How to Optimize Your PKM Workflow with Capacities in 5 Steps
In this article, we will explore some of the best features of Capacities and how you can use it to collect, curate & create meaningful content.
📌 TL;DR
Capacities centralizes all information in one place and allows users to store knowledge and resurface it when needed. The app’s versatility gives users unlimited possibilities without the overwhelm. Capacities offers daily notes, tags, objects, databases, properties, content types, collections, knowledge graphs, and media.
The article provides five simple steps to streamline and simplify the use of Capacities. The steps are capture, collect, customize, connect, and create.
The article also mentions the benefits of using Capacities and how it can help users gain new insights and ideas.
Finally, the article acknowledges the developers of Capacities and the community that shares knowledge and insights to help improve digital workflows and productivity.
My mission with PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) is to help myself and others cultivate creativity & improve one’s productivity and well-being.
I’ve been using this tool for the past few months after I tested it about a year ago but came back in March 2023 to fully dive deeper into collecting & customizing my digital mind garden. I’ve also tried tools like Tana and Notion which can be more robust and take more time setting up. I’m glad I found Capacities. I’ve been so appreciative with how using this app gives me a sense of ease and elevates my thinking to capture and retrieve information anytime, anywhere.
I believe Capacities is the best app in the personal knowledge management space because of the ability to curate, customize and create information tailored towards your needs and preferences.
If you’re a visual thinker like me, you might just fall in love with this app, too 💜
Let’s dig deeper into Capacities, shall we? ⛏️
What is Capacities? 🤔
Capacities centralizes all of your information in one place.
It stores your knowledge and can resurface it, right when you need it. It’s your own studio to collect, connect and reflect — a place to make sense of the world and to create amazing things.
The versatility of Capacities gives you unlimited possibilities without the overwhelm.
What features does Capacities offer? 📝
- 🗓️ Daily Note is the basis in which you store information — everything you create and collect within a daily note is relative to a date
- 🏷️ Tags can be linked anywhere & everywhere to help curate and resurface information
- 📦 Objects are building blocks that can be events, meetings, books, topics, etc.
- 🗄️ Databases live within objects like a file system you can filter and reference
- 📝 Properties live within databases that be relational tags, time, checkboxes, dates, files, links and more
- ✍🏻 Content types are templates for each object with unique properties
- 🗃️ Collections are sections for each content type
- 📈 Knowledge graphs give you a visual overview of information
- 📸 Media such as files, images, web-links, tweets, audios, video embeds, etc.
Believe it or not, there’s MORE! Which I may not cover everything in this post, so there will be an ongoing series of articles you don’t wanna miss! Be sure to follow for more :)
If you ever get overwhelmed looking at an app or blank page, then it’s helpful to adopt a framework or method to optimize your workflow like the 5C Method I came up and am eager to share with you to do the same in this article.
1. Capture — All the things, anywhere 📥
When you open Capacities, you’re greeted with a daily note. This allows you to capture ideas, take notes, journal, and collect information in one place. Pin important information on the top left.
Below, you can add objects/content types. You have the ability to create templates and quick add any object with a date.
On the right, you will be able to view the calendar of daily notes.
Some hidden features can be found using shortcuts to create a split screen on the side panel (shift + click) & pin tabs on the top (cmd + click).
Below is an example of an interstitial journal. You can create time stamps by typing /now which is a nice reference point as you jot thoughts and ideas down throughout your day.
🌟 TIP: You can create a ‘block’ in a property which gives you the ability to separate information from the database to view in the page directly. You can also view the contents of the block from the gallery view as shown above.
Thanks to the Telegram integration, I capture everything from art inspiration, to books I’d like to read, to articles I’m interested in. Once it’s tagged, then it is captured on the daily note.
Here’s an example of how I use it in the tweet below:
Access information anywhere using the mobile app, browser or desktop app, email, Telegram or WhatsApp.
Additionally, you have the ability to send emails directly from your inbox to Capacities, making it easy to reference later. This flexibility in capturing information allows you to integrate the app into your existing workflow seamlessly.
2. Collect— Group all objects filtered by tags, collections & backlinks 🏷️
Tags are important for notes because they help you organize and find information easily. They act as keywords that group related information together, regardless of where it’s located. This enables you to see connections between different notes and ideas, leading to new insights. Tags are flexible and can be added or removed as needed, making it easy to refine your organizational system over time.
Easily reference all media and separate into collections.
For example, create the object: media and the collection: books for better organization.
When I create a daily page, I track everything from the weather, cycles, to energy, movement, and productivity. Luckily it’s a quick process since most of this information is pre-stored in the properties of my daily page.
This concept is called the quantified self which is a movement that uses technology to collect and analyze personal data on various aspects of a person’s life, such as health, fitness, productivity, and behavior, with the goal of gaining insights and improving one’s quality of life.
Backlinks are object related & the ability to pull database information through to connect to other pages is mind blowing.
The fact that you can track anything to your heart’s content with Capacities is one of top reasons why I continue to use the app everyday.
3. Customize — Design your digital home 🏡
Within the app you can connect the high level overview of your life all the way down to the very small details from what you’ve learned, the thoughts you have each day, and build a knowledge base.
Every person has unique ways of organizing and processing information, and a one-size-fits-all approach may not work for everyone.
Customization options such as templates, icons, colored tags, databases, properties, and content types enable you to create a personalized system that aligns with you workflow and thinking process.
Customization also enhances your experience by making the app more intuitive and user-friendly, leading to increased adoption and continued use.
4. Connect — Linking your thinking 🕸️
You’ll find yourself open to endless possibilities when you explore your thoughts within Capacities.
A knowledge graph helps you connect ideas, where each item represents a concept and each tag represents a relationship between them. By traversing the graph, you can explore the relationships between different concepts and discover new connections and insights. This allows you to better understand complex topics and generate more comprehensive knowledge.
5. Create — Harvest a digital mind garden🌷
A good PKM tool should allow you to create new notes, articles, and other pieces of content based on the information you have gathered. Once you’ve gained new insights and ideas, it’s time to share it. With Capacities, you can write and publish articles, essays, and other forms of content based on your personal knowledge.
By following these steps, you can enhance your personal knowledge, notice patterns and gain new insights and ideas to create a digital mind garden.
This concludes how you can use Capacities to help you capture, collect, customize, connect, and create information in a more efficient and effective manner.
💫 Honorable mentions & resources
A huge shoutout goes out to the developers, Steffen and Michael for creating such an amazing app with a bright future! 🤩
The developers go above and beyond to listen to the community’s feedback meanwhile they regularly fix bugs and ship awesome features!
▶️ Follow these Capacities users for more:
- Beth (PKM Beth) shares medium articles & youtube videos of how she uses Capacities quite regularly & has a robust knowledge space which showcases how it helps her study, learn and create
- Melotries shares how she uses Capacities on her YT channel, Melocreating and how it helps her organize her life
- Francesco from Keep Productive shares about Capacities on Toolfinder and his YT channel to give you a great overview on how Capacities and other apps can fit into your workflow
▶️ Follow along and connect with the discord community to get inspiration and insights to improve your digital workflows & productivity.
They all share their love for Capacities as well and inspired me to dive deeper into sharing the love for this app as it’s such a lovely visual, creative thinking tool.
Get started using Capacities and learn more about PKM below:
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Thank you for taking the time to read this article.
Clap your hands below if this resonated with you or you learned something new 👏🏻
