Ilya Vorontsov / Илья Воронцов

Personal Knowledge Management - Fork My Brain

время чтения ~4 мин.

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is a collection of systems, tools, and methodologies to optimize efficiency in consuming content, processing it, and creating something with it. PKMs are often used by knowledge workers as tools of the trade.

Components of a PKM

At its core, every PKM must include methodologies or tools for the following components.

Content collection

Content collection involves the intentional consumption of content. In the collection phase, not much original thought is usually required. However, content collection must still be:

Intentional. We are bombarded by content from all angles, so the efficient knowledge worker must build up the skills or use tools that enable effective triage, distinguishing between noise and valuable ideas.

Filtered. In addition to choosing which content to consume in the first place, content that is consumed must be filtered in some way. That is, your system must allow you to highlight or take preliminary notes on initial content so that it is reduced to essential points in some way. That way, only a smaller amount of ideas make it through to the next stage.

Tools in this space

  • Instapaper, which stores articles you’ve found interesting and lets you create highlights and notes on them
  • Mailbrew is a service that lets you subscribe to content creators on Twitter, YouTube, and blogs, and then curates them into a regular but less frequent newsletter for delayed and concentrated consumption.
  • Readwise acts as middleware, accepting many inputs (including Instapaper and Mailbrew above) and making the data available in different formats (including Notion, Roam Research, and Obsidian).

Content processing and learning

Books on this phase

Content creation

Concerns in PKMs

Data is easier to collect than to process.

Data collection is the first and easiest part of any PKM. The proliferation of tools and automations available in this stage can lead to the Collector’s Fallacy, encouraging us to hoard information rather than deal with it.

Characteristics of a good Personal Knowledge Management system

PKM tools

  • Obsidian - site: This is my current tool of choice, and by far my highest recommendation
  • Logseq - site and repo: open-source, Markdown, web interface or desktop app. This is what I’d be using if I couldn’t use Obsidian, and have also been wanting to explore using it in conjunction with Obsidian.
  • Notion - site: proprietary, but the prettiest of the lot. Easy publishing and powerful databases. I would be using this if the previous two didn’t exist.
  • Anytype - site: Their marketing emphasises their “open” philosophy heavily, but it’s severely hampered by the fact that Anytype notes cannot be used without conversion on other apps.
  • Athens Research - site and repo: Open-source + SaaS model for multiplayer (soon).
  • Evernote - site: I also used this for several years. Its focus on collection makes it better as an archive than as a place to process information. Now a bit of a dirty word among PKM enthusiasts because it encourages you to be an information hoarder.
  • Foam - site and repo: Like Roam Research, but open-source and built on VSCode.
  • Org-Roam - site and repo: Emacs, open-source implementation of Roam Research.
  • RemNote - site: Spaced repetition is a first-class citizen, and particularly good for students.
  • Roam Research - site: This tool blew my mind when I first tried it, but it’s proprietary, web-only, and doesn’t store files locally.
  • Tana - site: Bulleted, focused on databases.
  • TiddlyWiki - site and repo: I used this for years. It feels a little dated now, but still something I’d recommend.

PKM Methodologies

There are many methodologies about PKM, each one attempting to describe the best way to capture, process, organize, and use notes over time.

Courses

Below are some PKM-related courses for learning more about how to use PKM in your daily life. I haven’t taken any of these courses, but I’m putting them here for reference:

See also

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