First, welcome!

I’m R.J. Nestor, productivity coach, and I’m delighted to set out on this journey with you!

AP Productivity Guiding Principles

1. Productivity is not busy work. Productivity is accomplishing what’s important to you.
2. Your productivity system should be tailored to the way you think and work. The only way to ensure that is to build it yourself. And that’s what we’re here to do!
3. Using your system is more important than trusting it. That’s because trust is a Gordian knot: If you have to trust your system before you use it, you’ll never use it. But of course you have to use it before you trust it. Catch-22. Use it consistently. Fix things that don’t work.
4. When problems arise, frame them as friction with your system, not personal failures like lack of discipline or willpower. Friction is more actionable—and less demoralizing—than (perceived) character flaws.

Roam Research vs. Obsidian vs. Amplenote

Cohort Five is the first to welcome Amplenote users. Welcome friends!

Tools for Thought (TfTs) supercharge productivity. It doesn’t matter which TfT you use, as long as you build the system in a way that aligns with both the tool and the way you like to think and work.

Roam users: Because I am myself a Roam user, and because I’ve done four cohorts of this course in Roam, you can expect detailed templates and expert Roam feedback.

Obsidian users: During Cohort Four, we discovered how the tenets of AP Productivity translates into fundamental Obsidian workflows. You'll receive the fruits of that labor as the basis for building your system in Obsidian!

Amplenote users: Because I am an Amplenote rookie, this cohort is a “beta” for you. The big-picture AP Productivity framework still applies, but we’ll work together to discover how it translates into Amplenote.

No matter which TfT you prefer, you will complete this course with a system that works for you, as well as tools to continue to improve it over time. And—most exciting of all—we will learn from each other!

Course content

Each week will include (at least) 4 components:

1. Pre-recorded videos explaining and demoing key content
2. A Live Group Coaching where we explore that week’s content and how to implement it in our TfT of choice (and in our system)
3. Two Office Hours sessions for demos, feedback, discussion, and deep dives—spaced out to accommodate different time zones
4. Course community prompts for asynchronous conversation

All live sessions will be recorded, so you can watch them later if you can’t make it.

What now?

Prior to our Group Orientation Zoom, go through this first section of the course. See you in the community soon!