PKM in the Wild #3

Hi all,

hope you’re doing well!

I haven’t published too much recently, but I have really enjoyed writing what I did publish!

Then I got a burst of inspiration to finish an article I’ve had in my drafts for ages about how our systems are going to change because we change, and apps change. This has made me want to start tracking every single tool I use for every single part of my life so I can track the changes. Would that be of interest if it’s a public document of learnings or is this the sort of thing I should do for fun and keep private?

Then I rounded up my favourite Utility Apps on Mac. I am blown away at the quality of the tools we have access to that help us in various ways. I’m so grateful for this!

I think it’s clear that I have a pretty broad understanding of PKM- it’s essentially an umbrella term for all sorts of information and knowledge handling (rightly or wrongly), and I’m always looking for cool ways people are doing it.

I’ve been super inspired by this yearly summary from Kavisha. I journal in Day One but have got a yearly review in Notion for the different things I track in there. I like this idea of this minimal overview as an addition to what I track in Notion. It’s so beautiful too!

Similarly, I was really interested in Luis’ tweet about project management as I’m still rethinking my project management workflow. I love how he has the “higher motivations” of everything he’s doing available in one property.

This is a more explicit example of an idea I think I’ve been skirting around for a while, so I’m grateful for this tweet to motivate me to implement a version that works for me.

I’m also loving anything and everything Réka writes. We have similar approaches to PKM so if you like my content, definitely go follow her on Medium!

As mentioned, I’ve been in a systems building mood and I came across a recurring issue that exists in my personal life and my history nerd notes. That is how to deal with things happening over time. I wish I could describe that better!

I’ve talked a bit about the history nerd example here, but this same thinking cropped up in my personal life too when dealing with “eras” in my life, both broad and minor.

For example, I spent some months abroad before Covid in Angers, France and everything that happened as part of it is my “year abroad era”. It was the context for everything that happened to me in those months, and some after honestly, so I feel like denoting that time as an era is important for my reflection practices.

On a smaller scale though, how do I capture what’s ~going on~ in life behind the concrete, date-specific reflections I write in Day One?

For example, how do I capture that most of September was spent wondering if my boyfriend would get his well-deserved promotion and therefore would allow us to buy the house we want? That’s the long process behind the scenes that isn’t captured by a simple entry on 2nd October saying he was offered the promotion, or by the entry on the 19th to say the house offer was accepted 👀

So there’s the puzzle. What’s the solution?

My starting point is connecting an Eras database in Notion to Google calendar via Zapier. This is inspired by something I’m trialing for project and task management.

A new entry in the Eras database creates a calendar event in Google that spans the time of the era, and then puts the Notion page URL in the body. In the Notion page, I added some content about the year abroad era. Day One integrates with my calendars, which means I can scroll back to any date during that era and see what was happening, and if I click on the Era name, I have a link to the Notion page!

So I enter info into Notion, and then review in Day One, and the rest of the magic happens behind the scenes.

Given I’m in Notion and Day One literally every day, this fits nicely.

I think this works best for longer eras, but the same principle could apply to the smaller, behind-the-scenes look at life. But that involves me entering them into Notion, so still more to think about.

PKM has taught me that connected information is necessary, and that’s why for something so life-changing as buying a house, I’ve chosen to use a PKM tool to manage a lot of it.

Let me show you a sneak peak of how I’m using Capacities for the super fun house inspo part of living somewhere new.

I have a page called ‘Townhouse’ which has #townhouse embedded into it (MOC style). Any pictures that could serve as genuine inspiration for the new house get tagged with #townhouse, and my “moodboard” is filled out automatically. I can open each image and add links to things to buy, any paint colours it includes or ideas I have related to that image.

I can also tag the rooms the image is inspiring if I wanted to, as each room has their own page too, which are also all embedded in this main page.

Each of these room pages has a super simple set up: a simple task tag and buy tag. There’s so much to do and buy that I’m not planning anything or spending anything until it’s officially ours.

I will also change my mind 100 times, so it’s best to know if I have a place to put my ideas in, but that it’s easily editable, involves no real effort and hasn’t started more complex processes yet. Those will come later and I promise I’ll show those too if the purchase is successful!

That’s all for this catch up!

Thanks for reading and for the support, means the world :)o