PTPL 128 · Keep Your Content Separate From the Container in Which It Lives

And a review of my updated plain text flashcards

PTPL image by the Author

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Content, containers, files, and apps. Don’t unnecessarily limit or complicate the choices your future self can make. Metadata changes that are making my text-based flashcards more useful.

Productivity Inspiration

In Jorge Arango’s podcast 151, Karen McGrane says that

Thinking of the content that you produce as being distinct from the container in which it will live is a fundamental principle.

(She’s leading in to talking about generative AI. It’s good to see conversations on the topic that acknowledge the potential it has to cause harm as well as to do good.)

This is the underlying principle behind the “files first, apps second” philosophy, and the foundation of Rule One: Keep your data portable.

I often see people holding back from making notes because they don’t know which app to use. They all seem to be wooing us, don’t they! But this isn’t…