A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Glossary
The Personal Knowledge Management space has its share of acronyms and jargon. Here are some of the most frequently encountered:
ACCESS: Atlas | Calendar | Cards | Extra | Sources | Spaces. A folder structure promoted by Nick Milo at Linking Your Thinking.
Atlas: A bird's eye view of your content. Maps of Content (MoCs), Dashboards, Overviews, Logs, Datascopes, etc.
Calendar: Time-based information. Daily Notes, Meetings, Plans, Reviews, Journals, etc.
Cards: Our knowledge. Ideas, Things, People, Concepts, Statements, etc.
Extra: Support material. Attachments, Graphics, Images, Manuals, Templates, etc.
Sources: Articles, Books, Podcasts, Research Papers, Courses, Talks, Movies, TV, Videos, etc.
Spaces: Big areas of your life. For example, Life and Work. For each space deploy MAPS (MoCs, Areas, Projects, Support Notes)
Algorithms of Thought: Procedures to think through a problem or situation. For example, an After Action Review. Learn more…
Analytical Reading: Careful, slow reading and note-taking to deeply learn what a book or paper is about, e.g. what are the author’s main points and arguments? Learn more…
Atomic Notes: Capture one single idea concisely and in its entirety. This allows you to reuse, remix, and recontextualize notes across projects. (Maggie Appleton from Andy Matuschak) Learn more…
Backlink: An inbound hyperlink. Backlinks answer the question “which notes link to the current note?”
BASB: Building A Second Brain. A methodology and book by Tiago Forte. Learn more…
Bib Notes: Synonym for Literature Notes.
Bidirectional Links: A system of inbound and outbound hyperlinks.
Bullet Journal Method: A bullet journal (sometimes known as a BuJo) is a method of personal organization developed by designer Ryder Carroll. The system organizes scheduling, reminders, to-do lists, brainstorming, and other organizational tasks into a single notebook. (Wikipedia) Learn more…
CODE: Capture | Organize | Distill | Express. The core process flow in the Building a Second Brain methodology. Learn more…
Daily Meeze: End-of-the-day ritual. From mise-en-place. Learn more…
Daily Notes Page (DNP): A typically templated note associated with a day. Learn more…
Digital Garden: A collection of evolving ideas that aren’t strictly organized by their publication date. The notes are linked through contextual associations. (Maggie Appleton) Learn more… Also see my inventory of 50+ Digital Garden examples.
Digital Productivity System: Loosely a synonym for Life Operating System. Used by Tom Solid in his course intake survey.
Elementary Reading: Basic reading for syntactical meaning. “I understand the meanings of the words.” Contrast to Inspectional, Analytical, and Syntopical reading levels. Learn more…
ENCODE: Encounter | Note | Connect | Organize | Develop | Express. The core process flow in Linking Your Thinking methodology. Learn more…
Evergreen Notes: Notes written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects (Andy Matuschak). Similar to Permanent Notes. Learn more…
Fleeting Notes: “mere reminders of what is in your head” (Sönke Ahrens in How to Take Smart Notes). Quickly written or spoken notes that drive action (e.g. creating or completing a task) and/or evolve into Permanent Notes. Ahrens suggests “will end up in the trash within a day or two.”
Front Matter: Content at the top of notes that assigns data variables. Also, see YAML.
Graph View: A diagram showing associations between notes, blocks (paragraphs), or tags. Learn more (for Obsidian)…
ICOR: Input | Control | Output | Refine. A framework and process to consume, process, and organize information to achieve the goals you’re pursuing. (Tom Solid, Paperless Movement) Learn more…
IDE: Integrated Development Environment. IDEs increase programmer productivity by combining common activities of writing software into a single application: editing source code, building executables, and debugging. (Codecademy). Some people position PKM systems for writers as what IDEs are for coders. The term ITE follows from IDE.
Ideaverse. A term coined by Nick Milo. Formal definition: The entire universe of ideas that exists between you and every place you think. Informal definition: A person’s linked digital notes. Learn more…
Inspectional Reading has two subtypes: Systematic Skimming (reading preface/abstract, table of contents, and major headings to gain a general sense of what a book or paper is about) and Superficial Reading (reading all the words but never pausing to think about meaning). Learn more…
ITE: Integrated Thinking Environment. Learn more…
Johnny Decimal: A folder organization utilizing prefix numbers to define the desired display order. Learn more…
Knowledge Graph (KG): A directed labeled graph in which domain-specific meanings are associated with nodes and edges. A node could represent any real-world entity, for example, people, company, computer, etc. An edge label captures the relationship of interest between the two nodes, for example, a friendship relationship between two people, a customer relationship between a company and person, or a network connection between two computers, etc. (Stanford University Computer Science course) Learn more…
LATCH: Location | Alphabet | Time | Category | Hierarchy. Five ways to organize information. From Information Anxiety, by Richard Saul Wurman (1989). Learn more…
Life Operating System (Life OS): A superset of Personal Knowledge Management. Life OS includes planning, journaling, task management, etc.
Linking Your Thinking (LYT): Nick Milo’s brand centered on “a six-week, hands-on workshop to accelerate your ability to manage knowledge.” Learn more…
Literature Notes: “Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words.” (Sönke Ahrens in How to Take Smart Notes).
MAPS: MoCs | Areas | Projects | Support Notes. (Linking Your Thinking)
Markdown: A lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. Can easily be converted to HTML. Learn more…
Mental Models: An explanation of how something works. The phrase “mental model” is an overarching term for any sort of concept, framework, or worldview that you carry around in your mind. (James Clear) Learn more…
Mise-en-place: French for “put in place”. Originates from professional chefs. Popularized beyond cooking with the book Work Clean, by Dan Charmas.
MoC: Maps of Content. A Table of Contents or other view into the structure of your notes and thinking. A navigation aid. Also Index or Structure Notes. Learn more…
NoMa: Linking Your Thinking’s shorthand for note-making, in contrast to note-taking. Learn more…
Note-Making: A concept centered on “don’t simply capture your notes and dump them in a library somewhere. Instead, you work on your notes and update them over time. Instead of simply taking notes, you are crafting them.” (Mike Schmitz) Learn more…
PARA: Projects | Area | Resources | Archive. Four categories encompass every type of information you might encounter in your work and life. (Tiago Forte). Frequently used as a top-level folder structure. Learn more…
Permanent Notes: “Will never be thrown away and contain the necessary information in a permanently understandable way.” (Sönke Ahrens in How to Take Smart Notes). Similar to Evergreen Notes.
Personal Knowledge Graph (PKG): A personal knowledge graph is a source of structured knowledge about entities and the relation between them, where the entities and the relations between them are of personal, rather than general, importance. The graph has a particular “spiderweb” layout, where every node in the graph is connected to one central node: the user. (Balog and Kenter) Learn more…
Personal Knowledge Management (PKM): A process of collecting information that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve and share knowledge in their daily activities and the way in which these processes support work activities. It is a response to the idea that knowledge workers need to be responsible for their own growth and learning. It is a bottom-up approach to knowledge management (KM) (Wikipedia) Learn more… Also ‘PKM System’.
PIM: Personal Information Management. The management of documents, pictures, videos, music, books, etc. Some people suggest PIM is a subset of PKM. Others (e.g. Jones, 2010) suggest the inverse, PKM is a subset of PIM.
Point Notes: Notes for the train of thought the reader is developing. Roughly a synonym for Evergreen and Permanent Notes. From the book How to Make Notes and Write, by Dan Allosso and S.F. Allosso.
PPS: Personal Productivity System. A PPS begins with your life goals and dreams and then your areas of focus. The daily and weekly tasks needed to turn these goals and dreams into reality are put into your system. (Carl Pullein) Learn more…
PPV: Pillars | Pipelines | Vaults. A Life Operating System designed by August Bradley. Learn more…
Reference or Ref Notes: Synonym for Literature Notes.
Second Brain: A methodology for saving and systematically reminding us of the ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we’ve gained through our experience. It expands our memory and our intellect using the modern tools of technology and networks. (Tiago Forte) Learn more…
Source Notes: An informal term (e.g. not defined in How to Take Smart Notes or Building a Second Brain) for notes from or about a source (article, book, podcast, video, webpage, etc.). Some people call their verbatim highlights Source Notes. Similar to Literature Notes.
Spaced Repetition: A way of learning through active recall, spread out across multiple study sessions. For example, study with flashcards, or taking a closed-book quiz (UPchieve). Learn more…
Structure Notes: Synonym for MoC.
Syntopical Reading: Also known as Comparative Reading. Involves reading many books or papers on the same subject and comparing and contrasting ideas, vocabulary, and arguments. Learn more…
Tags: words or short phrases assigned to text that assist with understanding the text’s context. A form of metadata. Three common uses of tags:
Categorization: What topic is this about? E.G. ‘PKM’
Description: What type of information is this? E.G. ‘book’
Status: E.G. ‘in_process’
Tools For Thought (TfT): “A means of increasing the capability of a [person] to approach a complex problem situation, gain comprehension to suit [their] particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems.” (Douglas Englebart, 1962). Learn more… Also “Tools For Thinking”.
Transclusion: Embedding notes or media within another note.
Unlinked Reference: A word or phrase that matches the title of another note; however, does not link to that note. For example, imagine that you have a note titled “Roam Research” and within another note, you mention Roam Research; however, you do not make that mention a link to the Roam Research note. In the second note, ‘Roam Research’ is an unlinked reference.
Working Notes: Frequently edited notes for converging concepts into narratives (Danny Hatcher). Similar to Evergreen and Permanent notes.
YAML: A programming language used to assign data variables at the top of notes (hence, sometimes called ‘Front Matter’) in applications like Obsidian. The acronym recursively means “YAML Ain’t Markup Language” — or the historical meaning “Yet Another Markup Language”. YAML is not intended to be a markup language used for document markup (TechTarget). Formally, “A human-friendly data serialization language for all programming languages”. Learn more…
Zettel: A note that is part of the archive of your Zettelkasten. You create it to contain knowledge for later use. The answer to “How do I compose a Zettel?” is simple: You form a Zettel in a manner that allows you the most efficient use even if another person would have to use it. (Sascha) Learn more…
Zettelkasten: “Slip box” in German. A notetaking system popularized by the book How to Take Smart Notes, by Sönke Ahrens. Learn more…
This glossary is intended to be a living webpage that will have updates — in the spirit of a Digital Garden. Please respond with your feedback and any proposed additions. Thanks in advance.
The book links are Amazon affiliate links.
Follow me on Medium and on Twitter to learn more about Personal Knowledge Management, Tools for Thought, and Second Brain.
