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Comment by polote | Hacker News Reader

When an article starts by saying that it has found the "perfect way" to do something, the article is usually disappointing.

First personal knowledge management is not a new field, it was just called "note taking" before.

Second the place where you really need to manage knowledge is at your job. Using a system that requires discipline at work is usually a bad idea as most people are not disciplined. Also at work information is spread around different applications which makes sorting all information about everything into folders difficult

Finally if that method works for the author then good, but I also have also method that works for me which is : try to take notes of almost nothing

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> First personal knowledge management is not a new field, it was just called "note taking" before.

That's not really the same. Note-taking is simply the act of recording something. While knowledge management aims for the systematic approach and is an established academic discipline with a very long history. Though, of course not every random system some guru wants to sell has this level of research and quality. And I wouldn't put PARA there either.

> Second the place where you really need to manage knowledge is at your job.

Depends on your job and live. Most people use PKM for their own hobbies and daily stuff. Work-Knowledge is of course also a big area, but not the only one, often not even the dominating one.

> Using a system that requires discipline at work is usually a bad idea as most people are not disciplined.

Which is the point where a system can help.

> Finally if that method works for the author then good, but I also have also method that works for me which is : try to take notes of almost nothing

So what? Can't the author wrote about their methods just because you have yours?

"When an article starts by saying that it has found the 'perfect way' to do something, the article is usually disappointing."

That sounds like a "you" problem?

Apologies if this sounds like an attack, but I see enough of it here that I think it's worth commenting on. It should be obvious that 'perfect way' means "way that the author really likes and is very confident in, and therefore wants to share it."

And not "scientifically proven" or some silliness.

Stop being so pernickety of course it's meant subjective and not for everyone. There just isn't a system for everyone.

Honestly it doesn’t seem pernickety to evaluate the article on its claims. The system is presented as “universal”, and the opening sentence asks us to enumerate the qualities of a perfect system that would work for everyone.

Oh, come on. One should readily be able to understand that the author's goals are obviously technically aspirational despite being rhetorically lofty.

I'd argue it's not pernickety to highlight the underhandedness of branding something as a "universal system" if that system applies to an indeterminable but likely small percentage of readers.

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