PKM Apps: Notion AI and Templates and Zettelkasten

Notes apps are Number 1 tool for PKM

Notion Exponential View Knowledge Base template

Well, this is another post on PKM - personal knowledge management. It has become a recurring theme here, because I am fully sold on the idea that knowledge is our biggest asset. Knowledge makes us more efficient and effective in our work lives, and it enriches the way we experience the world around us and interact with people.

As Tiago Forte says in “Building a Second Brain”:

Knowledge begins with the simple time honored practice of taking notes

Followed by a great quote that reinforces this idea, by David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them

Notion and Obsidian have been the two notes apps I’ve been using for most of this year, and they have both been superb to use in general, and especially great in helping me improve my ability to:

• Capture a thought / idea / concept quickly

• Organize my notes so that I can easily find my notes on any topic when I need or want to

• Make connections between notes and ideas and thoughts

Over the last few weeks mu use of Notion has been much heavier, as it has proven (at least for right now) to be a great fit for working on two areas I am more than a little obsessed with and devoting a lot of time and energy to. Those are PKM, and specifically getting more out of Zettelkasten, and generative AI (GenAI).

Two great Notion templates have done the hard work for me, and I’ve been able to build on them. They are:

Matthias Frank’s excellent Zettelkasten template for Notion and …

Chantal Smith’s great Knowledge Base template for Notion that is shown in the screenshot at the top of the post. Exponential View is one of my favorite Substack publications, or publications of any kind. You can see the link to it under “Recommendations’ in the right sidebar.

And then there’s Notion AI. This has not so much been doing the hard work for me, but it has been augmenting and speeding up my efforts. I’m trying to remain optimistic about how GenAI will impact our jobs, lives, and the world - AI that augments our efforts slots right in to that sort of hope. Here’s one example of how it’s doing that:

I’m using Chantal’s Smiths knowledge base exclusively for GenAI data. Adding links to and notes and thoughts on interesting articles and content I come across on this topic daily. The database has four columns: Name, Summary in 5 Bullet Points, Relevancy for Tech, and URL. many of the entries in The Summary in 5 Bullet Points column have become fleeting, literature, or permanent notes in my Zettelkasten database - and I can see that many connections between the two databases may be made as I continue populating them.

In the Summary in 5 Bullet Points and Relevancy for Tech columns I can click once on an AI icon and Notion AI will create summaries for me. Again, I don't tend to use all of the AI’s wording, but it can provide good food for further thought.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on PKM. Are you looking at it al, working on yours? If so, which note or notes apps do you use?