Requirements First — How to pick the right PKM tool for you.

David R Oliver
5 min readOct 19, 2023

Choosing the appropriate Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tool can significantly impact your life, but it’s crucial to remember that they’re not all identical. Determining what’s important to you will make the decision-making process more straightforward.

Introduction

Personal knowledge management (PKM) software helps people organise information, improve learning, increase productivity, and collaborate more effectively. Choosing the right tool for your needs and skill level is challenging, with many options.

This guide explains the essential requirements to evaluate PKM tools so you can discover the right choice for you.

Choosing a tool simply because it’s popular or used by others is a mistake. Even widely accepted tools may lack crucial features necessary for your specific needs.

Selecting the most suitable tool is only possible by first understanding what you want to use a PKM tool for, what features you need, and your skill level with technology.

With over 250 knowledge management tools, figuring out what you want will take a long time without the benefit of a system to help you. Some of these tools are expensive, so understanding your needs can help justify the cost or guide you to a cheaper…

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David R Oliver

INTJ | Visual-Spatial Thinker | Knowledge & Solution Architect | Cat Dad | Aviation Geek