(2022-09-15) Milo The Complete State Of Pkm For2022

Nick Milo: The Complete State of PKM for 2022

*This is a multi-part story on The State of PKM. Each chapter will build off the previous one.

You will read about...
How we are wasting time highlighting
The 3 Laws of Sensemaking
The 3 Principles of Notes
The 6 Battlefields of PKM
The Ideaverse
And so much more...

You've been misled about PKM (State of PKM, Chapter 1)

we, this generation, are trying to apply “productivity” to PKM—because it’s what we are familiar with—and it’s making us weak thinkers with polluted thoughts.

The tension between “getting things done” and “thinking better” is one of The 6 Battlefields of PKM

There is a way to win this battle. For now, I’ll sum it up with the first of many Truisms of PKM: Time spent note-taking is time taken away from note-making.

made us weak-minded note-takers constantly trying to “process” everything we encounter—mainly because we can’t help ourselves.

for many people with complex lives, G.T.D. is a good fit. But when it comes to PKM, it’s a solution to a symptom—not to the problem.

When people take a “getting things done” mindset into PKM, the results are damaging.

snuffed out the flame of inquiry—the spark of curiosity—and made Knowledge into nothing more than a task list and cheap set of highlights they never remember.

first recognize the pattern. You have no filter.

“you let everything INTO your mind”.

Where am I Encountering things? How many of those things am I trying to process?

What is your relationship to Knowledge? (State of PKM, Chapter 2)

Too many of us are too unclear about this. I mean, why do we care about the things we care about?

Is our relationship with knowledge merely to get things done?

I know there is more to our relationship with knowledge than that.

Can we travel back in time together…to remember what we cared about when we first started making notes?

What was it? What form did it take? A drawing? Was it a journal entry? Mine wasn’t a journal really, but a map. It was a way for me to make better sense of the world.

That is the core—the very essence—of my relationship to Knowledge.

But society won’t let us admit it. People online slap your wrists if you say, “I just like thinking.”

This is a fight for the soul of thinking.

You can be a professional and still spend time wandering in ideas for the mere sake of the activity itself.

How we get digital dementia and how to avoid it (State of PKM, Chapter 3)

you never feel grounded.

we haven’t yet developed the skills to effectively manage these waves of information.

Over-collecting is a major part of the problem. So is over-highlighting. (Yes, linking your thinking is part of the solution, but I don’t want to go there just yet.)

Let’s see how we give ourselves digital dementia through the lens of The 3 Laws of Sensemaking: Encounter, Connect, Express.

“clipping” articles is a form of “Connecting”. It’s just one of the weakest forms

That’s because over time, your digital thoughts become less of your thoughts. As you clip more articles, the ratio of your own words and thoughts decrease. This makes it harder to search for your thoughts.

A powerful system for your thoughts (State of PKM, Chapter 4)

You need to balance structure and chaos.

Notes contain thoughts ☁️
You can put anything inside—a journal, a grocery list, an idea…
🗣 Notes allow time travel ⌛
Notes allow your old self to send messages to your future self.
🌱 Notes can change 🌲
Notes are not written in concrete. Like us, notes can change.

This last paradigm-shift is the most important in the age of the linked note. (networked thought)

once you fully digest that notes are kinda these living entities, you’ll start to feel the power of growing a special, digital ideaverse.

The basics of growing your ideaverse
Encounter something and say “that’s interesting”.
Then create a note and connect it to other notes. (Do note-making.)
Do this 100 times.
When you feel the “squeeze”, gather notes into a Map of Content.
Do this 10 times. (You’ll discover it generates unexpected insights.)
Create a home note to fully utilize, scale, and future-proof your thoughts.
And every step of the way, fly around your ideaverse, accomplishing great works while maintaining a sense of calm and joy.

the Linking Your Thinking frameworks will balance you out.

You can use the LYT frameworks to feel more joy and confidence with your linked digital notes—your special ideaverse—not just in the short-term, but in the decades to come

All of us grew up putting files into folders. That works well for receipts and tax forms. It does not work well for ideas. This is another of The 6 Battlefields of PKM: Folders vs Links.

The 3 Paradigms of Notes

You're already doing it, sort of (State of PKM, Chapter 5)

*Your ideaverse is the entire universe of ideas that exists between you and every place you think.

Our thoughts and our environment play together as one.*

a space that may become your most valuable thinking environment: your digital ideaverse of linked notes.

gather links to all of the stuff you’re worried about losing, and you throw them into a special note called a Map of Content (also known as an MOC,

weren’t just places to store information, they were places to develop ideas!

When we feel a little overwhelmed, or when we are dealing with a lot of moving parts, we make a map. Now we are just doing it in a fast and reliable digital environment that allows us to think better.

Maps of Content have led to a surprise twist to one of The 6 Battlefields of PKM: Top-down vs Bottom-up; because when you are generating ideas from a Map of Content, it becomes Middle-out.

you are literally “linking your thinking” every moment of every day.

When your brain, body, and environment are playing together, then you’re fielding a full team

The riveting concept I’m hinting at here is called “The Extended Mind”. It was formally introduced in 1998 by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. It was beautifully researched by Annie Murphy Paul in her 2021 book of the same name.

Under the umbrella of the Extended Mind, is what I want to help you grow: Your ideaverse.

Faster and further together (State of PKM, Chapter 6)

tacit knowledge—often in the form of personal wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition—is highly valuable, but extremely difficult to express and extract.

You have to join the room where it happens. And if you are using linked notes, that room is the LYT Workshop.

Find people who are trying to do what you are doing. And talk with them… If we truly want to get better, we have to talk. There is so much you are missing out from just reading articles.

there is another part to the equation. You need others.

The benefits of interdependance over independance have always been true. But it’s become even more true in the Information Age. If you are pridefully clinging to your independence, you are asking to get left behind.