Don't let personal knowledge management hold you down

You only have one brain

January 4, 2023

https://standardnotes.com/blog/you-only-have-one-brain

There’s a growing movement amongst the techno-literati that consists of spending inordinate amounts of time organizing and curating your personal knowledge base and notes. This movement is dubbed “second brain” technology, because the belief is that linking your notes together can form a sort of neural network that mimics your brain.

But a stale repository of text with painstakingly maintained links is hardly a second brain. It’s a fossil record. For the rest of us who just want to get back to work and keep our tools subservient to us rather than the other way around, here are some guiding principles:

1. It’s ok to not meticulously link your notes.
2. It’s ok to dump all your thoughts in one flat, untagged list.
3. It’s ok to rely on a search bar as your primary organization method.

There is no “second brain” technology right now. It’s all storage and storage retrieval. You aren’t less productive because you haven’t applied the latest knowledge management techniques to your notes. In fact, you may be more productive for precisely this reason. Keep doing what works for you and ignore the rest.

#YOHOB (you only have one body)

New Wave: Second Brain Note-Taking

https://standardnotes.com/blog/new-wave-second-brain-note-taking

December 19, 2022

As a company that provides a simple and secure note-taking app, Standard Notes has often been lumped in with the various “second brain” or productivity tools that have become popular in recent years. While these tools can certainly be useful for some people, we have always taken a different approach.

As we tweeted recently, we believe that our job is to get out of your way so you can do your job. We don’t provide any flashy or self-aggrandizing features like a “graph view” or promises of “discovering gold” by obsessively connecting your data. We simply offer a reliable platform for you to securely take notes, organize your thoughts, and get things done.

We agree with the sentiment expressed in a recent Hacker News thread that some people may spend more time organizing their “second brain” systems than actually using them. These tools can often become a form of procrastination, a way to distract ourselves and give us a false sense of accomplishment.

Our philosophy is simple: the first step to getting things done is to simply start doing them. We don’t claim to have any magic solution or secret cure for productivity. We just offer a simple and secure platform for you to do your best work.

Stop Procrastinating With Note-Taking Apps Like Obsidian, Roam, Logseq.

• Sam Matla, YouTube

Overview: There are people out there who don’t even know what personal knowledge management means. And they’re doing work that you want to do better than you because they’re not procrastinating and they’re not trying to get things perfect and all optimized first.

For many people personal knowledge management is just a sophisticated form of procrastination

Personal knowledge management is a term that’s kind of blown up over the last few years with tools like Obsidian, Roam, Logseq, Notion and a bunch of others. This idea that you can link thought together; that you can take notes in a way that’s not just standard Word documents or pen and paper, but actually build a second brain, so to speak. For some, it is an incredible opportunity to speed up their workflow and to get more work done and be more effective at what they do. But for many, that’s just resulted in another way to procrastinate. But it’s a Sophisticated forms of procrastination. For a lot of people, personal knowledge management is in that category. Here’s why. First of all, personal knowledge management makes you feel smart. The first time I used Roam research and played around with bi-directional linking, I thought I’d found the meaning to life. I thought this will change everything. And as I added notes, and added these bi-directional links between terms and concepts and words, I felt like a genius. I even looked down upon people who were still using tools like Evernote and Apple notes that didn’t have this functionality. But it didn’t take me long to realize that I actually wasn’t doing better work and that just because I felt smart didn’t mean I was being smart or becoming smarter. The takeaway here before we move on, is that creating complex systems for notetaking makes you feel smart. Feeling smart is a good feeling. But just because it’s a good feeling, it doesn’t mean that we’re doing good work or even doing work at all. Now, the other reason why personal knowledge management again, for many people, not everyone, I’m not saying personal knowledge management is bad. I’m just saying for most people, they don’t use it properly. Another reason why it’s a sophisticated form of procrastination is because it’s chasing the elusive. What do I mean by this? So many personal knowledge management people are like addicts on a hamster wheel. They’re chasing something that they’ll never reach. They think that if they just optimize a little more, make a few tweaks to this system, or download that new notetaking app that has these fancy new features that everything will finally click and they’ll experience superhuman productivity.

But this never happens. The click that they’re chasing doesn’t exist. It’s elusive, and it doesn’t exist because there’s no perfect system. Also, doing good work almost always involves uncertainty, frustration, confusion, and disorganization. Trying to eliminate these elements is futile and it is a robust exercise and procrastination. You need to learn and you need to know how to make progress despite the mess.

Another reason why personal knowledge management is a form of procrastination is what’s called Collectors fallacy

That feeling of being on the cutting edge means nothing. It means nothing if you’re not actually producing cutting edge work as a result of your note taking efforts. So we’ve established that personal knowledge management is a form of procrastination. It’s a very sophisticated one. So how do we both recognize that (a) were in this form of procrastination because a lot of people don’t realize what they’re doing. And (b) secondly, how do we get ourselves out of it?

We need to start by understanding that personal knowledge management is not work. It is not work and it’s also not a prerequisite to work and if you believe that it is, you’re going to run into issues. You can argue that personal knowledge management, or notetaking is work, right? But it will be more beneficial to you if you don’t and then if you categorize it as non-work, even if technically it is. When you treat personal knowledge management as work, you give it free rein to take up as much of your schedule as possible. You can procrastinate and absolve yourself of all guilt because at the end of the day, you’re doing work. But when you treat it as non work, you intentionally limit it. You realize that it aids your work, but at the end of the day, it is not the work that matters most. For example, the person who wants to build muscle knows that the work that matters most is getting to the gym, lifting weights and eating well. Finding an optimal workout routine may aid the progress but it is not the work that matters. Alone, it’s not going to do anything. Likewise, the aspiring author who wants to write a book knows that the work that matters most is writing every day. Putting in that work, putting words on paper; note taking, research, planning is going to aid in that process. But it’s not the work that matters. Ultimately, it’s not the work that matters most. It is just an aid. And so you shouldn’t avoid personal knowledge management but you need to understand that as an aid to the work that you’re ultimately trying to do. Instead of something in and of itself. The writer who has an established note taking and research process will be far more effective than the writer who doesn’t. But the consistent writer who doesn’t have any complicated form of personal knowledge management system will absolutely crush the writer who can’t sit down and do the work because they keep procrastinating taking notes. To bolster this, you have to understand it personal knowledge management is not a prerequisite to doing good work. It’s only an aid. Knowledge management is being efficient. Putting this video together without existing notes that I’ve put in Obsedian and structured it or it would take twice as long and it wouldn’t be as good. But there are some things that you can only learn by doing. The person who’s writing an article or an essay uncovers insights while they write it; Things that come into their head that wouldn’t have come into their head if they were just taking notes. The entrepreneurs building a business comes across solutions and ideas that he couldn’t come across during the planning phase, but have can only come through action. And so if you view personal knowledge management as a prerequisite to doing good work, even on a subconscious level, then you’ll spend all your time theorizing, thinking and planning without ever doing. Now, I know you’re thinking. Well no one believes that it’s a prerequisite to doing your work. And you’re right. And I was going to say that; no one’s going to admit to that. But the thing is people act like it is a prerequisite. Now before we get to the five actual principles.

Two traps that people fall into when it comes to personal knowledge management

Optimization Trap

1. The first is what I call the optimization procrastination trap. Many people fall in to this track. They have a misguided desire to create the perfect system. And this manifests itself in two ways. First of all, they constantly switch to new tools. They download the new app, they chase shiny objects, and they think that some new software that’s just come out or some features that have been released are going to fundamentally fix everything and change everything for them - which is a fallacy and it’s not going to happen.
2. And the second way it manifests itself is in constant optimization, beyond the point of necessity; beyond the point of diminishing returns. So they might use something like Notion or Obsidian. And they find themselves constantly making tweaks to this system, watching YouTube tutorials on how to do things a certain way or do things in a more complex way - that feels better to them and makes him feel smart, but doesn’t help them do better work. The truth is you will never have the perfect system. Every software every note taking app has good features and flaws. And there will always be another app that does something better than your app but also has other drawbacks. The mental switch you need to make here is that if you suffer from this optimization, procrastination trap, then settling for good enough is one of the best things you can do for your productivity and your work output. Because the person who gets their system to good enough, ends up doing real work and improves their craft much sooner and faster than the person who’s endlessly optimizing their system trying to get it perfect. An example of this is a good friend of mine who’s an entrepreneur. He scaled his business extremely quickly. He uses this messy combination of Evernote and Microsoft Word docs that when I see it, it makes me cringe because it looks so messy and disorganized. But he crushes it and he does the work. And I have another friend who just uses pen and paper like they don’t have any digital note taking system at all really. And they also crush it. So there are people out there who don’t even know what personalized management means. And they’re doing work that you want to do better than you because they’re not procrastinating and they’re not trying to get things perfect and all optimized first. So get your system to good enough and then use your system. Don’t try to optimize it further. When you do this, it’s just another form of procrastination.

The Perfect Tool trap

1. Another trap that’s similar to this is the perfect tool procrastination trap. So personal knowledge management addicts switch tools all the time. If you browse any subreddit like Obsidian or Roam or LogSeq, you’ll see an array of posts from people talking about why they switched from Notion, or Obsidian to this new tool and the pros and cons and so on and so on. And this is a trap that I’ve fallen into time and time again. I started off with Evernote, I moved to Roam and into Obsidian and then back to Roam, before finally landing on Obsedian after a brief stint with min.ai. If I had avoided jumping around like this I would have got so much more work done. When I look back, there were hours and hours of time just spent migrating and setting things up and feeling smart about it. It was a waste of time. If you’re jumping around from tool to tool, you’re really chasing that elusive click that we talked about earlier that doesn’t exist. So this is just another form of procrastination. You need to understand that there’s no tool out there that’s going to enable you to do amazing work if you can’t sit down and just do the work regardless.

How do we move forward?

So now that we’ve established all that, how do we move forward? How do we stop ourselves from being these personal knowledge management procrastinators? Well, there are five principles that I think you should adopt.

Five principles to avoid procrastination

Stick with one tool

1. The first one is to stick with one tool for the next six months minimum. You need to escape this perfect tool check that I just talked about. And unless you can make an extremely robust argument for why you need to switch to another tool and I bet you can’t, then all you’re doing is procrastinating, you’re looking for a shiny object. You’re looking for that thing to give you a dopamine hit, and to make you feel like you’re smart. To combat this, you need to stick with one tool. Ideally, the one that you’re already using, so you don’t need to migrate and spend time doing that. Stick with that for the next six months minimum. And be warned during this time, there is a high chance that you will see some new notetaking app pop up on the internet and you’ll think I need that. That looks good. That will solve my problems. There’s got a feature that I need. Don’t do it. Stick with your current tool and do the work. Because if you don’t, you’ll fall back into this cycle again, and you’ll just procrastinate. One thing that helped me break out of the cycle of just switching from app to app was to remember that people have done great things and great work without these complex systems. Right? Like there’s authors in the past that wrote books in prison, without access to Obsidian or Roam or the next new thing. You don’t need these complex systems to do good work. They can help but you have more than you need to do great work. These features and apps are enhancements. They’re not necessities.

Trust your brain

1. The second principle is to trust your brain more. So I’m all about this idea of building a second brain which has become a little bit of a buzz phrase, but I think it’s good. But a second brain is not a replacement for your actual brain. Many personal acknowledgement addicts take notes on everything they consume. But don’t leave any room for actual thinking work. You need to trust as you consume information, and as you think through things, that insights will come to you organically and not necessarily when you’re inside your notetaking system. For me the best ideas always come when I’m out doing something when I’m walking, when I’m sitting down having a coffee and looking at the sunrise, when I’m away from my computer away from my phone. They’re hardly ever a result of structured note taking. So you need to trust your first brain that you will have insights come to you as you do work and as you consume information as long as it’s good information. Another way to interpret this principle was to just relax. I know that you think you have to take notes and everything. There’s obviously this fear of missing out on information but that’s an irrational fear. Good ideas will come to you if you’re consuming the right information.

Be project based

1. The third principle is to be project based with your note taking. What do I mean by this? Well, taking notes for the sake of taking notes is textbook procrastination. A better strategy is to be project based. So choose a project that you want to work on. Maybe it’s a book, maybe it’s a product, a digital product, maybe it’s a YouTube video. Take notes around it. Link concepts and ideas and thoughts. You can use bi directional legs if you want to link it around your project. Leverage the tools available to you. As you take this approach you’ll notice a few things. First, you’ll notice that you naturally filter out irrelevant information that would otherwise clutter your note taking system. Second, this fear of missing out on information - it subsides. You more or less know what you need to take notes on and what you’re looking for and you can safely ignore the rest because it’s not relevant to your project. And the other thing you’ll notice is that you will likely procrastinate less because you’re working towards a tangible outcome instead of just taking notes for the sake of taking notes which is an aimless sort of task.

Improve your work capacity

1. Principle number four is to improve your work capacity and output before you start thinking about how to structure your note taking system. If you spend more time structuring your note taking system, your personal knowledge management system, than doing actual work, then you’re procrastinating. Most notetaking systems have amazing search functionality. You can find what you’re looking for when you need it. Because of this you don’t need as much structure as you think. Develop the habit of doing the work first - even with imperfect structure. Once you have this momentum and once you can sit down for three to four hours straight and do the work, then start making some optimizations. But only then.

Set yourself some actionable boundaries

1. The fifth and final principle is to set yourself some actionable runners. So if you are a chronic procrastinator in this space, then it’s worth saving some boundaries. It might be something like I’ll only work on my note taking system and try and improve it for 30 minutes per day maximum or two hours on a Saturday morning max. And I won’t touch it other than using it for work outside of those hours. Another helpful thing is to set up a process for note taking and capturing information so that you don’t get sidetracked and stop procrastinating. So for me I personally don’t like to capture information and sort of process that at the same time. They are two distinct things to me. I capture a bunch of information, and then at a later time, a separate time, I’ll process it, I’ll look into it or structured a bit more. But those two things are distinct because when I’m capturing information, I want to be looking for the right information not having to worry about how to structure over here, right, so I would split those two up, set some boundaries there, and anything else that you think might be useful.

So to wrap this up, we’ve looked at why for many people personal knowledge management is just a sophisticated form of procrastination. We looked at how it manifests itself in the form of the optimization, procrastination trap and the perfect tool trap and the collectors fallacy. And then we looked at five principles for basically being better and not procrastinating as much. Now if there’s one thing you take away from this video, I want it to be this your personal knowledge management system, or your note taking system is there to help you do better work. If you find when you look back over the last three to six months that your work output is lower as a result of your system, then that system is not a good system. If you find that your work output is higher, both in quantity and quality, then you have a good system. That is the sort of metric or the litmus test that you want to adopt. And with that I wish you the best.