EM Operating System: Your Brain Is a Terrible Database

Monday, 8:47 a.m.

Seven Slack DMs you haven't opened. Three 1:1s stacked before lunch. A half-written planning doc from Friday. A decision from last quarter you need to remember, buried in a thread you can no longer search. A promotion packet open in three browser tabs. Two incident follow-ups you said you'd reply to "first thing Monday."

It's 8:47 a.m.

You have not had coffee.

This is the job. The job isn't writing code. It isn't even running standups. The engineering manager's actual job is carrying context between decisions without losing it. And your brain, with respect, is a terrible database.

🌀 Read Issue 001 here: https://read.englead.ai/p/em-operating-system-ai-native

What I built

I built a Second Brain for this. I call it The EM Operating System. It took one Saturday afternoon. It runs local, costs nothing beyond a Google account, and lives on top of four things you can install with five terminal commands.

The four pieces:

1. Obsidian

Obsidian is a plain markdown editor that treats your notes as files in a folder on your laptop. Not a SaaS. Not a database. Just files.

Why it matters for an EM: everything you write about work (1:1 notes, architecture decisions, hiring feedback, retro threads) is permanently yours. Obsidian shuts down tomorrow? Your notes still open in any text editor. That reversibility is why senior engineers can put real work context into it without worrying about vendor risk.

It also renders markdown beautifully, supports backlinks between notes, and has a mobile app. Free for personal use.

2. Claude Code

Claude Code is an AI agent that runs in your terminal and reads the files in the directory you point it at. Not a chat app. Not a sidebar. An agent that writes, edits, organises, and links files on your behalf.

Why it matters for an EM: you point Claude at your ~/brain folder once. From then on, every capture you throw at it (a voice memo transcript, a Slack screenshot, three sentences from a 1:1) gets filed in the right place, with frontmatter, with backlinks to the people and projects it touches. The filing stops being your job.

The unlock isn't "AI writes my emails." The unlock is "AI carries the connective tissue between my 1:1s, roadmap reviews, incident notes, and hiring loops, so I don't drop threads."

3. Google Drive + rclone

rclone is a command-line tool that syncs any folder to any cloud storage. Install it once. Point it at your ~/brain folder. It now syncs to Google Drive every 15 minutes.

Why it matters for an EM: you work on a laptop at the office, a different laptop at home, a phone on the commute. Obsidian Sync costs $10/month. Dropbox and iCloud both have weird edge cases with Obsidian's file locks. rclone + Google Drive is free, reliable, and uses storage you already have.

And because Obsidian operates on files, not a proprietary cloud database, rclone sync is a real-time replica. Not a backup. A working mirror.

4. PARA

PARA is a folder method from Tiago Forte: Projects / Areas / Resources / Archive. Four folders. Everything filed into exactly one of them.

Why it matters for an EM: it's action-first, not archive-first. Projects have a finish line. Areas are your ongoing responsibilities (the team, the role, 1:1s with your manager). Resources are reference material. Archive is done-or-abandoned. Anything else goes in a fifth folder, Inbox, and gets processed weekly.

No tag taxonomy. No nested subfolders. No database schema to memorise. Five folders, one rule: new things land in Inbox; old things move out.

~/brain
├── 0 - Inbox       ← anything you capture ends up here first
├── 1 - Projects    ← active work with a finish line
├── 2 - Areas       ← ongoing standards (the team, the role)
├── 3 - Resources   ← reference material, people, captures
└── 4 - Archive     ← done, paused, or moved on

How it actually runs on a Monday

Back to 8:47 a.m. Your report mentions a decision from two weeks ago in the opening minute of your 1:1.

Old world: you apologise, open five Slack search tabs, scroll through a thread, fail to find it, promise to circle back.

New world: you type a single line into Claude Code. "What did we decide about the retry policy on payments-service in the last three weeks?" It reads your vault, finds the ADR, finds the 1:1 note where the decision was referenced, finds the Slack screenshot you captured, and gives you the summary plus links. Thirty seconds. You're back in the conversation.

Same capability, different layer. The decision was always there. You just stopped being the index.

Why "operating system"

I call it an operating system because that's what it is. Not an app. Not a note-taking tool. An opinionated stack of primitives that together run the EM's knowledge work the way the OS on your laptop runs your applications.

• Obsidian is the filesystem.
• Claude Code is the process scheduler (it decides which files to read, write, and link based on what you ask).
• rclone + Google Drive is the network layer.
• PARA is the directory structure.

You already understand operating systems. This one just runs on your knowledge work instead of your apps.

The full setup

I wrote Issue 001 of EngLead AI as the complete walkthrough: every install command, every copy-paste prompt, the rclone sync config, the para-capture Claude Code skill that turns the agent into your personal librarian, and the Obsidian settings that make it all feel native.

About 45 minutes end to end. Zero prior experience with Obsidian, PARA, or Claude Code required. Mac only for now.

🌀 Read Issue 001 here: https://read.englead.ai/p/em-operating-system-ai-native

Writing The AI-Native Engineering Leader: on combining AI with existing technology to manage and operate teams at scale.

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