My Personal Knowledge Management System is made of several different concepts mashed into one in order to keep things simple, organized/searchable, and be able to create refined and well structured products.
(and yes, I am using Obsidian as my note taking app.)
Digital Brain, Not a Second One
As I was exploring the ideas of building a second brain, I chanced upon a Reddit thread that reminded me not to go full Skyrim and collect one of each item in existence, and instead build a Digital Brain.
A second brain is for holding your learnings.
It is not beneficial to hold the things you can make a search on the internet for.
"I stopped BASB{Building A Second Brain}-ing (ugh) when I realised the majority of carp, sorry, notes, were available with a quick Google search.
I have since learned that a better way to use this process is to jot down your interpretation - making the Zettelkasten, or notes repository that you're creating (can't do BASB any more - it's killing me), unique and therefore highly valuable."
...and sometimes notes get Archived as they get out of date.
Note
I also worked in the core concept of Zettelkasten , as interpreted by Wanderloots, into the basis for my idea collection - recieve thoughts, take notes, quote resources and create those as Ideas to be further processed in the future.
Each of those various parts, are tagged and given topics to reside in, using a simple self-interpreted guidance system:
Tags = "is a"
Topics = "belongs to"
Tag: Smart Mirror is a Project
Topic: Smart Mirror belongs to Technology
Each item can be given multiple tags and multiple topics to allow for greater connectivity and ease of search-ability, for when I finally do get around to my Smart Mirror project...
Organisation
For file organisation in Obsidian, I am using my own organisation inspired by PARA: DATA - Not PARA. Once again with simplification in mind / fitting to how my brain works I altered / reduced PARA down to something I would use and found value in.
I encourage you to do the same with my system!
I took PARA (Projects, Areas, Research, Archive) and morphed it to fit my own paradigm.
Projects: I found tagging a note as a project was preferable, as it could still belong in it's appropriate Area of my life.
Research: Similar to my project solution, I found that I would rather have the info I have collected/created locate-able in it's correct area.
Additionally, I found that my Digital Brain is better off not holding copies of things I can find by a quick internet search, but instead the things I have learned from those sources (see Ideas, Atoms, Molecules, & Alloys).
I instead have DATA, or Daily Notes, Areas, Tasks, and Archive.
The acronym is much more fun, and this organisation scheme seems to work better with the way my brain works.
Daily Notes
A place to jot down your daily notes, journal, the rough thoughts off the top of your head as you need to write them down in order to sort them for later (see Tasks below).
If I want to create a to do task specifically, I will make it as a checkbox and the Tasks note will add that to the list automatically (using the Tasks Obsidian plugin).
Creating a Daily Note and jotting stuff down in it is effectively like putting notes into the Inbox of Zettelkasten.
Areas
Areas are created as folders for visual navigation.
I use the Folder Notes Obsidian Plugin as well as an Area template to denote each Area specifically and to automatically create an Index/Map of Content (via the Waypoint Obsidian Plugin) that links the notes within their folders to their respective Area.
Various Areas are also linked as they are related to each other.
Tasks
This is actually a specialised note (using the Tasks and Dataviews Obsidian Plugins) that acts as the sorting and prioritisation location like the Inbox of Zettelkasten.
It collects all tasks, sorting them via priority, then scheduled date, as well as collecting all my Daily Notes that I have not yet marked with the Processed tag.
Archive
The Archive is the same as in PARA, when a note is done (plans for an event, one time shopping list, speaking notes, etc.) it goes in the Archive so it can be referenced again later if need be, but is out of the way for now.
I try to mark archived notes with one of the following:
Outdated
Cancelled
Shelved
Completed
Reasoning
All this for my own information management of course, but with a few additional purposes:
A digital garden is a place to do Learning in Public to help encourage others to do the same.
An easy way for me to share some of the niche things I have learned in a way that either is not yet on the internet, or in a way that others have perhaps not said yet.
An easy way to promote more of a Self-Reliant Internet and reduce our dependence on walled gardens.
Hopefully a better method to create results, by reducing friction in the process of creation.