The meow_d note-taking/PKMS setup™ (and what NOT to do)

Like a lot of people, I went through a PKM phase where I watched a ton of YouTube videos on different ideologies, from PARA to zettelkasten, tried different software, like notion and Joplin. The kind of phase where you’re really motivated to finally change yourself for good, but deep down you knew no productivity system you try ever lasts and you will go back to my pathetic life sooner or later.

But by some miracle, my VSCode + foam setup actually stuck around and became an indispensable part of my life.

my setup

• firstly, I autostart VSCode/Neovim on startup
  • one of the best tips I can give, try it!
• daily note - the main entrypoint
  • the journal section allows me to always have a written record of what i’ve done each day
  • daily checklist, kinda self care and therefore require energy. I skip this a lot
  • the notes section serve as an inbox/scratchpad for any thoughts or random stuff, and notes i’ve taken each day
  • this system is time-based, where my random thoughts are gold
• normal notes
  • everything is backlinks, roam/obsidian-like
  • i started heavily utilizing this by taking notes in class, basically summarizing the slides in my own words. Eventually i started to just take notes for fun
  • more about recording knowledge, how i conceptualize what i’ve learn or my more well-defined opinions
• weekly review
  • reviews what i’ve done each week
  • each week i’ll set a projects/theme i need to accomplish (e.g. try makeup), but this system hasn’t worked out well
• todo.md - the underutilized entrypoint
  • the idea is to list out my projects and sources of entertainment, like an entry point for everything i want to do. this is rarely utilized

the PKM myth

There are a lot of conflicting advice on what you should and shouldn’t do. For example, in zettelkasten, you should have one zettelkasten only, atomic notes, tags over categories, master notes, an entrypoint for all of your knowledge, etc. but i only succeeded because i didn’t follow someone else’s setup religiously and did my own thing.

if there’s one key takeaway, it’s this: all productivity systems are developed for one specific person, who probably lives in a completely different life than you. They wake up in a different time of day, some have families, different hobbies, different jobs, etc. there isn’t a single methodology out there that works for you without modifications.

most importantly, everyone have different problems they want to solve with note-taking. zettelkasten people lean towards academic jobs that involves heavy knowledge collection and synthesis. At worst, a lot of gurus’ whole job is marketing their methodology to sell people courses.

To me, 90% of the benefit came from the fact that I have a place to write things down, which can easily be provided by Google Keep or a RM1.20¹ notepad. Plus, I don’t worry about remembering anything anymore. You don’t have to write everything down, even just a little bit allows me to refresh my memory. It’s especially useful in journaling, which gives your awareness in what you’ve done in this week or month.

To this day, I still don’t have the magical life-changing benefits the proponents claim. If you ever achieve that, all the power to you, I just don’t believe it’s a real thing to 99% of people. in Joan Westenberg’s rather divisive “I Deleted My Second Brain” article, he goes as far as to argue that the premise of an archival-based second brain is fundamentally flawed. it is also a cautionary tale of what NOT to do for your PKM - don’t religiously capture everything, don’t spend too much energy on maintenance, and only do what works for you.