Last week, I wrote about reducing friction.
This week, I watched it happen in real life.
In a Lisbon café, with my mom.
Here’s what’s inside this week:
- Teaching Claude to my mom
- The rating system behind my 0.94 year
- A thank you to students using the study system
- Updated journal and work setup videos incoming
Teaching Claude to My Mom
I just got back from a mom-and-son trip through Lisbon.
On day one, after checking in and sitting down at a café, it was time to plan the next three days.
My mom reached for her usual toolkit: pen and paper, saved Facebook posts, and a handful of Google tabs she’d already half-forgotten about.
I opened Obsidian and my Claude terminal.
I started speaking out loud, in what must have sounded like full corporate mode:
“Okay. Search for activities nearby. Filter out the bad ones. Give me a clear cost breakdown. Map everything. I want locations, prices, and options. Also figure out public transport. How we pay. What card we need. And what happens if we get it wrong.”
My mom slowly looked up at me.
The look was somewhere between confusion and “I didn’t raise you to talk to me like this.”
From her perspective, it probably sounded like I’d just assigned her a list of deliverables.
I laughed and told her to just look at my screen before disowning me.
On the left, Claude was reasoning and researching. And meanwhile, Obsidian was just… building itself. Notes popping up. Structure locking into place. Like an invisible pair of hands behind the keyboard.
A plan formed in real time.
She was still confused. But now she was curious.
So I spent the next ten minutes explaining what was going on. Then I did something unexpected. I handed her the steering wheel.
With my laptop in front of her, she started dictating what she wanted to explore. What mattered. What didn’t. Claude reasoned. Obsidian organised.
Watching her use it felt like watching a baby take their first steps. I had to stop myself from acting like a proud parent with a camera, shouting, “There we gooo! Yes! Look at you!”
This is someone who normally avoids new technology. Yet speaking instead of typing, combined with a clear structure, made the whole thing feel natural.
And honestly, that moment mattered to me. If I can teach my mom this setup, I can teach it to anyone.
That’s exactly why I’m putting together a workshop, though “workshop” might not be the right word.
The setup itself will be guided through short videos you complete beforehand. Step by step. No rushing. No live pressure. You arrive with everything already installed and working.
The live session is where I walk through how I actually use the system in practice. We’ll also leave plenty of time for Q&A to explore real use cases together. After that, you’ll get a concise cheat sheet you can keep next to you while you work.
If this resonates, you can join the waiting list here. Seats will be limited.
You’ll need a Claude Pro subscription. A voice tool like Wispr Flow helps too, since speaking is often faster and more natural than typing.
I’m aiming to run it toward the end of the month.
P.S. If you already know you work best with direct guidance instead of videos and workshops, keep that in mind.
My Rating for 2025 Was 0.94
That number means nothing on its own.
So let me explain why I care about it.
I rate my days on a scale from -2 to 2.
I honestly don’t remember where I picked this up, but it stuck because it solved a problem I kept running into with other scales.
Most rating systems quietly lie to you.
On a 0–10 scale, an average day almost never becomes a 5. It becomes a 6 or a 7. Five feels like failure. Seven feels polite. Over time, everything drifts upward.
A 1–5 scale isn’t much better.
1 feels bad.
5 feels great.
But 3 also somehow feels good, even though it’s meant to be the middle.
So I stopped using “nice-looking” scales and went with one that reflects how days actually feel.
A minus carries negative weight.
A positive number carries positive weight.
Zero carries none.
- -2: awful day
- -1: bad day
- 0: neutral. Nothing good, nothing bad
- 1: good day
- 2: a genuinely great day. The kind you feel in your body
Sometimes I use 0.5 steps. Some days are clearly positive, but with friction. Others are good overall, even though a few things went wrong.
A 2 is rare. It’s reserved for days that feel almost euphoric.
Not perfect. Just deeply right.
The important part is that the rating is based on felt experience, not productivity, not outcomes, not how impressive the day looks in hindsight.
And yes, at first it feels arbitrary.
But over time, something interesting happens.
You calibrate against yourself.
Your -1 becomes consistent.
Your 1 becomes meaningful.
Your 2 earns its place.
So how do I know my rating for 2025 was 0.94?
Because I rated every single day.
When you average those out (thank yoooouuuu, Base), you don’t just get a story.
You get a signal.
And 0.94 tells me something useful:
on balance, it was a good year. Not easy. But clearly on the right side of neutral.
Which, honestly, is more information than “pretty good, I guess” ever gave me.
This Has Been Exciting to Watch
A big thank you to everyone who’s picked up the study system recently. There’s been a wave of people starting to use it, and I can’t wait to see how studying changes for you once organisation stops competing with learning.
What’s Coming Next Week
One of my most successful videos was the “build it from scratch” Obsidian setups for journaling and work. I released it about a year and a half ago. A lot has changed since then. And interestingly, not that much has.
While working on the updated versions, I was genuinely pleased to see that my methodology has stayed almost exactly the same. There were small tweaks, sure, but the way I take notes and structure things hasn’t really changed. Core and community plugins like Bases and Journals didn’t replace the method. They just simplified the structure around it.
That was reassuring. It means the approach held up. It survived the stress test of time.
I plan to re-release these videos at the beginning of every year. Partly as a reset, but mainly to stay true to something I care about: keeping my Obsidian setups 100% free and transparent.
I do have pre-built setups available for people who prefer to skip the setup process. But the system itself is never hidden. If you’re willing to spend the time, you can arrive at the exact same place by following along with the videos, step by step.
The paid versions are simply a shortcut, not a different destination.
Until next week,
Strength and Honour,
Dee
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