This episode discusses the selection of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tools, starting with the rise of the "Second Brain" concept and the evolution of various note-taking methods.
It analyzes different generations of note-taking tools and their advantages and disadvantages and points out that an ideal tool should meet individual note-taking styles and purposes.
There are two types of note-takers, although most people are somewhere in-between:
“Collectors” who clip contents and knowledge and think these would be useful in the future;
“Producers” who use the notes to expand knowledge and generate new content.
Also, there are three usage patterns (and you’re somewhere in-between too):
Convergent: requires note-taking tools to distill the “essence” of the contents they collected for quick understanding of certain topics;
Divergent: looking for tools capable of linking and digesting knowledge as the foundation of new creations.
Generative: the tools are used to connect with generative AI and produce new content based on the collected sources.
There are several new note-taking tools, including Notion, Obsidian, Heptabase, Scrintal, and NotebookLM that are suitable for general purposes. However, if you are a knowledge worker, finding the tool that suits you is paramount to make knowledge work for you.
How will your "second brain" look like?