Reflections on knowledge management

I’m not a huge fan of new year’s resolutions, but I do like to review my long term goals and ensure my focus and calendar are aligned each year. Here are some of the questions I used this year to prepare:

• What are you most grateful for?

• What does great look like?

• What would you like more of in your life?

• What do you want less of in your life?

• What do you want to learn this year? (something to try, I don't always keep it)

As I was thinking about these questions over the last week or two, it reminded me that back in 2020, my learning challenge was to try new tools to make my life better. One thing that I tried (and kept) was the introduction of knowledge management tools into my work stack.

The magic of these tools is that everything is in one place (or can be easily linked to), so search is great and the discovery of related ideas often happens serendipitously with two-way linking between content. There is a real power in the centralisation of information and the intelligence built into these platforms.

I used to use Evernote to keep notes, Asana to manage tasks, and range of Google files to stay organised but I found it hard to find things across the variety of tools and locations. I now use Notion for most projects where I collaborate with others and Roam for managing my personal research (Obsidian is another popular one used by a few of my friends).

It has been an amazing change having dedicated tools for managing all of my thoughts, reflections, tasks, goals and research. I’ve shared these tools with a few people and have had very positive feedback. Let me know if you use any of them or if you've found other ways to improve your learning and knowledge management.