personal knowledge management

for writers

🎙

Xavier Roy

I work at Genesys as a Staff Technical Writer.

Agenda

  • Why?

  • What?

  • How?

a day in a writer’s life

As writers, we deal with information in every part of our day.

And how many times did you find yourself searching for a key piece of information?

Did you find it?

  • if yes, how?

  • if no, why?

Knowledge Management (KM)

Knowledge Management is the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge.

KM as a discipline

Knowledge Management is the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organizations to collectively and systematically capture, store, create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their objectives.

Wikipedia entry on KM

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

Personal Knowledge Management is a process of collecting information that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve and share knowledge in their daily activities and the way in which these processes support work activities.

Wikipedia entry on PKM

The principle is that you are responsible for your growth and learning.

How many sources of knowledge are you exposed to throughout a normal work day?

What can you do to deal with it?

Things that can help

Analog Tools

Digital Tools

Evernote
TiddlyWiki
OneNote

Keep
Notion
Roam
Obsidian
  Other Tools

TiddlyWiki

 

 

 

 

what is TiddlyWiki?

TiddlyWiki is a powerful non-linear note-taking tool that helps you collect and structure any kind of information and work with it to get stuff done.

It is a wiki-in-a-page.

Think of TiddlyWiki as a file drawer of notecards.

The notecards are called tiddlers.

The notecards are linked with each other through wiki links.

Use-cases

  • Documentation

  • Journaling

  • Learning Log

  • Task/Project management

  • Commonplacing book

  • Review tracker

Demo

  1. Download an empty TiddlyWiki from tiddlywiki.com.
  2. (Optional) Install Timimi.
  3. Show features.
  4. Install plugins. (Project Manager and Daily Notes)

why?

Longevity ⏳

  • The first release  was in Sep 2004.
  • A newer modern version, called TW5 was released in Dec 2013.
  • The older version still works fine and is renamed as TW Classic.

Tiddlers created a decade ago still work.

![](./images/calendar.svg)

Atomicity ⚛️

  • One tiddler for one note or thought works best.
  • Everything in TW is a tiddler. (I mean everything)

Tiddlers are the fundamental units of information.

Usability ✔️

  • Easy to customise and adapt
  • Switch between wiki markup/markdown/rich text

Easy to learn, easy to use

Adaptability 🌊

- Notetaking - Journaling / Blogging - Task Management - Longform writing (Essays and Novels) - Inventory (recipes, personal library, contacts, music collection) - Zettelkasten -And a whole lot of plugins
![](./images/adaptability.svg)

Portability 💼

  • Works with any web browser.
  • Store in a disk / network / cloud storage / mobile device.

Carry it anywhere and everywhere

![](./images/portability.svg)

Community 🧑‍🤝‍🧑🏘️

  • Help is a Google Group away
  • No question is stupid
  • Everyone helps including the developer

One of the best online communities ever

![](./images/community.svg)

Security 🔐

  • Unless you share, no one can access.
  • Encryption available for the entire wiki.

Your data stays with you.

![](./images/security.svg)

Knowledge Frameworks

  • Commonplacing Book
  • Zettelkasten
  • PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive)
  • IMF (Index, Maps, and Framework)

Commonplacing Books

  • Commonplace Books were the original KM tool. Also known as commonplace books

a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information

  • Marcus Aurelius » Thomas Jefferson » Napoleon » Bill Gates

Zettelkasten

  • A Zettelkasten is an idea of storing and organizing your knowledge. German for slip box.
  • Pioneered by a German sociologist, Niklas Luhmann.
  • A Zettelkasten can be analog or digital. Luhman wrote over 90000 notes on small slips of paper.

PARA

  • P.A.R.A. stands for Projects — Areas — Resources — Archives.
  • Introduced by Tiago Forte, a productivity expert.
  • Emphasis on sorting information by actionability rather than category.
  • This system can be useful if you are organizing information as part of a project management system.
  • More about The PARA Method

IMF (Index, Maps, and Framework)

  • IMF stands for Index, Maps of Content, and Fluid Frameworks
  • Designed by Nick Milo
  • A framework for arranging knowledge for research, or just personal use, in a way that provides multiple pathways for finding what you seek.

personal knowledge management

 

Xavier Roy

Personal:  xavierroy.com      @xavierroy

UA & UX:  paperarrow.com      @paperarrow