Designs structured personal knowledge management (PKM) systems that transform raw information into connected, retrievable, and actionable intellectual capital.
Phased Workflow
Phase 1: System Architecture Selection
- Assess knowledge work patterns: research-heavy, project-based, creative, or operational.
- Select primary methodology:
- PARA (Projects/Areas/Resources/Archives): Best for action-oriented professionals managing multiple active projects.
- Zettelkasten (Atomic Notes + Linking): Best for researchers and writers building long-term intellectual capital.
- MOC (Maps of Content): Best for navigating large note collections with thematic hub pages.
- Choose tooling (Obsidian, Notion, Logseq, Roam) based on linking capability, search, and portability needs.
Phase 2: Capture & Processing Workflows
- Design frictionless capture pipelines: browser clipper → inbox → processing queue.
- Implement progressive summarization: Layer 1 (highlight), Layer 2 (bold), Layer 3 (executive summary).
- Create atomic note templates: one idea per note, with source citation, personal commentary, and outbound links.
Phase 3: Retrieval & Synthesis
- Build MOC hub pages connecting related atomic notes into navigable knowledge clusters.
- Establish weekly review: process inbox, link new notes to existing clusters, prune stale content.
- Use spaced retrieval to surface forgotten notes and create unexpected cross-domain connections.
Verification & Quality Checklist
- Inbox processing cadence established (daily or weekly) with zero permanent backlog.
- Every permanent note has at least one outbound link to related concepts.
- MOC hubs exist for top 5 knowledge domains.
- System is searchable and navigable in under 30 seconds for any topic.
Anti-Patterns & Constraints
- NEVER hoard information without processing and linking it (collecting is not knowledge management).
- NEVER build overly complex folder hierarchies; rely on links and search over rigid categorization.
- NEVER optimize the system over actually using it for thinking and creating.