“The recipe won’t be any better than the worst ingredients you put in it.”
This is part 1 in a 4 part series
- Part 1 - Refining your capture habit
- Part 2 - [[Making sense of information]]
Refining Your Capture Habit
A good PKM system begins with quality information. Before you build your system, let’s take a quick inventory of the information you’re consuming already.
We spend plenty of time discussing the nutritional aspects of the food we use to fuel our bodies, but very little on the informational diet we consume to feed our brains.
Ultimately, your goal here is to consume things based on how it makes you feel in the long term, not how it tastes in the short term. This is true for food as much as it is for information.
When it comes to consuming information, chances are you are already consuming a cocktail of sources. This could include books, newsletters, articles, social media feeds, and conversations with friends, just to name a few.
When the internet first began, it was very much an intentional process of going out and searching for information. Google was still in its infancy and the world wide web was far bigger than any ocean. Bookmarks were a way to navigate it.
Just a few decades later, our lives are overflowing with information and instead of searching for it our priority has shifted to actively shielding against it. Multi-trillion dollar markets have emerged and instead of an open ocean we’re caught between walled gardens.
News channels spew out endless amounts of stories related to violence, conflict, sex, and drama. Social media apps are legal digital heroin1 that have been engineered to steal one of the only things more valuable than money—your attention.
Their job isn’t to keep you informed, it’s to keep you engaged. To continue scrolling, watching, and consuming because that’s another minute you’re not spending designing, creating, or simply living.
So what do you do? How do you take back control of the information that’s permeating your life and construct roadblocks to create your own walled garden, one that lifts you up instead of tearing you down, one that inspires you instead of frightening you?
First, acknowledge the information that’s entering your life. Take an honest snapshot of what you consume on any given day. Second, decide if that information is serving you. Is it nourishing you? Is it consuming you? Is it worth your time?
Third, apply filters to weed out the information that’s not worth your attention. Start building a not to-do list, stop reading certain books, stop watching certain channels, and let go of your fear of being misinformed.
Information Diet Audit: What’s Actually Nourishing You?
Ask: What is my current diet? How does information find its way into your life? How do you decide what gets through the final filter and occupies your precious attention?
The technology meant to elevate our lives and connect us has instead left us in a sort of behavioral frozenness.
Instead of bids for connection, we’re feeding into algorithmic complacency. Instead of getting started, we stay stuck in the fear of the known.
Task: Rate your sources (energizing vs energy draining) Over the next few days, start rating the sources you consume from on a scale of 1-5. If it energizes you, it’s closer to 5. If it drains you, it’s closer to 1. If it’s a mix of both or you feel indifferent, it’s midway to a 3.
Start paying attention to the junk food you’re giving your brain. Notice what feels nourishing and supports your well-being. Notice what sparks new ideas and what takes and gives nothing back.
Rule: Create before you consume Start your days by creating something before you consume anything. This could be a single sentence in your journal or a good morning text to a friend. It doesn’t matter the size so long as its yours.
This is important for two reasons: (1) you start your day by giving birth to a small creation that is uniquely yours, and (2) you set the intention for your day before anyone else does.
| What you do first thing in the morning sets the stage for the rest of the day. It’s why I love starting my day with a [[You need a daily dose of war | daily dose of way]]. By doing something hard, it makes everything else seem easier. |
Signal vs. Noise: Building Your Personal Filter System
Ask: How much is your time worth? Now that you’ve identified the origins, it’s time to decide what stays and what goes. How much of what you’re consuming is actually helping you? How much of it is worth your time? How much time are you spending on things that give nothing back?
It’s important to note that not every piece of information needs to be actively benefitting you. It’s helpful to have a few fluff pieces lying around for a rainy day, but if all you’re consuming is Fox News, murder-mystery novels, and social media feeds, consider if that’s beneficial to your well-being in the long run.
The average time spent on social media is over two hours per day2. The average time people spend on their phones is between 4 to 6 hours a day. Over the course of a month, that’s between 60 and 180 hours. In a year, that’s between 730 hours (~30 days) and 2,190 hours (a little over 91 days).
Assuming an average life span of about 78 years and children receiving their phone by age 18 (which is modest), this accounts for 43,800 hours (1,825 days) and 131,400 hours (5,475 days - 15 years).
If you want more time, put down your phone and pick up your head. Real life is all around you, pinned and blooming in the things you stopped paying attention to because your phone seemed more interesting.
Task: Get a read-later app Going forward, it may help to begin using a read-later app (such as Readwise, Pocket, Instapaper to name a few). A read-later app allows you to save article, books, videos, etc. to an app where you can later decide whether it’s worth consuming.
Rule: Read it later, don’t read it now Most things seem so interesting in the moment, but don’t offer much long term benefits. By saving articles, videos, and other reading material to a read-later app, you gain back your freedom of the moment.
You can choose to read any of the things you’ve saved at any time or decide not to. You don’t have to worry about losing anything or being caught in FOMO (fear of missing out). Instead, you’ll adopt JOMO (the joy of missing out) because you’ll realize you have more than enough information to get started.
In closing, the problem was never about the amount of information. We have access to more information than perhaps any other society in history. It was the quality of that information and our resourcefullness in actually using it.
When you’re ready, head back to PKM Track.