Do you seriously have this crazy amount of knowledge that requires a complex system to manage?

For those who are not familiar with the term, PKM stands for Personal Knowledge Management, which usually involves exploring novel note-taking apps and constructing pretty-looking workflows.

I started from Notion. Unsatisfied with its loading speed and the fact that I don’t actually own my data (which means I must log into a Notion account instead of having it privately saved on my machine), I switched to Obsidian, which was quite a journey. I constantly found myself restructuring my note vault and spending too much time on techniques and plugins, so I downloaded Logseq, the app I’m currently using.

Now that I’ve proved myself as a (former) PKMer to you, let’s dive into the real issue at hand: What’s the problem with PKM?

Modern technology makes it all too easy to fall into obsessions. With its sleek user interface, polished fonts, and seamless integration of multimedia, even the smallest imperfection in your note-taking app can feel like a glaring flaw.

Like an ink stain, a poorly laid-out document becomes a distraction, only different, because an ink stain cannot be erased, but you can always make your page look nicer, and thus countless efforts have been made to eliminate unimportant distracting details. Because you realized there is always going to be a better way to do this, you began to pursue a better method rather than a deeper understanding of the knowledge itself.

The harsh reality suddenly becomes unbearable to you. After you’ve experienced true perfection, it has been unacceptable to you that things are done in an ungraceful maanner, though it might cost less and produce more.

I’m not saying productivity tools actually lower your productivity. The problem is not about tools but the people using it, and the way people use it.

A blank note page on your screen awaiting to be filled with words by your keyboard, to some people, is much nicer than a piece of paper. You can edit it freely, not worrying about running out of ink or ruining one page with a typo or grammatical error. Without a doubt, this technology can help boost productivity if you’re already familiar with typing and has a lot of writing work to do.

When I was in high school, I drew all kinds of patterns on my notebook, as decoration or as marks that indicate something to help me organize my notes. I have a tableful of highlighter of different colors also. I constantly found myself not keeping up with the pace of the lecture. The teacher was going too fast and I was still fumbling with my pens and stickers (yeah I have stickers, too). I could borrow someone else’s notebook to finish what I’ve left behind, but I would still be spending way too much time on note-taking rather than actually learning.

In that sense, being equipped with various tools might not always help us get our work done. Especially when your tool choices evolve into a complicated system or a workflow, it’s hard to get out of that system (not because it’s difficult, but because you don’t want to). You know the system might slow you down sometimes but you don’t want to abondon it. It’s like parting with something you’ve grown attached to.

The core issue here is worth pointing out: The reason why in some cases (not all), a well-designed workflow might lead to productivity decline is that we’re focusing way too much on method but not the goals we wish to accomplish, which means you could have spent your precious time on getting things done instead of figuring out how to get things doen more elegantly.

Sometimes, all you need is “quick and dirty”.

The concept of PKM is based on methods. People study PKM to learn better methods to take notes and make the most of what they learn. That’s the philosophy of PKM. It’s good and I think more people should be learning it. However, it’s not an endless journey.

If you are dedicated to becoming a life-long learner, you probably don’t need to be learning PKM for a lifetime. Just like learning how to ride a bicycle, once you know how to balance and get started, you don’t need to enhance your biking skills by making changes to the way you ride. You do that every day by actually riding it to get somewhere.

PKM is a way for you to get started, and then, off you go. Do the things you need to do and create values as you should. Stop the madness of perfectionism about tool choices and pay less attention to insignificant flaws of your system as long as it works.

May you have a productive day.