One year ago today I was sitting in my parents’ guest room after a lovely Christmas and I randomly felt brave enough to press publish on an article about how much I’d learned from the PKM community. I’d wanted to write for years, and I finally pressed publish for the first time on 29th December 2022.

As soon as I did that, I went back to writing a huge post all about how to use Capacities because it was relatively new to me, but I could see how special it was. I just wanted to talk to people about it, because no one in my life is interested in note-taking apps.

I enjoyed the process and I just kept pressing publish, and one year on, my entire life has changed.

I’m not really a metrics girl but it feels one year in is a good time to look back:

1. 80 articles

2. 911 twitter followers

3. 1400+ subscribers on Youtube

4. 1400+ medium followers

5. 92 newsletter subscribers

6. 40 instagram followers

7. 1 Tiktok follower

8. 1 dream job (thank you Capacities)

But it’s so much more than metrics.

I’ve had such valuable conversations with some incredible people, and these have helped shape my practices and ideas ever since. It’s been incredible.

Amazingly, I was able to make some money too which allowed me to match my 9–5 income and leave the job that was making me ill from stress. I also started working for Capacities which is literally my dream job. I always thought one’s dream job had to be within the boundary of a 9–5, and now I’ve seen that’s not true.

I’m so excited to go into 2024 continuing this journey.

Looking ahead to 2024

My Plans

My current goals are to follow more of a content schedule, to consistently post good and useful content.

I want to do this via

• 2 Youtube Videos per month

• At least two articles per week

• 1 newsletter every two weeks

• Consistent posting on Instagram (I love the range of formats, and there are fewer bots than on X)

These are my aims, but I want to post useful things. So if I don’t feel like I have anything useful to say then I won’t publish anything until I do.

I’m also crafting my vision for a PKM Beth community membership, and I also have a really exciting project in the pipeline which I can’t say much on now but it will be my primary focus for Q1 👀

My Ethos

Speaking of things that are important to me, I want to publicly state my approach as a creator so you know who you’re following and what you can expect (equally, you can of course decide not to follow!)

1. Honesty and authenticity

Authenticity is the most important thing to me.

I think part of being authentic is admitting when you’re wrong and showing what you’ve learned from it. I am young, I am still learning, I am still thinking things through, I have so much life left to live and explore and learn from.

I fully expect to realise some of my thoughts/opinions don’t make sense for whatever reason. If I have such realisations, I promise to share.

There’s value in learning moments for sure.

2. There is more to life than getting things done, to optimising everything, to maximising profit.

I will never approach PKM Beth with a view to maximising profits or launching an endless amount of products to try and earn an extra £x a month. It’s far more important to me to produce value in whatever format is the best.

In fact, I will never make content about maximising anything. A life of superlatives simply doesn’t align with who I am as a person and my goals for life.

I whole-heartedly believe there is room for this type of content in our community, so it’s what I’m continuing to create, even when I get told my systems are silly!

Dario’s tweet here sums up this sentiment perfectly.

3. I want to give away everything I know for free, charging only for structure and implementation

This is an idea taken from this tweet. I read it and it felt “right”.

Everything I have learned about PKM, systems, and being a creator has been from free content others have created. I wish to do the same for other people.

Everything I write on Medium is available for free on my Website and Youtube is always free anyway. I don’t want my potential membership to be about creating exclusive content, I see it more as a community, Q&As, bite-size advice and such like.

I’m still crafting the exact vision of this, if you’d like to have a say in what that might look like here is a survey.

I will charge for my time, for structure and implementation in order to keep the free content going. This means consulting, system building, courses and (some) templates will be paid. These will cover a range of price points.

4. Value different perspectives and listen to a variety of voices

This was a core aim behind starting the PKM in the Wild publication, but there’s lots more we could do there and I’m excited to see its evolution.

I’m also launching a new series (name pending) with my family and friends to see if I can spot some PKM practices in the Wild from people who don’t understand the definition of PKM.

I’d love to make this a larger series too and hear from other people to show that everyone does PKM in some way, and it doesn’t have to be tied to one specific note-taking app.

I’m so excited to see what 2024 has in store for me and our community, and I thank every one of you reading for your support, claps and comments in the last year. I wouldn’t be here without you literally living my dream ❤️