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- PKM in the Wild #6
Content Roundup
We’re into December so it’s roundup season!
My Favourite Capacities Features (this is more from my year of use rather than what they’ve released this year)
5 lessons I learned in 2023 (PKM and Digital Systems edition)
House Inspiration in Capacities (aka why multimedia notes in Capacities are so great)
I’ve also posted more on instagram which is fun (@pkmbeth)
Been fun talking about a wide range of things!
My next video should be my note-taking system for 2023, a hard one to film but I’m excited and I may even fit a ‘Day in the Life of my Digital Systems’ in before Christmas too.
Really enjoying making videos at the moment and want to end 2023 strong!
Inspirational Content
I’m starting to shift away from labelling everything as PKM and now looking broader. I’ve settled on the idea that not everything I do is PKM, but everything is PKM inspired.
PKM opened a new way of life to me and a new world view, so I really resonated with the phrasing of Selen’s tweet about it being an expansion of your brain. The idea of expanding my one brain feels more aligned with me than building a second brain. It’s all the same brain, growing up (and out) with me.
A zettelkasten is not only a tool,
but an expansion of your brain.
I use it as a toolbox for:
- Creativity
- Film Analysis
- Memory Palace
- Strategic Decision-Making
- Human Profiling & Worldbuilding
- Maintenance Routine for the PsycheWhy do you use your Zettelkasten?… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Selen Dal (@neuro__flow)
1:00 PM • Dec 1, 2023
I also had this question and the replies were super interesting.
PKM Question:
Say you have a note about New York, and one about the Roarings 20s, where do you write about New York in the Roaring 20s?
Been thinking about the different methods this week!
— Beth (@pkmbeth)
11:18 AM • Dec 6, 2023
PKM Puzzle
I want to talk about timelines today. They don’t really feature in PKM tools, and the history nerd in me finds this a real shame. I’ve been playing with this idea for about a year now, but it’s been reignited recently.
In Capacities I have an event object type that has a date property. I can order my events by date, and I can choose if I want to see them in a list, table, wall or gallery view. I can filter to show me events between certain dates.
I want to keep all this and just add a timeline view as an extra. I’ve been playing with Aeon timeline (thank you Réka) and the terminology even crosses over with Capacities’ (object, object type vs item, item type) which is exciting.
But it’s not just history I’d like on this timeline. Of course with me, deep thoughts about journaling are never too far behind, and I realised that it would be the dream to be able to include historical and political events on a timeline with events from my own life. This would show how we are rooted in the real life history and politics of our lifetimes and of the interconnected events that came before it.
Regardless of what information we collect, work with or the apps we use, pretty much everything is connected to a date. We could therefore in theory use a timeline view to unite all this information.
In practice, that’s hard because I use loads of apps and it’s a lot of data. But even thinking about this is such a fun thought project.
In the meantime, I leave you with a link to an Etsy shop which sells some really interesting old posters in timeline form. I’m fascinated by the presentation of the information. The brain power behind these is inspiring.
credit to this etsy listing
Are you interested in presenting information in a timeline? |
Real life PKM
Keeping track of “open” media notes.
I’ve got a lot of unfinished media notes (spoiler alert, step 1 in my note-taking system), and that makes me sad because I started taking notes on them for a reason, because they’re interesting to me! I just forget about them as other parts of life (particularly this year) take priority.
So given the quiet lull of Christmas at my parents’ house is approaching, I have made a simple page in Capacities (using wide card links) for all the pages I want to revisit during my Christmas holidays.
It gives me a little bit of focus and a reminder of some of the books I started reading and was finding value in.
Going forward, I’m putting the books I’m currently reading on my Notion homepage so I don’t forget about them. If I decide I don’t want to finish a book for whatever reason, that’s ok too but I’d rather make that decision than have half processed notes not getting attention in this Capacities space, simply because I forgot about them 😅
It’s such a simple solution but I’ve already found it useful and I’ve taken more notes last week than in a long time. I think just the act of pulling that list together has refocused me and reminded me of the things I’m curious about, and has thus re-sparked my will to learn, which is what it’s all about!
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