Procrastinating with Note-Taking

This had been an ongoing issue for me, for almost 10 years! Below are the insights and remedies inspired by Sam Matla’s Video.

The Personal Knowledge Management Hype

It has become an almost must-have for the productivity gurus to talk about the “second brain”, of off-loading our knowledge in our brain, into a digital notebook or website. It all sounds great when you have this linkage between knowledge and can serve as a great foundation for future fusion of ideas.

It started off ten years ago from Evernote to more features and better aesthetic Notion, to even more complex Obsidian, to scientifically backed Roam Research etc. It’s no longer focusing on storing knowledge, but rather on some minute details of optimising this process for a “perfect system”.

PKM as Sophisticated Procrastination

It might be even worse than the clearer instant gratification procrastination, which can happen on over-reliance on AI in my last blog post.

This kind of complicated second brain process can lead to self-pride of having a great system, and a sense of intellectual accomplishment, but there is no tangible result.

When immersing in this system, we might even fall into the Collector’s Fallacy, accumulating vast amounts of notes, bookmarks, and highlights; creating a false sense of progress.

Focus on Work

PKM is not work, trust our brain and put creativity as our most valuable asset. Project-based note-taking can be a good balance of work and documentation for future reference.

Never be afraid of missing out on knowledge, there are so many things to explore every day, and you’ll never have enough time for EVERYTHING.

The most important actionable step in my opinion: Choose a toolset that works, and stick with it for at least one year.