Hello and welcome to this site, where we publish our reference documents. The aim of mjl-tek is to help people organize their lives and their work using systems and software embodied by [[The Trusted System]]. ## Capturing experience My journey with note-taking started with Google Desktop, which allowed me to index my documents for the first time. A little while later came Evernote, which allowed me to comment on them, put them in context, and link them together. It was a valuable scratch pad, a playground, a fertile terrain for developing ideas, a place in which I could write to myself! But Evernote's performance issues became frustrating, and most useful development seemed to stall. I drifted away. ![[tek logo.jpg|200]] ## And then came Obsidian #Obsidian Obsidian provides many functions to write and store and link notes. But what really attracted me to it was the graph view. Obsidian works on any platform. - You can publish to a custom domain, - You can create flowcharts and mind maps on a canvas - It allows you to create tags to navigate freely across themes. - And there are many interesting plugins. ## Building projects from experience Change management is the process by which creative ideas are transformed into real world achievements based on accumulated notes and journals. First, ask yourself: - What are you trying to achieve? - What is your objective, to change a situation or a system? - Are you committed? What is your motivation? To what are you responding? An internal desire or a necessary adaptation to new market conditions? If you're running a small business, there is now a huge source of information available, in addition to your own observations. We discuss some of the ways you catalogue and sort it, to make reasoned decisions in the present about the future. ## Project Management Do you react proactively to new information? There's no magic bullet. The solution is to write it down, to express it. When you encounter a problem, identify potential solutions. See if you can solve similar problems together as a project. We share some ideas about how to transform all that thinking into actions that will generate the best opportunities. Extensively using Trello. ## Our values Our aim is to help people organize themselves and manage their workload. We use mind mapping and journaling to assess situations and environments more objectively. Achieve a calm mind by applying the [[Getting things done GTD]] idea of capturing as much of what has your attention, and encourage you to journal and take notes using your version of [[The Trusted System]]. We aim to help people with the stress of work situations, those who might feel under pressure, or don't know how to say no, to manage their time, and their priorities. This may mean establishing a personalized plan as an aid to communicating the consequences of decisions between team members. We support the idea of self-management and autonomous responsibilities, in taking the time to work, setting boundaries, self-respect, and setting [[Smart objectives]]. ![[mjl-tek themes.png]] ## Sole traders We have many thinking hats: private life, work, projects, and self-employed people have particular challenges. Running a business is complex and requires many skills: administrative, sales, marketing, financial accounting, product and service development, customer relations, planning. The independent knowledge worker must assume many roles: producer, salesperson, accountant, time and project manager, strategist, and marketeer. While your aim is to provide core services, or sell products, you must also be prepared to sell your services. This means coordinating actions both to fulfil orders and to generate future business. A knowledge worker must not only do the added value work but also determine, set and organize the priorities to meet. One of the downsides of self-employment is you often find yourself both asking and replying to your own questions, and the most fundamental one is: "Is this a good strategy to pursue?"