Personal knowledge management

It is the responsibility of each engineer (mechanical, home-making, industrial, gardening - you pick the specialisation) to manage the information that comes over their path. What you do with the information- that you are thrown with, that you need to reference, that you are required to forget, that it is prudent to use- has been, for many, a struggle that has seen so many iterations of notebooks, word documents and notes that have met the grave-pile.

The age-old question: “Now that I have this, and have used it once, what am I supposed to do with it?”

Personal knowledge management (PKM) has become a lovely little buzz-phrase on the world wide web. People share their Zettlekasten (apparently German for little notecard box), Notion, Dendron, Obsidian, Second Brain systems. They share the places where we curate information, in a structured way. They share the systems for referencing the notes once they take them: notes referring forward to another note that relates, and having this note reference back (digitally smoother but possible in analog). They share how they sit with the information, they have the structure in their minds but the links out of their minds. They follow thoughts through notes and bring all sorts of bits and bobs together in a living breathing way to ultimately formulate new and insightful discoveries, different perspectives, tangents and similitudes. They draw from what they saw once in a book they liked, from a movie quote, from some research paper; they see with new eyes.

It comes down to:

instead of being a curator of information: someone that is trying so very hard to remember what you're supposed to remember, only to remember that you've already forgotten,

to be a synthesizer of new ideas, drawing from the information building blocks to form new and wonderful discoveries. Playing with information. Building. Creating.

Is that not human fulfilment in its essence?

Now, I say, let's find ways to relate information. It'll be fun, I promise. I'll share what I've found out after finishing with my studies and working for a bit, stepping out of the academic detailed view of the world, into the most efficient high production view of the world, and looking back. The perspective that I carry, I believe can be useful to you if you would join the journey.

Having a big picture to view the world from, makes it possible to synthesize. I don't really know if that has been said explicitly yet. You need a big picture to be able to synthesize. Imagine just putting piece by piece together but not having any way to know whether it's shaping into what you need. Take a step back and look at everything on the table. Then categorise. Then structure within categories. Then add detail.

In the context of building a bridge: decide where you need to build it, decide what shape it might have, then comes the decisions of design, material, etc. Do not build a bridge by placing Lego's and just racing onward and upward. (Read: do not blindly follow a syllabus without taking the time to formulate a framework).

Back to mechanical engineering: To aid those that have no mentor, perspective, vision, clarity, I propose the framework diagram as the first step of ordering information: To which subject does this information belong?

During our studies, the fundamentals are presented conveniently packaged in subjects, modules, topics. But once we enter the big wide world, this implied framework ought to be a functional part of our knowledge management system. How many of us know this? How many of us practice this? How many of us spend the time to order the information into a framework, as we receive it, ready for easy retrieval? As I have not found anyone that laid out the framework as I did in my previous post, Subjects in context, I was not one of the many that succesfully initiated my personal knowledge repository. I regret this. I regret not having the insight, perspective, experience or vision to know that the back bone of my career would be this personal knowledge management system. But who was supposed to tell me what I didn't know to ask?

Reader, I know that, had you known and understood the implications of what I'm saying, you too would have your repository set up as a matter of urgency. You too would be synthesizing your way blissfully through life. You would be experiencing such a thorough self-actualisation satisfaction that job security would be only a secondary thought in your career.

I jest.

But the satisfaction we, as creatives, creators, experience when we have our tools effectively positioned, our thoughts aligned and our path clear, is so immense that it is worth striving for, working towards.

I would like to encourage you to do some digging into the concept of having a second brain: it is a place of safety for your notes where they can be referenced easily and where they do not clutter your table or brain. Imagine having a library filled with your own literature.

We will work on the active creation of our MechEng Framework next time.

Goodbye for now,

Hannalie