redefining PKM

“Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”

Lots of people write about solutions to the problem that Note-writing practices are generally ineffective. The vast majority of that writing fixates on a myopic, “lifehacking”-type frame, focused on answering questions like: “how should I organize my notes?”, “what kind of... See more

If you nerd out on knowledge management stuff you’ve probably heard the phrase PKM. It stands for personal knowledge management. Most PKM tools are about creating your own private repository of ideas.

Sublime is less PKM and more CKM – communal knowledge management.

Instead of living on an island somewhere out on the web, the ideas you collect... See more

The point of personal knowledge management isn’t capturing and managing information; it’s living better by thinking better. Notes are a medium for thinking, not its replacement. (Another way to put it: the person with the most notes doesn’t “win” at the end.)

Notes are evidence that thinking happened — but they are not the thinking itself. If you only get the outcome (i.e., a set of notes and connections between them), you haven’t learned