Personal Systems You Want To Build...

3 'No Fail' Ways To Start A Journalling Practice With Tana

I've always failed at consistent journalling... until I started using Tana. There is something special that makes Tana a perfect digital journaling app. But there is never just one way to start a daily journal practice. So in this video I wanted to give you 3 different ways that you might start a daily journaling practice in Tana.
Read post

The Ultimate Quickstart Guide For Getting Started With Tana

Learn how to effortlessly organise your thoughts & ideas with Tana
Read post

Why Your Personal Knowledge Is Going To Waste (And How To Change That)

The ultimate guide to building a personal knowledge platform that turns information into insight & knowledge you'll actually use.
Read post

How I Use Tana as My Commonplace Book To Unlock Everyday Wisdom

A renaissance practice for the modern information world: How to start a commonplace practice to organise your thoughts & build your knowledge.
Read post

Forget Goals, Focus on Intentions: My Yearly Planning Rituals That Set The Direction For A Powerful Year.

I used to hate yearly planning. And I think it comes down to my relationship with goal setting. I’m not much of a goal setter. A year is a long time and I don’t like to be locked into heavy goals throughout the year.
Read post

The Reading Workflow That Helps Me Turn Information Into Knowledge

For a long time I read a lot of books and never actually did anything useful with the notes I took.
Read post
Tana OS
8 mins

How I Turned Tana Into My Ultimate Writing App

A lot of people tell me you can't do long form writing in Tana. I tend to disagree. Here's how Tana enhanced my writing workflow & why I can't imagine writing in any other app now.
Read post

How To Create Bullet Journal Collections In Tana: The Ultimate Guide

Bullet Journal collections are a great way to track & organise just about anything. In this video I show you why Tana is purpose built for bullet journalling (& how to setup your own collections in Tana).
Read post

Supercharge Any Trello Board With Tana (In 10 minutes)

Wondering how to take your Trello boards and migrate them into Tana? I show you how to do just that. Plus how you can supercharge what you were doing in Trello using a few spunky tricks in Tana.
Read post

How to Stop Being the Bottleneck in Your Team’s Progress

The life-changing method I created to manage work that was waiting on me, get back to people faster, and create more space to do my best work.
Read post

Master Your Schedule with My 10-Minute Weekly Planning Process (using Tana)

My foolproof weekly planning routine that takes me about 10 minutes every week and keeps me organised across my work, my creator business & my whole life.
Read post

My Powerful Note-Taking Workflow That Turns Information Into Insight ⚡️

Peek behind the scenes into my workflow for taking notes from articles I read using Matter and turning them into real insights & knowledge.
Read post
View All →

The 5 Apps That Drive My Daily Work & Life

I've been known to scroll through the apps store at 2:30am searching for the perfect app. Here are 5 I use everyday. Notion. My daily driver where I run my life from. More than a note-taking app, it's where I get work done. From task lists to journaling to running my whole website - not a day goes by without it.
Read post
View All →

The High School Highlighting Habit That Is Holding You Back and How to Fix It

Most of us learned how to study books & highlight in high school. And we're still doing it the same way.
Read post

How to Generate Better Ideas by Trying Less

The fastest way to solve an idea is to leave it unfinished.
Read post

Ditch Brainstorming: Here’s How to Build an Endless Idea Ecosystem Instead

Why You'll Never Run Out of Ideas Again Once You Set Up This System
Read post

Why Your Notes Aren’t Working for You (And the One Shift You Need to Make)

Traditional note-taking methods mostly feel like information storage. You spend so much time organising, categorising, and filing rather than the real work of exploring & working with ideas.
Read post

4 Simple Strategies to Finally Review Your Notes Consistently

How to Turn Reviewing Your Notes into a Habit You Actually Enjoy
Read post

How to Find and Share Ideas No One Else Is Talking About

Three beliefs held me back from getting started sharing my ideas online. (And the simple shift I made to overcome them) ↓
Read post

Talk It Out: 3 Effective Ways to Capture Ideas with Your Voice

Capturing ideas might be one of the most important practices we can develop as humans. But is writing or typing the only way to capture those ideas? Think again...
Read post

The Unexpected Way to Gain Deep Insights from Social Media

Social media gets a bad wrap these days. And for some good reasons. It's easy to get caught up with the doomscrolling, letting it distract us, getting into arguments we shouldn't, helping us procrastinate, not doing good things for our mental health. And yet. It's still my biggest category of saved items in my knowledge library & serves me up a wealth of new ideas every single day.
Read post

3 Weird Things I Do to Stay Inspired Every Day

One weird habit has kept me consistently writing for the past four years.Before I was known as Ev Chapman, Prolific Creator. I was Ev Chapman, Wannabe creator.
Read post

4 Simple Steps to Make Your Notes More Useful In Real Life Projects

What if you didn't have to start each project with a blank page?
Read post
View All →

Your Ultimate Guide to Time Blocking in Tana | Step By Step Tutorial

3 easy timeblocking approaches to fit any work style using Tana.
Read post

Supercharge Your Tana Day Page with Related Content - 10 Must-Have Sections

I've always loved how Tana keeps everything at my fingertips. But with the new Related Content feature, it's like having a supercharged dashboard right on my day page!
Read post

Create Your Ultimate Digital Bullet Journal with Tana: Step-by-Step Guide

I have always loved the Bullet Journal system. It's simple & yet a profound way to get things out of your head and stay focused throughout the day.
Read post

Unlock the Power of Tana's New AI Chat: A Step-by-Step Guide

Can AI really make your note-taking more powerful?
Read post

Simplifying My Day Page With Tana's New Core Features: Full Walkthrough

How I'm using my Daily Page now with the release of Tana's Core features like Related Content & Google Calendar integration.
Read post

Unlock the Power of Hybrid Note-Taking: Integrating GoodNotes with Tana

I very rarely miss my paper notebooks now that I use Tana. But every now and then when my brain needs to arrange my thoughts visually & find myself longing for a simple workflow where I can go from notes → drawing → back to my notes.
Read post

My Set & Forget Tana Weekly Review System

Confession: I've never been very good at a consistent weekly review habit.
Read post

My Tana 5 Minute Daily Planning Routine (Inspired by Sunsama)

I am notorious for creating day plans that are unrealistic and have WAY too much packed into them. Which is why when I saw Sunsama's daily planning routine it really got my attention
Read post

I Replaced A Full Time Admin Assistant With AI

How I Use Tana To Get Admin Jobs Done Faster & More Efficiently Than A Human Asisstant
Read post

How To Use Tana's Random Node Feature: 5 Ways

In this video I show you 5 ways you can use Tana's Random Node Field to review past notes, mix up your journalling practice, and have a little fun.
Read post

Easy Mode Unlocked: The Ultimate Tana Starter Guide

Tana is one of the most powerful knowledge management tools I have used. But sometimes all those powerful features can overshadow just how simple it can be to get started. And I guarantee that most people are overthinking it from the very start.
Read post

Create A Custom Affirmations App In Tana: Step By Step Tutorial

Throw away your Affirmations apps & subscriptions and build your very own custom one in Tana
Read post
View All →

How to Use AI to Kickstart Your Writing—Without Getting Generic Content

4 min 32
How to Turn a Messy Brain Dump Into an Outline Using AI in 10 Minutes (and while chilling on the couch)
Read post

How To Create New Ideas From Old Content With A Simple GPT Prompt called 'Pretend Podcast'

4 mins 8
Breath fresh life into old content with a simple chatGPT prompt that will get you thinking in ways you never thought of before
Read post

How to Turn Your 1:1 Calls into a Goldmine of Content: Step By Step Guide

2 min 37
What if every time you jumped on a call with a client you could generate a bunch of content ideas at the same time?
Read post

Turn Your Morning into a Creative Powerhouse with This Simple 3 Step Writing Routine

3 min 39
How I Went from Sporadic Blogging to Consistent Content Creation with One Simple Routine
Read post

The Quirky Method I Use to Mine My Newsletter for Social Media Content

2 min 39
Ever feel like content creation is consuming your life? This method will save you.
Read post

3 Cheat Codes For Non Experts To Start Sharing Your Ideas Online

We live in a world where it has never been easier to share your ideas & build an audience (& a business) around your ideas.Think about how hard that would have been 100 years ago or even 50 years ago?So why then do we struggle so much to get started?
Read post

Less Creation, More Communication: Why Your Best Ideas Deserve a Replay

When I post about sharing ideas in multiple ways the most commented thing ends up being:'Only a portion of your audience sees every post, so sharing it multiple times means everyone sees it.'But that comment misses the whole point of WHY we should share our ideas repeatedly.
Read post

How To Build A Creative Practice Like The Great Artists

I struggled for a decade to be a creator without a creative practice Instead of practising daily, the only time I switched on my creativity was when I needed to produce something. No wonder I struggled for so long!
Read post

How To Build Atomic Ideas (That You Can Turn Into Endless Content)

Three years ago I was desperate to build a consistent writing practice.
Read post

How I Structure My Daily Writing Sessions To Unlock My Ideas

One daily habit pulled me out of years of inconsistency as a creator... Establishing a Daily Spark Writing Practice.
Read post

8 Of My Go-To Frameworks For Turning Ideas Into Content

Content is simply the communication of ideas.Lots of people have ideas, but if you can't communicate them well all those amazing ideas are going to get lost in translation.So communication is the real game of content creation.
Read post

How To Break Down Content Creation Into Easy To Manage Phases

If weekly content planning always feels like a big lift to you, try breaking down your planning into phases instead.
Read post
View All →

No. You Don't Need A Lead Magnet To Grow Your Newsletter

Traditional wisdom tells us we should have a lead magnet to 'trick' people into signing up for our newsletter because no one just signs up for newsletters anymore right? WRONG. Every day, no less than 5 people sign up for my newsletter without having to be coerced or 'tricked' by a lead magnet.
Read post

Why You Might Be Struggling To Grow As A Creator

2 min read
In 2 years I've grown from 0-18k here on Twitter and people are always asking me what the secret key or tactic or hack to unlock growth is.
Read post

Why Every Creator Needs A Signature Platform

The biggest creators I know have started on one platform and then as they grew they branched out onto multiple platforms. Because being a creator on a platform isn’t just about the content, it’s about understanding the platform, engaging with people and a million other different factors.
Read post

Social Media Is Not Your Enemy

2 min read
Social media can make us crazy as creators or writers. On the one hand, it's the perfect conduit to get our message out there and build an audience. On the other hand, we're constantly wrestling with algorithms, and the shortest shelf life for all of our content.
Read post

Why Are All The Creators Leaving Twitter?

2 min read
Twitter Impressions are down. That seems to be the only thing I hear from creators at the moment. And yeah, it sucks. But it's not the first time they've gone through a dip, and it won't be the last.
Read post

Why New Creators Should Go Deep (not wide) On Platforms

2 min read
Content alone isn't going grow your audience on content platforms. As creators, our main 'thing' is creating content, so it's easy to see social media platforms as just big distribution channels to get more people to see what we are creating. But if the internet is just one big distribution channel for your voice you are missing the point.
Read post

Why It Took Me 18 Months To Start Writing On Medium

2 min read
It's the (new) age old question - Should you publish on Medium or your own blog? Over the past few weeks, I've had multiple people ask me why I chose Medium over my own blog or substack or the many other platforms I could write longer-form content on.
Read post

4 Ways New Creators Can Get Started Publishing On Twitter

2 min read
Just over a year ago I got started writing on Twitter. I always viewed Twitter as a distribution platform. A place where you came to tell the world things you created. But these days Twitter has become my main publishing platform where I test ideas and get (mostly) instant feedback on them.
Read post

The Quick Guide For Managing Twitter Without Having To Quit Your Day Job

1000 people. 30k essays. 7 million words.When I first heard that we had 1000 people in the January cohort of ship30for30 I thought I might have to quit my day job after all 🤣
Read post

Every Creator Needs A Community

The creator economy is both wild and lonely at the same time. On one hand, I feel so lucky to be living in this moment where there are so many opportunities for creators. And on the other hand, it's an extremely lonely place that's easy to quit
Read post

The Only Growth Hack You Need To Grow On Twitter

It's easy to get caught up in numbers on Twitter. There is literally numbers everywhere. Number of followers, number of likes, engagement rate numbers, numbers of notifications. It's enough to make you think that Twitter is all about numbers...
Read post
View All →

How To Sell Digital Products On Auto-Pilot (Without Relying On Constant Launches)

You don't need a million-dollar launch to have a successful digital product.
Read post

I'm Back From Creative Sabbatical & I Have Thoughts 😁

I've been on a creative sabbatical for the last 4 weeks and it's been the best thing I've ever done as a creator.
Read post

How To Launch Your First Digital Product (& Survive 🫣)

So many creators I speak to are scared to launch their first product.I suspect there are a lot of reasons but the main one I hear is "Don't I have to have a big audience or following to launch a product?"I launched my first product with 500 followers, no email list & I made $3k in 4 weeks.
Read post

When To Say Yes (& No) To New Opportunities As A Creator

Over the last couple of years, I've said yes to a million things as a creator. New projects, platforms, launches, content, newsletters, communities and more.
Read post

My 2022 Creator Revenue Story: How I Almost Didn’t 2x My Revenue This Year

I almost wasn’t able to write such a glowing review of 2022. It was October and I was nowhere near reaching the (very reasonable) goals I had set for myself.
Read post

I Cracked The Creator Content Funnel To Sell My Products On Auto-Pilot

I spent a ridiculous amount of time last year launching products. I think all up it was about 11 products from templates to courses to workshops to guides. I tried it all. And I made a fair amount of money doing it as a second income. Launches are fun (when they work) and they provide a nice windfall of cash for that month that you are launching. But they are also exhausting work and when you are not launching… no one is buying.
Read post

The Evergreen Creator Funnel That Makes $2k Every Month

I spent a ridiculous amount of time last year launching products. I think there were 11 in total. Launches are fun (when they work). And they provide a nice windfall of cash. But when I wasn't launching... no one was buying.
Read post

The Burnout Free Guide To Being A Creator In The Year 2022

Here's what no one is telling you about being a creator... it's relentless. Being a creator seems fun at first as you proudly hit publish on your first blog post, or write a Twitter thread that gets more than a few likes and suddenly you start to build a bit of an audience.
Read post

Why You Should Always Launch Your Free Notion Template On Gumroad

I love it when I see people launching their first Notion template. After all, it's where I got started. I launched my first free Notion template in December 2020 and countless more after that. And by far the best advice I ever received from seasoned template creators was to put it on Gumroad.
Read post

The New Way To Pre-Launch A Product On Gumroad

Don't despair over Gumroad removing the pre-launch feature. Recently Gumroad removed their pre-launch feature. If you've been using it to pre-launch your products you might be wondering how the heck to do you do a pre-launch now?
Read post

Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your Day Job To Become A Full-Time Creator

Here’s an Unpopular Opinion For You: Having a day job and being a creator are not mutually exclusive.You can do both well & enjoy them. I do. Most people assume I’m a full-time creator. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Read post
View All →

How To Break Bad Habits When You Don't Have Willpower

I don't break bad habits. I focus on building good habits. If you do a search on Quora for habits, you'll come across many questions about how to break bad habits. It seems that we're more obsessed with breaking bad habits than we are about building good ones.
Read post

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SPARK Newsletter

Join 1500+ professionals who get my FREE newsletter with systems, frameworks & strategies that help you turn your expertise into income.