weswalla / pkm-guide

A guide to personal knowledge management and computer augmented cognition

Personal Knowledge Management

tools and techniques for learning in the 21st century

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overview

This github repository contains a collection of markdown files (noted by the .md file extension) which make up an Obsidian Vault. It is meant to serve as an introduction to the field of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) by providing tools, tips, and resources. Think of this as a launching point to delve deeper into related topics.

what is Obsidian?

Obsidian is a note-taking application that allows you to create and edit markdown files in your local file system. What makes Obsidian stand out is its ability to easily create [[links]] between files and quickly navigate through notes.

This allows you to structure your notes as a graph as opposed to a hierarchical tree, allowing us to build knowledge-bases that more closely resemble how we actually think and that increase in value (rather than chaos and disorganization) as they grow.

Put another way, a graph-based note structure means we are much less likely to lose a note/file and are much more likely to find exactly what we want, when we want it.

our default file systems force us to organize and structure our notes as hierarchical trees

Obsidian lets us link files to any other file, turning our notes into a network

setting this vault up in Obsidian

1. download Obsidian
2. download this repository (Code -> Download ZIP)
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3. unzip the folder and open the root folder as a vault in Obsidian (folder name PKM-guide-main)
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dive deeper

I've written a number of articles about PKM and other related topics found in this vault. Here are two good starting points:

• Getting Started with Personal Knowledge Management
• Zettelkasten: networked note-taking for naturally networked thought

I also made a short video overview of this vault, available here:

• A Guide to Personal Knowledge Management