… or it’s “I bought a piano because [insert list of bloggers] told me I would be excellent, but I couldn’t figure out how to use it … does anyone know in this forum know how?”
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I think some of the marketing around PKM in general is less-than-helpful too. I haven’t actually seen any tools that make PKM super-easy, but there are tools that help you do the challenging stuff of PKM much more easily.
This reminds me of blogging back in its heyday, when everybody thought they could start a blog and just make money for posting articles.
Lots of people want to have a cool blog. But very few people want to do the work to get the cool blog. I’ve had blogs where I posted multiple times per week. They’re a bunch of work!
I used to have people approach me and tell me they were thinking of starting a blog, and they wanted to pick my brain about blog hosting, WordPress themes, etc. I’d tell them that I’d be happy to give them advice and take their money, but first I’d suggest they try to write an article a week without worrying about posting them. Do that for a month or two, and then let me know how it went. Usually they fizzled at that stage, and that was the last I heard from them.
And that goes back to one of the things I keep having to remind myself. Software is like books - you have to seriously actually engage with it to get the benefit. It doesn’t matter if a million other people swear it’s changed their life; you still have to do the work yourself.
There are lots of things I’d love to do. And if I’ve outlined a rough roadmap, or at least a guesstimate at a discovery process, sometimes the latest whiz-bang software can get me there. Sometimes even hundreds or thousands of dollars spent on software is a fantastic investment. But frequently, there are other reasons I’m not doing that thing I’d love to do, and those reasons are the place I should be starting.
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Yes, exactly. I come from the era when dinosaurs roamed the earth and PKM = 3x5 notecards, paper notebooks, and ring binders. If you wanted to see what you’d highlighted in a book, you had to take it down off the shelf and flip through the pages. Tools like Obsidian, DEVONthink, Zotero, and Bookends make the aggregation, organization, and management of notes, highlights, and outlines easier (and makes them accessible from anywhere), but it doesn’t make the task of reading something and digesting it into a collection of good notes any easier. Good notes are hard.
The Jurassic equivalent of this was photocopying book pages or journal articles, highlighting liberally, stacking the photocopies on your desk, and assuming you had somehow gotten a jump on your research because you didn’t have to sit in the library and take notes on what you were reading. You had to learn the hard way that highlighting does not equal thinking.
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When I read this article last night, it was so refreshing. As someone with a bit of an obsession with coming up with the perfect system – a perfect system which requires perfect nodes – I have been internally debating PKM tools against each other for months.
Some days Obsidian feels like the best move; some days Craft does.
After reading this, it became immediately obvious to me why I’ve struggled so hard to pick a solution and make it stick.
I had been marketed to. ‘Big PKM’ told me that these tools would make me a better writer, a better thinker, a better coworker, a better husband.
What actually happened is they turned things I used to love in to work. They made it so I couldn’t enjoy reading Apple News – an experience I actually like, unlike many – because I couldn’t easily highlight there.
They made it so I slowed down my fiction reading – which I’ve always loved – so that I could read more non-fiction – which is easier to highlight.
Roam, Obisidan, Readwise, Craft, Mem – these things might work for some, but they’re not for me. I might just settle back in with Craft but treat it as what’s best for me – a nice way to create simple notes and docs – and less as a PKM system. It’s gotta be better for my mentals.
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Possibly true (probably?) but I’ve been wondering about this while I’ve been trying to (unsuccessfully) create my system. And, I think like anything else of value, there has to be a purpose. When I highlight notes in books (as an example) it resonates at the time and is worthy of the highlight. But it may be interesting at that time and has no real connection with my work (work being defined as my purpose). So I wonder if Luhmann also had the discipline of only adding notes that worked towards his purpose, keeping in mind he wrote over 60 textbooks and even more papers etc. His output was phenomenal. He wouldn’t be searching the cruff (is that the right word?) and be able to do that.
So, I think to myself (what a wonderful world! - sorry, it was right there! 
) that while I may jump on the zettlekasten train with all its benefits, it comes down to what are I am using it for. I actually doubt Luhmann threw every interesting tidbit into his ZK but rather was very purposeful about its use. And therefore I should be very careful about what I toss into the ZK bucket.
So in my personal situation if the tool is ineffective maybe it’s me looking for an excuse (I don’t use Roam btw). I actually learnt a new term yesterday: PICNIC = Problem In Chair, Not In Computer! I think that is me when in comes to ZK’ing.
Thinking out loud, feel free to challenge! 
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Absolutely. It’s important to understand several factors about Luhmann’s notecard cabinet. First, he collected the notes over a long horizon – between 1951 and 1997. He averaged maybe 5 notes a day – a moderate production. He made notecards only in the subject areas that he was interested in. The bulk of the cards related to his reading – he noted excerpts during the day, and later in the evening he would review the cards, add his on thoughts and reflections, decide where in his system the cards should be placed. It was then that he would add his card numbering scheme**. At times he would record the card number in his index (about 20% of the cards), and he might record the card number on related cards (a kind of virtual hyperlink, in a sense). He never linked all the cards to the index or inter-card notes because his card numbering system, carefully nurtured over decades of research, sparked the discovery of related ideas that was the main rationale for his paper system.
The point is – Luhmann’s note taking related to his field of interest. He was methodical in seeking relationships and adding new relationships within his notecards.
** It seems “Big PKM” (to borrow @thickweb’s term) regularly glosses over the complexity and value of Luhmann’s card identifier numbering system, and that system’s intimate linkage with his process of investigating intellectual connections in his reading and in his note taking. Tags, backlinks, graphs, etc., any kind of automation for that matter, are a poor substitute for the thought and reflection involved in the real Zettlekasten.
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I’ve started to work along the lines of ignoring 99% of everything I see about PKM/Zettlekasten/[insert note-related buzzword here]. Not because it’s just hype (although a fair bit of it is) but ultimately because many things about these systems are individual. A system that worked fantastically for people on The Internet™ might work horribly for me. Or vice versa. Maybe Luhmann’s system turns out to be horrible for the way I think. Or fantastic.
I’ve stopped thinking about “am I doing this right” or “what’s the optimal way to take notes” or really anything about the logistics of notes at all. Instead, I just take the notes, and every time I notice a pain point (“getting hard to find notes about X”, “can’t seem to connect ideas around subject Y”, “I KNOW I read something about A that connects to B 5 days ago”) I stop and think: what’s the optimal way to do this for my brain, with the least amount of time and energy involved in organizing? Then I do that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s “wrong” as long as it fits the way I work. Ultimately trying to invest more time working on, y’know, the thinking that the system is supposed to facilitate instead of working on the system itself.
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100%
… and achieve the outcome I’m looking for …
There are some super bright people around, but they are not us/me.
This is so important. The learning comes form how you use the tools not the act of creating notes and linking them.
Yes and no, sometimes the purpose is the pleasure I get from knowing facts and having data to support my arguments (in the debating sense) on various issues and things I care about. Plus there is also the serendipity of finding a purpose only after you’ve been at something for a while.
Limiting notes to a field of interest is reasonable in theory but IMO falls down in practice for me simply because of the wide and varied interests I have. My hero would be DaVinci, he did not focus on any one thing but instead ranged widely over all classes of science and art. One could argue that he would have been even better if he had focused but there is also value in the breadth of his interests. They each feed on the other to make his notebooks even more fascinating to read.
To me a good PKM must support that level of variation yet still be managable and allow me to think in specific areas as required.
In the big move out of DEVONThink inot Obsidian I am applying a rather more tightly focused lens on my notes and only moving into Obsidian those that I believe will further the aims and ambitions and knowledge I am seeking now. I am leaving behind some of the ones related to ideas I had 10, 20 or 30 years ago that either I’ve finished/explored to my satisfaction or have decided after a brief investigation are uninteresting to me. The latter category I do usually keep one summary note of the process, what the item/idea/project was, a paragraph or 2 on what I did or found out and then a paragraph or 2 on why I no longer have it in my system. The documentarian/historian in me requires that or I wil just revisit the item again and again.
I disagree strongly with the twitter quote below
Instead I think that learning all the different systems or at least investigating them and playing with what works for me and how I like to operate is useful becaause it makes me more able to use those systems in an efficient and effective way.
Until I see other ways of doing and organizing the stuff I care about I can’t make good choices about how I will do it.
Unfortunately, during this entire exploration period my performance suffers. I am slower to write notes, slower to get things working, redo work that I now find unacceptable and so on. But like learning to ride a bike or type, practice will hone my skills and I will eventually be back to an acceptable performance level.
This system switch cost is one reason I am very loathe to switch SW or systems once I’ve settled on something that works. It takes a lot for me to be willing to invest the time and energy to get a new systme up and running effectively. Once I do I expect it to be workable for at least 10 years or longer.
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Michael goes on to state that perhaps PKM is really only suited for “pro academics” which I also disagree with on face value, but bearing the spirit of the whole thread in mind, I can appreciate the point I think he’s trying to make: that a deep mastery of these systems might take more effort to lock in than some of us will reap commensurate returns from. That’s not to say that some form of engagement/understanding isn’t useful— the same thread rounds up with Michael going on to say:
taking notes is good, organising notes is good… but I am going to optimise for fun over function
Reading that, I’m inclined to interpret his opening statement as an acknowledgement of a hangover induced by going deep into optimising his set-up and workflow for some externally held perception of PKM best practice, which leads me back to the point you raise, in that…
Likewise I’ve spent a lot of time trying to grok Roam, Obsidian, Logseq and other tools, and trying to learn from the way that other people use them, with the net result that I’ve come to appreciate my own needs/goals more clearly, and I’ve extracted some useful principles and adapted them for my own PKM stack.
This is a fair stance; I could have done a better job of framing it (the tweet)! I don’t necessarily “agree” with it myself, though I appreciate the idea that for some people, the rigorous attempt to engage with a PKM practice has had a negative impact. And I think it’s important to acknowledge this, even if only to highlight some of the challenges for the sake of suggesting that a) if someone feels this way, they are not alone and b) there are ways to avoid this. I’ve felt something akin to the anxiety Michael references, though for me it was more “Have I really understood this properly? Am I missing the magic in all of this?” which is probably a step before the kind of seeming burnout he describes…
Agreed 100%! Also a big fan of Da Vinci here. I’m quite happy about my PKM setup precisely because it allows me to store so many disparate ideas in one spot and interact with them nicely depending on what I’m working on.
Adding on to what’s been said about the “actual work of PKM” in this thread, I’ll share a recent insight I had. For about the last year, I’ve been using Foam and then Obsidian, moving things out of Apple Notes. I’ve come to realize that AN was actually better at resurfacing old ideas/projects than my Foam/Obsidian setup, because I could easily skim the folder list to see what I had worked on in the past. I’m working on solving this problem with Obsidian right now using “compilation notes” (notes with bullet points of links on a subject and why those links are important) to group my notes. Not using folders because I want to be able to accurately sort interdisciplinary material, one of the reasons I moved to this system in the first place.
But I’ve realized in doing this that I’ve actually written some of these compilation notes before! They along with some other notes on some subjects have just been badly organized/named in my system. So although Obsidian makes it easy to organize notes, you still have to put in the effort to do things in a way that is beneficial to you in the long run.
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I think there are a lot of misguided efforts to copy systems of others - be it PKM or Zettelkasten or whatever else.
These are great examples to use as sample data points.
But the best system - and the one you should use - is the one that works for you and that you devised based on your own preferences and quirks
This applies equally to Roam, Obsidian, Devonthink, Tinderbox, mind mapping software, and every other form of information/knowledge management.
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Another thing that might be coming into play here is that by using a PKM, people become more aware of what they don’t know, or how much they don’t retain. This increased awareness is seen as a negative, and blamed on the PKM tool.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a powerful phenomenon. Sometimes I think it’s a form of self-preservation. Our brain makes us believe that our knowledge of some topic is more complete than it is so that we won’t be terrified by how much we don’t know on a day to day basis.
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I’m interested in history, and manage to make time to read a few history books a year. Currently:
Since I discovered PKM two years ago, I’ve been struggling for years whether to take notes on the books, or just read them and enjoy them.
I read several biographies of Theodore Roosevelt a few years ago, and was delighted to find that a colleague was reading one of them. Then I was chagrined to realize I don’t remember a lot about it. A few impressions. But how much do I need to remember?
At 656 pages this may not be feasible but in my reading of PKM development, it is suggested to read and highlight once, then re-read and review and capture the notes (probably not 100% accurate but thereabouts.) So read & highlight could be the enjoyment phase? 
Not sure I could do that with the Winston Churchill biography, The Last Lion, which I am hesitating to begin even on Audible with Volume 3 at 53 hours! 
I started highlighting and taking notes about a quarter or a third of the way through. My plan is to keep going and see where things take me.
Completely tangential, but I was a fan of both Apple News and Google News until this week. I feel like they’re showing me too much noise. And RSS has its own problems, though I’m still a heavy RSS user. Lately I’m just opening multiple news tabs in the morning, reviewing, and closing them, like it was the 90s or something.
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will be keen to see where you get to …
As much as will keep you happy. No more, no less.
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I’ve stopped highlighting books, except those where I specifically need direct quotations/references for academic writing. Which is a shame - I spent months finding the best highlighting → extract workflow
For the rest, I either write down a few bullet points about key topics as I go through, or at the end of a a reading session I note key thoughts/arguments as I remember them. I seem to be remembering more and I’m not interrupting my flow of reading by creating highlights, often out of context as the author clarifies meaning elsewhere. That’s one problem I have with Readwise - ripping an individual paragraph out of an 800 page book may not do justice to an argument. Writing a summary will (or at least my understanding of it).
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