Search results for: “memory”

When do you need a PKM system?

You might need it on several occasions.

When I encounter something resonating with me, which interests me, I need to capture it. I want to keep the memory of it. I want to know more. I’m curious about it because I like it, it makes me feel good. Or because it reminds me of something else that I want to make connections with. I don’t always have my phone or my notebook available. So, at that moment, I need to capture effectively that piece of information that I want to store in my note archive.

If I go into the detail, I would say, when I’m reading something, and I discover a sentence or a concept, or a word, that is interesting to me, I want to capture it. The same happens with all the other media, when I’m watching a TV show or watching a video on the internet. Or I’m listening to a podcast or on radio, or to a song, and I want to extract a soundbite, a fragment that I want to study or store or connect. And of course, this also happens when I am listening to somebody talking, either a public talk or a conversation with somebody on the phone or the internet or real life. There are moments when I feel the need to capture a sentence, of capturing your thought.

Speaking of thoughts, I frequently have ideas while I am walking or while I am sleeping with dreams or while I’m having a shower or reading a boring book. Something happens in my mind. And I have ideas, connections. I have insights and intuition. I have questions, and I want to capture those. I don’t want to forget them. So I need my PKM, especially the capture approach and tools, the capturing system when I want to store something, and I want to forget it.

I need a PKM system when I need to organize information. I have too much knowledge sparse around: clips, fragments, video segments, quotes, thoughts, ideas. So I make an effort to have a unique inbox to collect all of it. And it’s complicated, but then I need to organize things with criteria that would allow me to find back what I need when I need it.

And this ties to searching for something.  When I need a piece of information, and I go to Google it. Sometimes it is something I already searched for, or I have written about. So I need to search for it in my notes archive. That is when the power of the searching system and the organization system is beneficial to provide back what I need when I need it.

And I need my PKM system to be efficient and effective when I want to share when I need to perform a presentation, sometimes improvised, sometimes I need to prepare the material for a presentation or a design project or write an article. That is when I need to have ideas or find references and to support my creativity. My PKM system has to be efficient, effective, and powerful.

And I discovered by experimenting with a PKM system that I need a PKM system when I need to have new ideas because writing in my note archive is thinking. So, when I write, I am doing all of the stages of a PKM system because I am capturing what I am observing, I am reflecting upon it, making connections, and organizing my thoughts. I am also preparing a draft so that I can share it. So, even if it is not within the chosen tool of a PKM system, I am still working in my note archive when I am creating a draft to be revised and published. Because that same draft will be feeding my note archive, and it will become a building block, a part of it.

If you understand the power of PKM, and if you have a flexible and powerful system, you always need it. You need it in every phase of your creative process.

The following are the reasons behind the creation and adoption of a personal knowledge management system.

To elevate yourself. To live instead of surviving.

To be better observers. When you track down the exciting things that happen in your life and put them in a place where you can find them back and connect them, you develop better observation skills.

To perform better. Because if you inform yourself about the things you want to do, you can achieve them better.

To think better. Writing is thinking. The more quality time you devote to writing, the better will be your thinking.

And so it’s also to learn, to understand. And if you know a lot and if you practice a lot, you become an expert.

Of course, I would do PKM to remember better. And by playing with chance or intention, you can discover expected and unexpected connections between thoughts and ideas. That makes you more creative.

PKM is a complex system of thoughts that allows you to understand better the complexity of the universe. So you face complexity with complexity.

Remembering better and storing your ideas allows you to connect and combine things to create. In the specific, you can have ideas to write, draw or teach.

To be more creative, you can use your PKM system to ideate. That means to generate ideas by finding patterns, by combining pre-existing ideas into new ones. So that that you can develop concepts: ideas for articles, videos, books, courses, movies,  games.

If the knowledge is pertaining to your professional sphere, you might use your PKM system to work better, to collaborate better. You can not only manage better assets and people but also lead them better.

Generate well-balanced and sustainable ideas by applying your critical thinking skills. Using those ideas, you can make better decisions.

You can also be more artistic. You can capture emotions and find a way to evoke them so that you can amaze and amuse. By playing, by surprising.

You can be a better storyteller.

By having this powerful, creative tool, you can also imagine better futures by making a bit of order out of chaos and creating inspiring messes.

By embracing complexity and dancing with infinity, you can be more creative and augment your brain. Be more productive, effective, and efficient with a PKM system.

All of that will make you more intentional.

Use PKM to impact the World positively: observe, take notes of the many problems, and solve them. We can share solutions to create better futures for all.

What is PKM?

Personal Knowledge Management refers to all the activities that you do to manage knowledge relative to your person. It includes any type of data, information, and knowledge related to your personal and professional sphere.

It’s essential to make a difference between data, information, and knowledge. Knowledge is what you know and can retrieve from your memory to apply it to your decision-making process.

You manage your knowledge effectively when you find the information that you need when you need it, to make meaningful decisions,

Why do you need Personal Knowledge Management?

The world is complicated and complex, and there is an avalanche of information that every day is becoming bigger and bigger. It’s easy to forget things or to discover information essential to life. Thanks to technology, most of us can work remotely or online, usually in quick iterative sessions. It makes a difference to have readily available all the information and the knowledge to be effective and efficient in our job.

Creatively managing knowledge can help you in generating new ideas and being productive. 

Managing your knowledge makes you more aware, present, and ready to increase your performance.

Who is affected by Personal Knowledge Management?

Any human being. If you create an efficient PKM system, you will collaborate better with others. Ideally, everybody should have one because it will make us more informed, present, and effective.

How do you manage your personal knowledge?

You need to capture and organize information that allows you to retrieve it when you need it and combine and analyze it to generate the ideas and insights from your captured data.

You could use your brain alone, If you have an excellent memory. Lucky you, if you can. Otherwise, It would be better to have external support. Pen and paper are an option. If you want to be more effective, you can create a Digital Personal Knowledge Management System that would be portable, accessible, usable, safe, distributed, remote. Much better.

When do you manage your knowledge?

Always, would be the most honest answer. The capturing phase should be happening each time you find something interesting relative to your interests. Collecting, analyzing, and combining are at the core of your thinking. While sharing your knowledge can open up worlds of possibilities for better futures.

Where do you manage your knowledge?

As a system, especially for a digital PKM, you manage your knowledge in a virtual space based on several software platforms. For an analogical PKM system, you would be working in your slip-box or notebooks.

As a location, it should be anywhere and everywhere—each time you find something to be captured, elaborated on, or shared.

Augment your brain with a Personal Knowledge Management System

Capture, organize, develop, and share knowledge to be a proper citizen of the 21st Century and maybe the 22nd.

After defining Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), I’ve identified an initial  Personal Knowledge Management workflow. Then I researched the differences between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. I am now Learning Out Loud about the Capture phase in my PKM to explore why you should capture knowledge.

Reasons to capture knowledge

“Capture” is the phase where you acquire data, information, and knowledge to be added to your Note Archive. By exploring the motivation to capture information, we can be more intentional. By being more conscious, we can focus on what matters to pursuing our research goals. As usual, we can go “top-down” by defining the capture criteria a priori or capturing “bottom-up” by following curiosity and instincts.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of reasons to capture knowledge.

To remember

You are your memory. Anything related to your personal and professional life worth to be remembered should be a potential candidate to be captured. By keeping track of important dates, events, and writings, we can be more efficient in our lives, avoid little and big problems and reduce redundancy by reusing saved forms, templates, and models.

To learn

Capture what you don’t know. Yes, there’s a lot that you don’t know, of course, I know it because I feel the same. Would you capture every single unknown bit moving around you? No, dear, follow your interests. Capture what stimulates your curiosity or your intention. You should capture what you want to learn or must learn, and I am thinking about you, students. But also professionals needing to get continuously be up-to-date in their fields.

Capture relevant information sources. If you have a purpose in creating something out of your PKM, you can drive your relevant material research. Capturing meaningful information related to your research field will allow you to develop your research question and provide some answers.

To develop your interests

Feed your curiosity. Create a list of your interests. It will be a useful prompt to evaluate something worth to be capture. Does it fall in any of the listed interests? If no, why am I even asking this question? It might be that you have found a new interest to add to your list. Establishing a feedback loop between you and your interest, you make progress towards being more self-aware. By knowing what you like, you can draw a better picture of yourself. Capturing information about your interests contributes to understand and define your identity.

To be more creative

Invest in your idea bank. Your knowledge base is like a bank. If you don’t put anything into it, you won’t have anything to withdraw. Capturing data is the most crucial activity needed to enrich your note archive.

Choose unique perspectives. Creative comes from “to create,” and a popular definition of creativity says something about “being novel and useful.” So capturing information from unusual sources or in uncommon ways could contribute to the next creative phase of your PKMS, especially the Develop one.

To deal with complexity

Complexity can be made of simple rules. A diversity of applications of simple rules in space and times generate complexity.

Capture information to extend your brain

Capturing data, information, and knowledge can be highly subjective. It depends on your needs and wants and the life you conduct, and the perspective you see. It might be helpful to write down your reasons to capture information. It would allow you to choose more wisely what is relevant or not.