#11: Apparently I need a second brain: My new journey with smart notes
When I began my Ship 30 journey, I became aware of fellow writers talking about ‘Smart Notes’, Zettlekasten and The Second Brain: A field of productivity called PKM.
What the hell is PKM?
Google explained: Personal Knowledge Management.
A lightbulb went off. I have been needing this!
I’m into processes (my folder keeping and note-taking is pedantically organised, for example), but I’m not adept at creating systems from scratch. Give me a foundation from which to customise my own, however, and I can learn it and adapt it to my needs.
For the last couple of years I’ve had a ‘Creative Inbox’ in my notes app; a dumping ground for all manner of things that catch my fancy. Periodically, I'd move them over to Evernote, these notes are not optimised to be useful as they are.
I currently have 40 different notebooks in Evernote for different personal and work projects (see, I told you about the notes). Notebooks for blog ideas, writing prompts, course notes, collected quotes and research topics, organised by project or interest.
Orderly as this may seem, they are not inherently useful and it’s all a bit overwhelming, to say the least. I don't have a system or process to manage this cache of information.
Enter the world of PKM and the much referenced ‘How to Take Smart Notes’ by Sönke Arhens. A printed PDF of the book now sits on my coffee table, yellow highlighter ready, as I’m embark on a right-about-time knowledge management upgrade.
Zettlekasten is about not over-segmenting your notes - exactly what I've been doing - but listing and deep-linking them to create a system of linked thoughts and ideas. In this way, ideas are not disparate pieces of information, but become part of an interconnected tree of knowledge the grows and evolves the more you use it.
I’ve downloaded a Zettlekasten Notion Template by Ev Chapman, which plugs neatly into the Idea Bank template from her Creator Studio Kit. I’m newly onboarding her approach to level up on the backend as I move through Ship 30 for 30 and build my digital writing habit beyond. It’s so helpful to have this as a foundation to enhance my process!
The Zettlekasten or Smart Notes method is my cute Creative Inbox but optimised for greatness. It will take a little time and practice to grasp, but this feels like an exciting new chapter on managing my own mind, never-mind my notes!
Today is a good day to become a smarty-pants.
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