Personal Knowledge Management Pitfalls

Common issues plague those who take up Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) as a practice. Systems can become overwrought and unwieldy. Maintenance becomes cumbersome. Things get cluttered and confusing. The whole purpose of the system gets lost in the weeds. This is especially complicated by the proliferation and popularity of digital notetaking tools such as Obsidian, which can make it far too easy to constantly tweak and rework a system.

By far the biggest issue, however, is losing focus on the fact that PKM is a thinking practice. If your PKM doesn’t facilitate thinking then it’s not a good system.

Common Issues and How to Fix Them

Lack of Workflow

See Creating a Personal Knowledge Management Workflow.

Lack of Purpose

Some people simply are not aware of what they want to get out of PKM. They have an understanding on some level that it would be helpful to them, or they find it interesting in some way, but the utility of their system is not clearly defined. Systems like zettelkasten were originally designed around the purpose of creating written output. That doesn’t mean you need to be publishing papers or writing essays to practice PKM, but you do need to have a clear understanding of your goals behind implementing a system.

Try This

Ask yourself: what do I want to get out of my PKM practice? Write it down. Create a thesis statement for your system and ensure that your workflow facilitates that thesis.

Collecting Everything, Doing Nothing

Among those who practice PKM, it is very common to want to information hoard. People load up their systems with as many notes, highlights, and references as possible, whether or not they are useful or facilitate thinking. Information gets filed away and forgotten about. The pitfall of collecting information without acting on it or ever revisiting it has been described as the Collector’s Fallacy. As part of your PKM system, you need to work with the information you’ve collected. Focus on quality over quantity.

Try This

Focus on developing a workflow and adhering to it. Work with your notes. If you’re not working with your notes then you need to question what you’re taking notes on and adjust accordingly.

Overengineering

There is a natural tendency to want to overcompensate when it comes to organizational structures. In the case of PKM, it’s best to keep things as simple as possible. Any additional complexity just adds overhead and takes time away from writing notes. This is especially a challenge with digital notetaking tools, as they often provide a wealth of features and extensibility in order to meet as many use cases as possible. When using digital tools, self-enforced limits are necessary. Limitations foster creativity and prevent overcomplexity. Start simple, and keep your system as simple as possible.

Try This

Force yourself to focus on writing notes by committing time each day to writing and only writing. Don’t allow yourself to tinker with your system, plan, or organize things during this time: that is just busy work.

Perfectionism

Your notes don’t need to be perfect. The most important thing is to put your thoughts to paper, not to write perfectly. Spelling errors, grammar error, logical lapses and contradictions — all should be welcome within your PKM. The purpose is not to create perfect notes. The purpose is to organize your thoughts. Likewise, your system doesn’t need to be perfect. Instead, learn to embrace imperfection and incrementally improve your system as you develop your workflow. Learn to be comfortable with imperfection in your systems. No system is perfect, and chasing the idealized system will just end up taking away time from the important things: writing and thinking.

Try This

Experiment with free writing. Don’t allow yourself to edit your notes as you write them - just write for a specific amount of time and worry about fixing things later. Editing uses a different part of the brain than writing, so its best to separate these activities.