Build YOUR Life Operating System (BYLOS)

BYLOS is the instantiation of my Life Operating System (FAKRA VACAR) using Obsidian.md. It is a work-in-progress describing FAKRA VACAR , discussing the concepts, the tool Obsidian and provides an example of the pairing.

2024-02-22_Update

Since my December post, I’ve switched my static site generator to Quartz which has allowed me to apply a “Let’s Encrypt” certificate and also simplified my workflow. This will hopefully decrease the friction between my learning and my posting.

The biggest change, as can be seen from the Intro is that my underlying structure has changed. A gap between what I am doing and the terminology I’ve used led me to VACAR. A deeper dive into Nick MIlo’s Linking Your Thinking/Ideaverse and Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain and P.A.R.A. has modified some of my processes. The philosophy underlying my life operating system is unchanged.

It will take me some time to fix terminology and links on the site while retaining the history of my process so you can see how I got here. In a few weeks I’ll ask you to let me know when you find thing that I’ve missed. Thanks for your patience.

(2024-02-22)

Link to original

Why I am publishing this

I was introduced to the contemporary thinkers in the areas of productivity, knowledge management and principled living after I started trying to implement P.A.R.A. using Evernote during the summer of 2021 and switched to Obsidian.md during the fall of 2021 as an Evernote replacement. I say “contemporary” because I have some history with these topics, so P.A.R.A. resonated with me for information storage and retrieval. It did not address task/todo management or Knowledge Synthesis so I struggled for a few months until Tiago Forte’s conference on Building a Second Brain Summit in March 2022. August Bradley and Nick Milo started my recognition that Obsidian.md could actually provide bridges between these critical areas.

As I started on this phase of my journey and realized that much of what I was doing was in flux (but gelling if not setting yet). I wanted to capture the process of development (for me) and provide an example of customizing these ideas (for you).

I decided it is ok to try things that end up not being in the final cut and to even share the efforts in public I plan on explaining what I’m doing or have done, some of what I’m thinking and the inspiration for my thinking.

Please reach out to me with comments and ideas at bruce@bylos.net. I will be setting up a discussion forum somewhere and will provide a link when it is available.

As this is a work in progress, I find that I am adding/changing things sometimes before I capture them here. It makes for a slippery slope but might provide some insight to others (and keep me focused).

Latest Blog Posts

2023-12-20_Why accepting To Dos is Liberating

Rounding out the “Activities” with To Dos may be the final step in capturing my responsibilities so they are not lost and can be prioritized. I captured this idea back on Nov-18, so I’ve had a month to think about it. I published a description of my TO DOs on 2023-12-04_To Dos (some more) and starting to sort out priorities. With a month of their use, I can say that I now have an easy way to quickly capture the little things that need to be done so they are not all “what was that thing I realized I need to fix this morning” (but of course have now forgotten). They are captured in a way they can be ranked beside tasks and efforts. I also have no problem converter a To Do into an Effort or Task, which means even if it starts as a simple capture, I can formalize it into planned deliverables if needed. One less thing to beat myself up over (no worries, there are more).


2023-12-19_File Content Indexes

For longer files with sub-sections, it would be nice to have a way to quickly get to individual sections. Surprise, someone who can code thought this too. Take a look at “Automatic Table Of Contents” in the Community Plug-ins. This is an example:

Generated by:


2023-12-16_Old School File Cabinet

I find myself going old school today. I received a Magazine (yup, a paper magazine) Renewal reminder in the snail mail today. Searched around to see when my current subscription expired (next March) but determined that the buy one send one as a gift was too good to pass up. I checked the on-line renew but it didn’t offer the buy one/get one, so I filled out the (paper) form, separated at the perforations, placed it in the supplied envelope, found a stamp and took it to the mailbox. (Trust me, this is going somewhere.)

Got back to my desk and now have to file the renewal notice so I can find it next year to remember when my subscription expires when they start sending me renewal notices months ahead of time. I go to my file cabinet and pull my ‘Subscriptions’ folder and say “WHAT???“. (so this is where we’re going). more>>


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