Above all problems I face, I think the biggest one is regarding the content I choose to consume. I have perfected a lot of my workflow for creating any output I desire through writing and task management, it still relies on the input that I feed myself. Even with all this, it will still come down to mindless media consumption, whether that be instagram reels or sporadic youtube videos, relying on the off chance that my algorithm tuning work will feed me something useful.
The difficulty is that I have no shortage of meaningful long term material - I keep a thorough stash of textbooks and actual books that I have just been dying to read, but I never do because of my high frequency content consumption switching. This is in addition to all the papers I have in my backlog to read.
But on 12-18-2025 I had an epiphany: the way in which I engaged with the content I consume was inherently flawed. This lead me to the realization that there are “modes of consumption”, in which I fundamentally engage with content in completely different ways. This trancends the typical categories of content, even the more abstract “tree like” structures I use (more on that below).
Modes of Consumption
I found that depending both on the nature of the content itself, but also the state of mind I was in, I would either engage with content “actively” or “passively”.
The difference is quite simple: active engagement requires you to reason deeply over the content to bring it to a processed form, which I can then log in my notes, whereas passive comes “pre-processed”, so the thoughts come intuitively and need little packaging for notetaking.
Passive Mode
Most content under this category are the youtube videos I watch, where they tend to explain the process in a way that your brain inherently follows the pattern layed out with little difficulty. There is nothing wrong with this way of consuming information, and in fact it is quite efficient and usefull when you can relax and learn at the same time.
However, active engagement puts you in circumstances much like real world problems - where you struggle to unpack the meaning of the information at first glance
Active Mode
Active mode represents a state of mind where you have to reread/rewatch said content, gradually building up your internel representation and integrating external research into a piece(learning about a papers concepts, etc), and taking notes for the sake of thinking through a particular concept. It is a lot harder, and takes a lot more motivation to get started on, but represents a kind of work in which you engage with content as if you are solving a problem in of itself.
Any type of content can be consumed in these modes (youtube is usually passive, but if you engage/capture content then you are consuming actively). Academic papers are reading and have to be engaged with actively to understand, whereas novella and some books (maybe even GEB) can be actively engaged with but also tend to explain themselves to you, doing the engagement for you.
Categories of Consumption
Beyond the more novel “modes” framework, I also need to consider the types of content that I am being exposed to. I have found that for myself and others of my generation, videos and explainers have taken hold more often than classical literature. I use to think this was the problem, but looking at the actual content, there are youtube videos that are much longer form, and take on the style of a college lecture which require active mode engagement. Inversely, I find that while reading is a really good hobby and makes me think in ways that I love, a lot of reading doesnt make me engage with content and just lets my Default Mode Network wander about the elegance of the ideas presented. While I love it, I have found that Gödel, Escher, Bach has me in this state of thinking rather than having to puzzle over the contents of a excerpt.
I have three main types of content that I consume:
Reading
Just as it sounds, this is any form of text based content. This can be books, papers, articles, or even long form blog posts. The main thing about reading is that it requires a lot of focus and attention to detail, as you have to parse the words and sentences into meaning.
Watching
More general and intuitive, this is any form of video content. This can be youtube videos, documentaries, or even movies. The main thing about watching is that it is more passive and requires less effort to engage with, as the visual and auditory elements help to convey the message.
Laberynths
This is where I am getting niche to my experiece. Laberynths are any form of content that requires you to traverse a network of information to build up your understanding. This can be following hyperlinks on wikipedia, exploring obsidian vaults, or even navigating through a series of videos or articles. The main thing about laberynths is that they require you to actively seek out information and make connections between different pieces of content. They also parellel the way our brains work, as we naturally make connections between different pieces of information to build up our understanding of the world.
How Do I Fix My Content Consumption
I have already taken the first step, which is cutting out ultra short form content like instagram reels. While there were a lot of interesting math reels there that explained concepts effectively and intuitively, I have found it has lead me to “vibing out” the shortest path to understanding without really engaging with the tasks the content demands.
Obviously I need to find a way to not only balance categories of content ( some reading, some watching, and some traversing ), but also the modes of content ( long form youtube lectures, real papers and textbooks instead of “enjoyment” reading ).
I think the best solution, while still a little jank, is to create a kanban board for things that I am consuming. This is a necessary middle ground as I need to be able to return to a piece of content without forgetting about it halfway, which happens so often with anything longer than 10 minutes. For active mode consumption content, you NEED to return to it several times, each time with a new pair of eyes, until you build that passive-adjacent intuition for the material.
The kanban board will have to serve as a “curation” of content to focus on over the sea of content I have in the backlog. Backlog content will stay in their respective categorical domains. Youtube videos in the youtube base, papers in the papers base, books in my physical/digital library, etc. The kanban will curate by concept, not by source, and thus will allow for several pieces of content to be grouped together under one conceptual umbrella.
In addition, because of the nature of active mode consumption, the tasks will have to support expansion of research into supplemental material. A great example is Default Mode Network research, as while I have started with the works from Yana Log Notes and Wikipedia, it has become apparent that watching other long form lectures like The Unique Cytoarchitecture and Wiring of The Default Mode Network, while still dense and difficult, are needed for that intuitive understanding. Thus, these “curation” cards on the kanban may contain multiple pieces of media
Kanban Bases Organization
This will be entirely replacing the old “Learning” kanban board I had before, as that developed into an obsessive backlog of stuff I never look at. We have bases for video and content discovery now, mainly Youtube.base and Papers.base.
I will label consumption as either (Active) or (Passive). The priority will indicate the time sink required, eg an hour long youtube video would be high, a Yana Log Notes post will be medium, and a sub 10 minute video will be low. This is independent of consumption mode.
None: Not started at all, ideas for content Open: HAS been started, but not consuming at this exact moment( eg GEB or a long paper ) In Progress: working on at this very moment Done: Done reading ONLY, for writing we refer to captures as sub tasks
Finally, I will also be leveraging the “time tracking” feature within tasknotes to record actual timeseries data for how I engage with content. My focus is sporadic, and the prescense of a time tracker will hopefully guide me to slow and hone my focus to an instantaneous point.
It should also be noted that the “captures” kanban should be reserved for completely random ideas that are not tied to content at all, whereas this base will still be about written notes but ones that incorporate one or more sources of information and where the focus is obtaining an understanding of the subject matter.
In all honesty, Captures should have the potential to become Consumption tasks, as I might start with an idea to investigate something like Importance Sampling, then later find some sources supporting the learning of this concept. Then the tasknote can be moved to Consumption.
Also, as a way to leverage my new ideas about Note updates as links to daily notes, it would be neat for consumption tasks to accumulate backlinks to daily notes as minature “daily log” for research and thoughts, until that content eventually sprouts into a note of its own.