Systems Over Substance: The Underwhelming Truth of Personal Knowledge Management

Let us take a quick trip into the past, more precisely let us look back at 2020 when suddenly note-taking, backlinks, personal knowledge management, and building a second brain became the most hyped things of the internet. People called it a revolution, gleaming apps popped up everywhere, and content creators started selling courses introducing complex tagging and linking systems. Productivity gurus preached that once you start organizing your thoughts, you become more productive, and ultimately transform yourself into an idea machine.

I wouldn‘t say that tools like Roam Research, Obsidian, Logseq, or even Notion led to this promise of digital salvation. It feels like the users of those apps, the content creators of the courses for those apps were the ones amplifying that mentioned apps weren‘t just note-taking tools, but rather portals to an idealized version of ourselves. You had to use those apps to become the perpetually organized, endlessly creative knowledge worker who could capture fevers fleeting insight with surgical precision. People tried out and applied new note-taking systems every single week, each more complex than the last. We got convinced that the right combination of tags, links, and folders would unlock our intellectual potential.

However, systems are not substance. After the initial excitement waned, a stark reality emerged: the people who spent hours of their time meticulously crafting their systems and constructed knowledge repositories remained just that–repositories. Unused. Untouched.

Instead of actual intellectual work, people have been working on an organizational fantasy.

The Disillusionment of complex systems

I spent a fair amount of time in the realm of personal knowledge management to know that the number one conversation topic were knowledge management systems to get the most out of the note-taking. YouTube got flooded with videos showcasing a new systems which stated to help you learn anything, be more productive and creative, generate ideas, write more, and so on. People created courses so users of a specific app can become masters of it. There were even folks publishing books and explain on over 200 sites why their system is the best.

I don‘t doubt that those systems worked for their creators, they probably even worked for people who adopted them. But it is a fallacy to believe that just because someone is telling you that this specific system is the best and makes you more productive, that it will actually deliver on those claims. What is even more important is the fact that you shouldn‘t worry about a note-taking system in the first place. It is time-consuming to implement them, and they keep from what really matters which is the writing and note-taking part. When you start applying someone‘s system, chances are high that after a short amount of time of actually using it, you will realize that there is a specific workflow that is not suited to your owns. At that point, you probably start customizing the system and adapting it to your needs. However, this will introduce even more places where the initial system slowly starts falling apart. You then come full circle if you decide to abandon the system and start from scratch.

A note-taking system and the needs for it appear naturally once you actually start note-taking and writing. There is no need to force an already existing system onto your very personal workflows.

Tools don‘t create productivity

I talked about this multiple times, and I will take the chance again to remind you that the one app that goes viral on social media since all the productivity gurus are sharing their awesome thoughts about it, will not make you any more productive.

Tools matter, but only to a certain extent. A lot of them simply misunderstand human creativity and work processes, as they treat knowledge like a mechanical system that can be engineered through categorization, organization, and linking. However, thinking isn‘t a linear process, it is very messy, non-hierarchical, and deeply personal. It is almost impossible that you will find an app tailored to your personal needs. But they act as a gate, as long as they provide you with the standards of modern note-taking.

No app, no system, so way of categorizing and linking can replace the hard and creative work of sitting down, focusing, and doing the actual intellectual heavy lifting. No matter how perfectly organized your Notion databases are, they cannot write your book, complete your research, or generate breakthrough ideas. A writer doesn‘t become prolific because of thousands of bidirectional links within their knowledge base. A researcher doesn‘t generate breakthrough insights because of a certain graph view. Sure, those things act as enablers, however if they become the main focus, driven by a certain system, they act as distractions.

What remained

After the hype cycle went away, what stayed were the practitioners who had always known the truth: meaningful knowledge work isn‘t about the tool or the system, it is about the work, the actual work, the consistent, humble act of thinking, reflecting, note-taking, and writing.

If you think for yourself what really matters when choosing a note-taking app, you will be surprised how little it is. The same applies to your note-taking and writing practices. You do not need a system in the first place, you do not need a knowledge base, or a second brain, you are already doing the actual intellectual heavy lifting when you are using a single brain, your brain, while thinking and reflecting.

True knowledge work is about engagement and not infrastructure. The notes that are most valuable are the ones that you are reading, reflecting on, engaging with, and actually using, and not the ones that are perfectly organized, tagged, or just a dot within your graph view.

Stay simple, stay consistent.

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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