Andy Sparks, CEO of Holloway, on Living a More Conscious Life

We talk about using Notion as an operating system for work, escaping life's pinball machine, and note-taking as creating a relationship with your future self

Andy Sparks builds companies at venture scale.

He co-founded Mattermark, and is currently the CEO of Holloway — the startup rewriting the script on the world of traditional publishing.

For some, this might sound like a dizzying array of accomplishments, but Andy has developed a series of inspiring systems to make it all manageable, and to help him live a purposeful, ambitious, and highly-directed life.

I came away from this conversation so inspired. Here are a couple of the highlights:

  • How writing things down helps him increase his self-knowledge
  • How he uses Notion as the operating system to run Holloway, to help him organize everything from weekly agendas and todo lists to the company’s values and mission
  • How note-taking is a process of creating a relationship between your present self and your future self
  • How he collects resources to make him smarter in his Evernote
  • How tattoos can be the ultimate form of a note — they’re literally permanent notes on your skin
  • How he always sure that his calendar always reflects his priorities


Dan Shipper: What tools do you use and how do you use?

Andy Sparks: I use a number of different tools to do this. The ones that I use daily though are:

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