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please hit the star to recommend the

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episode to others. All

18:35

right, we're back. I want to

18:37

address the big criticism that non-PKM

18:39

people tend to make about these

18:41

programs. Okay, let me guess. It's

18:44

a big procrastination project. You're spending a lot

18:46

of time managing notes when you could be

18:48

writing. Is it really all that

18:50

productive? Isn't it kind of a waste of

18:52

time? I'm ahead of you. Bingo,

18:54

that's the one. And I have to admit, it

18:56

definitely can be. When I read

18:59

a book that seems remotely relevant to

19:01

something I might one day write about

19:03

or maybe podcast about or whatever, I

19:05

highlight passages, I make notes, and then

19:07

I look at those marginal comments and

19:09

process them in Obsidian. That is, I

19:11

make notes about them. And

19:14

there have been times when I spent

19:16

days processing a book and

19:18

I've asked myself if that was a good use

19:20

of my time. And the truth

19:22

is, sometimes it hasn't been. I think you

19:24

should always extract the minimum of quotes

19:26

and notes from a book or any

19:28

other source. And the amount

19:30

of time you're spending on it is definitely

19:32

something to be conscious of. But

19:35

you can for sure waste time

19:37

making notes. I've seen some people

19:39

obsessing about creating perfect notes, having

19:42

a perfectly organized vault. Thank

19:44

goodness that is not my particular

19:46

weakness. The fact is though that

19:48

there are some books or dissertations

19:50

or whatever that are so relevant

19:52

to your central topic of interest

19:55

that it absolutely is worth spending

19:57

days on considering the facts and

19:59

the ideas. that they contain.

20:02

I've also heard people say that they

20:04

wished that they had been keeping notes

20:06

about their reading and their feelings and

20:08

their life lessons from back

20:10

when they were in high school so that

20:13

their vault would be all the bigger today

20:15

and I think that is just a really

20:17

clear indication that it is a very addictive

20:20

thing. You've spent a lot of time

20:22

in Obsidian but you used the word

20:24

system earlier which makes me suspect that

20:27

there are other programs and

20:29

apps involved. Once

20:31

again Ronald you are right. I

20:34

use a program called Readwise to

20:36

import notes and highlights from

20:38

books and web articles. I use

20:41

Dev and Think as a database

20:43

of articles, images and other

20:45

sources. That's where I store other

20:47

people's ideas for the most part

20:50

but once again I want to

20:52

stress that the software isn't the

20:54

point. What's important is revisiting the

20:56

things that you have chosen to

20:58

keep in your digital archive. Even

21:00

if you're not a PKM head

21:02

most of us have a Google

21:04

Drive or something similar where we

21:06

just park digital files and

21:08

part of us thinks oh this is gonna really

21:10

help me down the road but

21:12

it only helps you if you revisit

21:15

it later. You know when you're working

21:17

on something whether it's a piece of

21:19

professional writing or a wedding toast, searching

21:21

your Google Drive to see if there's

21:23

anything in there that might inform your

21:26

current project and make it

21:28

richer. Like you need to search to

21:30

find out. Humans forget things but computers

21:32

don't so ask them to

21:34

remind you about your past. So

21:37

Ronald I've been doing a lot of

21:39

talking this episode but I am curious

21:43

if any of this has made you interested

21:45

in setting up a PKM a

21:47

little earlier in the show you said it did

21:49

but the deeper I've gotten have you changed your

21:51

mind? Where you standing PKM wise right now? It absolutely

21:54

has me thinking about ways to revisit

21:56

all my old notes. I

21:59

am thinking thinking about all of my

22:01

ideas that have been parked for a little bit

22:03

and then they're like caught up in the planning

22:05

stages. I'm thinking about those ideas. But

22:08

the hesitation that I have, even though I know that

22:10

this is good and I know it would be well

22:12

for me, is that I feel

22:15

a little overwhelmed. Where

22:17

would I get started? And what

22:19

would you tell a newbie about starting

22:21

something like this? I have to

22:23

say that actually I think that everybody

22:25

gets overwhelmed because most of these

22:28

programs allow you to set

22:30

them up yourself, which is great. You have

22:32

a lot of freedom, you have a lot

22:34

of agency, but that also means

22:36

that you're not going into something that's all

22:38

set up already. You've got to set it

22:41

up and that can be overwhelming. As

22:43

a long time podcaster, talking to a

22:45

podcaster of note, it's hard for me

22:47

to say this, but YouTube really

22:49

is the best place to learn more because

22:52

it really helps to see people's screens

22:54

and hear what they do in the

22:57

programs. So go to

22:59

YouTube, search for PKM or Obsidian

23:01

or Second Brain and enjoy.

23:04

I will do that. That's

23:08

all the time we have for this episode, but

23:10

let me leave you with one last piece of

23:12

advice. I think you should follow

23:14

Working wherever you get your podcasts. And

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if you have ideas for things we could do better

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working. Thanks as always

23:47

to Working Overtimes producer Kevin Bendis

23:49

and to our series producer Cameron

23:51

Drews. We'll be back on

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Sunday with a brand new episode of Working

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and in two weeks we'll have another Working

23:58

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