Articles

  • Unhelpful thoughts and beliefs related to PKM

    Something I’ve been reflecting on lately is unhelpful thoughts and beliefs related to personal knowledge management (PKM). One group of these thoughts I think are related to the Collector’s Fallacy. (I also see these related to bike-shedding and rabbit hole-ing.) These thoughts might look like: These thoughts are problematic because they lead you to collect too much. Soon, your… Read more

  • How do I know if my PKM is effective?

    Between courses such as Building a Second Brain and Linking Your Thinking, books like How to Take Smart Notes, and the many other resources on personal knowledge management (PKM), the amount of information on building a PKM system can feel overwhelming. But how do I know if my PKM is effective? To answer this question, it’s essential to know… Read more

  • A quick tour of my notes

    I thought it would be interesting to give a quick tour of my Obsidian vault this week. To start, here is the current graph of my vault: Red nodes are source notes, blue nodes are temporal notes, and purple nodes are quotes. In my left sidebar, I have my habit tracker and PARA structure pinned (filled with dummy data for illustration… Read more

  • Intermediate Packet Example: Tear-Jerkers

    In Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte discusses the concept of intermediate packets. I thought it might be useful to share an example of an intermediate packet I created recently during my participation in Relating Between the Lines. This intermediate packet is a list of tear-jerkers. It may be useful in future conversations with friends,… Read more

  • Different PARA implementations in Obsidian

    I use Obsidian for my PKM system. When it comes to implementing PARA in Obsidian, there are three different popular approaches: folder-based, MOC-based, and a hybrid approach. I’ll provide a quick overview of these approaches and some of their pros and cons here. Basic structure Above I have these three different PARA approaches implemented next two each other. On the left,… Read more

  • Dealing with too many projects

    Back in June, I blogged about the impact of long-lived projects. If you’re following a PARA structure, projects should be short-lived. Think along the lines of 1-2 weeks in duration. This ensures that you’re always focused on only the most immediate and actionable things, you develop a feeling of consistent project as you regularly complete projects, and… Read more