How To Guide: Personal Knowledge Management

Some of you know, my Plan A was to be a university professor. A Historian. The story of why I deviated from that path is not complicated. I noticed universities were staffing their teaching complement with sessional instructors at roughly minimum wage rather than with tenure track professors. With mounting student debt, academia was no longer a viable career path for me.

But I loved my short stint with the department. Twenty + years later, I still feel the sting of having left.

Thankfully I carried much of what my dedicated professors and academic advisor taught me into my career.

Including how I manage knowledge as an independent consultant.

In this blog, I’m sharing my process. I’ll admit, as with all good business processes, it’s in state of constant iteration. While not perfect and most definitely suited to my brain wiring, it’s a process that helps me build, access, and apply knowledge via my consultancy.

First, why have a process at all?

As a generalist, I have a habit of crossing domains and repurposing from different fields. The very acts of crossing and repurposing require some way to capture, track, and access information.

I also recognize the limitations of our human short-term memory. Author and psychologist Dr. Amishi P Jha compares our short-term memory to a mental white board with disappearing ink. On this whiteboard, we can manipulate information over very short periods of time, from a few seconds to a minute, max.

By intentionally manipulating information on my white board, I can ensure some of it will successfully transition to my long-term memory. The rest will be captured somewhere I can easily call up.

Case in point, it took me a few seconds to remember Dr. Jha’s name. That author… I read her book two years ago… about attention… what was her name again?

So what’s my process?

Two notes before I dive into it.

First, I’m a tactile person. I need to physically manipulate things for them to register. For instance, typing meeting notes VS writing them down. If I’m typing, I’m capturing exactly what I hear without paying close attention. If I’m writing, I’m paraphrasing and capturing via diagrams. I’m manipulating the information in my brain as I’m writing it down, which helps me lock it in.

Because I know this about myself, I combine digital and physical methods. For some of you this won’t work. Hence my comment earlier about my process being adapted to my brain wiring.

Secondly, my process aligns with the Zeittelkasten method. You can read about it here and in tons of other sites on the Web by googling the term.

1. Identify a topic.

I come across a problem or topic that has me think, “I wonder…” “What about this…” “How does that work…” “Who has knowledge in this space…” It’s almost like a sent I need to follow.

2. Read.

I start reading and building a list. In building my reading list, I’m either referring to that first author’s bibliography and/or I’m looking for opposing views on the topic. Admittedly healthy opposing views are becoming more difficult to come across. Remember the days of thesis, antithesis, synthesis? Death by polarization.

3. Take notes.

At this point, I’m armed with a book (sounds like the opening line of a 1800 feminist thriller. “Woman with a book! Gasp!”). I could also be about to listen to a podcast or read an article.

3. a) Capture bibliographic information and high-level summary in Mendeley. Reference Notes as per Zeittelkasten.

3. b) As I’m reading, I keep my notebook by my side. I capture quotes, pieces of information, questions, and thoughts. Fleeting and literature notes as per Zeittelkasten.

Fleeting notes are… well… fleeting. They are the thoughts you get when you’re reading something; along the lines of “I wonder about”, “I should look into”, “who is this person”, etc.

Literature notes are the ideas and knowledge of the author in your own words.

Key here: I capture the page #. There’s nothing worse than wanting to call up a quote or idea from a book and have no clue where in the book it was mentioned.

Also, proper footnotes are drilled into History majors. As a grad student, I had a three-hour seminar on the topic. Death by poor footnotes. I

3. c) My fleeting notes become tasks/action items recorded in my work notebook. Example: Look up reference X. Research articles on Y. Order book Z. Schedule time to write.

I use of separate notebook for my To-Do list. I could also use a digital app like Notion. The tool isn’t important. The point is to do something with my fleeting notes.

3. d) Reflect. ?

Once I’ve finished a book, I answer the following questions in my notebook:

1.??????On this topic, what did I learn?

2.??????Understanding this topic helps me to…

3.??????On this topic, I'm already familiar with...

4.??????On this topic, I still don’t understand or I’d like to know more about…

3. e) Next level capture

Remember 5X7 notecards? I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I still use these cards. This is again to feed my tactile brain.

I have two card boxes: 1) Knowledge and 2) Toolbox.

Knowledge box

From my literature notes, I capture particularly poignant quotes, diagrams, my own ideas or points of view. Having it copied on a card makes for quick access when I want to write a LinkedIn post or article.

Toolbox

My process may inform a tool, framework, or service offering, i.e. a Wayscape asset. That potential asset is captured on a card and stored in my toolbox. How I go from card to actual asset is a different process.

3. f) Manipulate.

On roughly a quarterly basis, I review my notebooks with a stack of post-it notes by my side. I currently have two research notebooks capturing three year’s worth of reading. I’ll flip through both. As I’m flipping, I’ll note correlations, new questions, theories, and ideas.

Needless to say, my notebooks aren’t clean.

Out of this exercise will come additions to or new reading lists (captured in Mendeley), and potentially new cards in my toolbox.

I definitely come out of this review stimulated; with “art of the possibility” inspiration.??

4. Let things percolate.

My entire process can be visualized as a funnel from notebook to cards. This process of distilling feeds my own content.

I may continue to follow the scent or I may pick up another scent. Regardless, at some point, there will be a reason for me to come back to my notes.

Concluding Thought

My father’s garage made no sense to any of us. Shelves were scattered with tools and materials loosely organized. Yet because he spent so much time tinkering in his garage, he knew exactly where things were. The time he spent manipulating is what made his system work.

My system is the equivalent of my father’s garage. It’s not the tools (notebooks, digital apps, cards) that help me recall a piece of information. It’s the time I spent on a regular basis reviewing and manipulating this information that makes it such I know where things are.

Thoughts, feedback, recommendations, please let me know! I’d love to hear about your own process!