PKM — Note-Making Philosophy

PKM — Note-Making Philosophy

PKM — Note-Making Philosophy

The distinction between passive note-taking and active note-making is the key philosophical difference between a vault that compounds and one that stagnates.

Note-Taking vs. Note-Making

Note-TakingNote-Making
Captures are static; finished when writtenNotes are living things; updated over time
Filing cabinet: hold until neededWorkbench: actively refined
Think → Find (search-first retrieval)Notes bump into each other; insights emerge
Value from individual notesValue from the network and relationships
Focus on content of the active noteConsiders connections to all other notes

The jeweler vs. the dragon: The dragon hoards information but sits on it. The jeweler actively works on what he has, making it more valuable. Note-making is the jeweler’s practice.

The Three Levels of Knowledge

  1. Having (Information) — you can find it when you look, but you have to think of it first
  2. Understanding (Revelation) — you can recall it without looking; you’ve started connecting it
  3. Doing (Application) — it changes how you act; visible output exists

The PKM goal is to move knowledge up these levels, not to maximise the volume at level 1.

MOCs: The Cartographer Role

When your notes on a topic feel overwhelming, you’ve reached the point where you become a cartographer. A Map of Content (MOC) is not an index — it is an opinionated, curated synthesis of what you consider important on a topic. Like a map, it reflects the cartographer’s judgement about what matters.

Key properties of a good MOC:

  • Contains your own opinion notes alongside reference material
  • Links to atomic notes — each concept as its own page
  • Is in constant development; updated every time you touch the topic
  • Reflects your current thinking, not just what you’ve read

Every domain in this vault has an MOC in MOCs/. The wiki pages linked from the MOC are the atomic reference layer.

Wiki-style links ([page](/wiki/page/)) are one-way: you can navigate from A to B, but not from B back to A without manually adding a return link. Bidirectional links solve this automatically — the relationship is visible in the Linked Mentions panel of both notes.

This matters because:

  • You can start at any note and navigate outward in any direction
  • Connections you didn’t explicitly plan become discoverable
  • The local graph becomes a useful navigation tool (not just aesthetic)

The test for adding a backlink: Ask “when do I want to stumble upon this note again?” Only link when that question has a real answer — signal, not noise.

Atomic Notes: The Building Block

An atomic note captures a single irreducible concept — something that can’t be broken down further. Examples: Goodhart's Law, RAII in C++, Lock-Free SPSC Queue Design.

Why atomic notes compound value:

  • Each note is a reusable building block across multiple contexts
  • Bidirectional links connect them in ways you didn’t anticipate
  • The local graph becomes navigable rather than overwhelming

Trade-off: Atomic notes require more effort at capture time. The payoff is non-linear — it grows with vault size.

Quality Over Quantity

“Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.” — Austin Kleon

Practical rules:

  • Be ruthless at the capture-to-vault threshold: aim for ~1 in 5 captured ideas making it in
  • Don’t link everything — overlinked vaults lose signal in the noise
  • An idea that seemed great at capture often looks weaker after a day’s distance
  • Five excellent notes are more valuable than 500 mediocre ones

The LLM Wiki Pattern applies the same principle to AI-assisted ingestion: synthesise and compress, don’t transcribe.

The Role of Review

Knowledge you never revisit doesn’t compound. Practical review mechanisms:

  • Spaced repetition via Review plugin — schedule notes for revisit on a future daily note
  • MOC update habit — every time you touch a topic, ask whether the MOC reflects your current thinking
  • Weekly ingest + capture review — end of week, review daily note Captures section, ingest anything worth keeping

LLM Wiki Pattern, Obsidian — Plugin Recommendations, Overview

Trending Tags

blogging