Background
What if I have 15 minutes to spare? What should I be working on?
I’ve always been busy with PKM - Personal Knowledge Management. Helping with a lot of volunteering and projects, studying all over the place — I really needed aids to track all that.
It first really took off on my Psion 3c. Finally I started to be able to track events, people and many other things. Later I bought software to do this: The Brain (a very old version) and tried and used many other programs and solutions since.
Picture from: Snowmanradio, from Wikipedia
Why PKM?
I’ve always picked up more than I could chew. So then the question is: how do you manage? Who needs what from you? And in what order? What has priority now? How do I prevent helping from turning into disappointment?
And all those interesting things I want to study? Or just started to study? How do I track what I’m doing, so I might return to it in the future? I hate never finishing stuff, but I always get sidetracked by something more pressing or suddenly more relevant. I don’t mind the switching, I mind the losing of a study. With a list and order of things I know I can return to it later, whenever I feel like it, or the timing is right. This means I no longer experience loss, just delay. That greatly improves the value of life.
Evolution
I’ve spent much time on organizing my data and tasks. I’ve moved through many, many programs. Sometimes because they were lacking, sometimes because the next brought something new, sometimes just because my magpie brain was tired of the same old and needed something shiny.
Happily I’ve found Obsidian quite some years back. It keeps evolving its workflows with me, by allowing any structure to function, any organization in any way you like it, kept fresh by theme changes and new plugins.