Knowledge Management
Knowledge management is general [[Personal Productivity Practice]] expressed in [[Zettelkasten]] but also as a form of attention management that surrounds [[Deep Learning]]. As we approach peak attention capitalism, we also see an increased need to monitor and manage knowledge extraction, storage, and refreshment. Knowledge today is abundant, but quality sources providing high signal to noise can be hard to come by -- a tired mind is given to receiving information through low quality or deceptive sources.
RekOwl1 has a nice high-level overview of knowledge management, expressed as:
- Extraction
- Our ability to locate and extract high-quality information from sound sources without becoming overwhelmed. RedOwl suggests looking at 2-3 sources get a well rounded picture of an area and to focus on high quality sources -- books, lectures, and academic papers
- Storage
- Our ability to retain the knowledge acquired comes through an active engagement with the information through the process of note taking to contextualize the information into our own words as well as to store this information in a convenient medium (this site, or my logbooks)
- Refreshing
- Knowledge that isn't kept fresh, won't be in our mind. Usage of tools like spaced repetition, mnemonics, and memory palaces assist in creating long-term memory of this information.
Additionally I would add the following advice:
- Record articles read making sure to cite the names of the author(s) and publications. If you cannot cite where you learned a topic then you do not know if it is mere hearsay.
- Use RSS to "pull" articles from reputable sources into your feed. Do not rely upon News aggregators or Social Media to curate high quality sources. They often sink into articles of the most superficial quality.
- Otherwise commit to dedicated searches for sources and articles in a particular domain of interest. Note high quality sources and quickly cull low-quality sources.
- If an article is worth knowing, take the time to read it thoroughly and completely using [[Mind Mapping]] techniques to deconstruct it into an alternative visual medium.
External References
- Janis. On Learning and Knowledge Management <https://tabokie.github.io/non-fiction/2024/01/13/log-kb.html>. Rekowl_. Retrieved 2020.
- AnkiWeb, AnkiWeb <https://ankiweb.net>. Retrieved 2020.
Linked References
- personal-productivity-practices
- zettelkasten
Zettelkasten is a method of [[knowledge management]] through note taking developed by Niklas Luhmann, a German scholar. The original sytem predates computers and operated on a sytem of index cards. The intention of Zettelkasten is to produce a system of note taking that allows connections between diverse topics by organizing concepts in a flexible manner that avoids silos and rigid hierarchies. In this manner it prefers the usage of bidirectional linking over tags or folder structures.