Knowledge Administration
Objective
- Collect
- Process
- Manage
- Retrieve
- Produce
Information
Information exists within a medium.
- Analog (letters, newspapers, books)
- Ephemeral (social interactions)
- Digital (email, social media, messages, videos, audios, internet pages)
Information exists in different ways:
- Internalized: undocumented information that the possessor uses naturally (taking the same route home without needing a map).
- Explicit: documented information that can be consumed.
- Embedded: knowledge or intelligence that is not obvious to the user (languages, computational systems, athletes, and dancers do things instinctively).
Currently, there is significant information fragmentation causing cognitive overload.
- Where do I find that information I saw last week?
- Where did I put that thing?
Problems during information collection
Collector's Fallacy: It is common to accumulate information simply for the sake of accumulation. Knowing about information is not the same as having knowledge of it. This process makes it practically impossible to find the information when it is really needed.
- Hundreds of bookmarks or stacks of saved digital content.
Accumulation: Part of this accumulated information is irrelevant and only generates unnecessary friction in the system.
Loss of Context: Sometimes the information is useful, and the context is clear at the moment we decide to save the information, but when the information is found in the future, the context is lost, making the information irrelevant.
Relevance: How to know which information is relevant to store or not?
Memory: The simplest way to find information is to remember it, but this is an unreliable method.
Goals
The knowledge management system aims to:
- Store information easily.
- Find information quickly.
- Navigate instead of memorize.
- Spend less time organizing the system and more time consuming and producing.
- Contribute to production.
Stages when collecting information
Collection
Berry Picking: During daily life, we come across countless sources of information. Generally, knowledge is built through a process of acquiring small parts at a time.
Inbox: Initially, information should go to an inbox to be processed or discarded later. The inbox can exist in various ways.
- Message to yourself.
- A folder to temporarily store information.
This information will be processed and then properly stored within the system to achieve the goals.
Processing
Intentionality: Processing information means consuming something intentionally. It is necessary to consume the fact and take notes about it. Just underlining something does not produce knowledge.
Information from the inbox should be constantly processed, either discarded because it is no longer relevant, or formulated into a note to be stored.
Cognitive Extension: The act of thinking doesn't exist solely within our heads. Thinking happens as we write. The act of writing is the act of thinking and not an externalization or recording of thoughts. They are the thoughts.
There are countless ways to organize and take notes. What matters is that they must work for you.
How to process information?
- When underlining something, explain why this fact is relevant at the moment. Your future self will thank you.
- Explaining what is said in your own words is a way to reinforce knowledge.
- Always try to create connections. When creating connections with other notes, explain why that connection exists.
- Consider that information can be referenced in multiple places. If appropriate, create an individual note that can be referenced. Atomicity.
The act of consuming information can be called research, which can generate reflections on something. The combination of multiple research and reflections produces knowledge.
Summarizing:
- Research notes: information taken from some source.
- Reflection notes: ideas that come to mind when reflecting on something.
- Knowledge notes: a conjunction of notes for the production of something more logical and cohesive.
Management
Dynamism: During the organization process, information will be changed. New connections will arise while others disappear. Adding links, tags, etc.
Centralization: Digitally, information resides in multiple locations. The goal is the centralization of information for easy access. All information must be processed before being integrated into the system.
Organization: The system can be organized into folders, but it is a rigid structure. With current tools, it is possible to create relationships between notes even if they are organized in different folders. To avoid cognitive overload, it is important to have a folder organization system for easy organization and information retrieval. See ORG1000, Johnny Decimals, PARA, ACE.
Connection: Since it is possible to correlate information through links, why not give up folders altogether?
Naturally, we access information through a trail and not through an exact location. For example, a phone number. Tell me what is the 5th digit without think about each number. Links are exactly this process, allowing navigation from one topic to another that makes sense only to you and not to others. A library of information organized in a way that works for you.
Categorization: It is common to want to organize information into broad categories like psychology, finance, hobbies, etc. However, our mind is interconnected and does not completely separate information. One thought leads to another, skipping these divisions. Applying this method to organization facilitates information retrieval, correlation, and learning.
Connection: When making a connection between two subjects, it is important to clearly record the relationship between the notes so that your future self understands why a link was created. Always think:
- How do I make clear why this relationship exists?
- How do I want to find this information in the future?
Cognitive Overload
We have limited cognitive capacities, so it is necessary to manage them efficiently.
- Focus and Attention
- Avoiding multitasking is the best alternative for productivity. In reality, there is a quick shift from one focus to another, not genuine multitasking.
- Focus on the task, not the whole.
- What do I have to do now, and what can I do later?
- What is the priority of what I have to do now?
- Short-Term Memory
- Less than 10 memory blocks. Memorizing a sequence of numbers vs. memorizing a formula.
- Tasks to be executed occupy memory spaces.
- Motivation
- Constant satisfaction and a sense of progress. The act of making small notes produces a feeling of progress.
Standardization: By doing things in the same way, following a known pattern, cognitive faculties are saved. The focus is to reduce the number of decisions needed, reducing friction when using the system.
- Where did I put that thing?
- Where should I put that thing?
Fluidity: Lack of structure makes it difficult to maintain motivation and focus. Therefore, it is important that the system works and propels us forward smoothly.
Retrieval
Navigation (linking) is the preferred method for finding information. The natural way to find information is through a trail, not specific recall. Example: Phone number digits.
Another way to find information is through search, navigation through folders, or use of tags.
Development
Based on stored information that can be easily found, production can occur.
- An article is the rewriting of a draft.
- A draft is a series of notes transformed into a continuous text.
- A series of notes is simply the organization of the notes you already have.
- To have notes, only pen and paper are necessary.
Image extracted from: https://ko-fi.com/s/fe15f3e8f7
Development should be emergent from what already exists in the system.
Cardinal points:
- Where does it come from?
- Where is it going?
- What is similar?
- What is opposite?
Notes generated from a project produce a product and subproducts that can later, together with other notes, generate another product.
Image extracted from: https://ko-fi.com/s/fe15f3e8f7
Sustainability
There are various tools for taking notes: Word, Notes, Logseq, Obsidian, Google Docs, etc. When selecting software, consider the following factors:
- Portability: Are your notes readable in multiple locations?
- Proprietary format: If the software ceases to exist, will you lose something?
- Features: Bidirectional links, tags, folders.
Software often facilitates and provides comfort, including reducing cognitive overload, but it also imposes restrictions at the same time.
Praxis
Indexes
Notes need to be organized in some way. Usually, a note containing links to all related notes is used.
MOCs
Different from indexes that accumulate all notes related to the same topic, MOCs (Map of Content) link all notes related to a topic regardless of their category. I have notes about martial arts that is connected to psychology and organization.
Folder Organization
ORG1000 is the system I developed to organize folders, both digital and physical. It was inspired by Johnny Decimals.
Connection
Connections: links > tags > folders.
Folders allow information to be easily found, provided there is an organized system in place, but it does not support connections to other notes and it can result in duplication. Currently, tools allow you to establish connections between notes stored in different locations. In my personal use, folders only exist for projects that possibly share notes with identical names.
Tags are generic categorizations, which is an advantage and a disadvantage.
- Since any word can serve as a tag, you may not remember which term you used, generating similar tags. In this case, a strategy is to keep a tag reference document. Some tools have the function of viewing all tags or even auto-completing.
- An interesting way to use tags is through 3 categorizations:
- Type: people, meetings, books.
- Belonging: useful for information to be processed, already relating it to what it belongs to. All things that belong to a project.
- Status: Used to track the state of something: ready, draft, published, awaiting.
Links point directly to an element of the system, and the reason for this link must be clear.