In the last part of this series, we covered the best way for you to learn something new. In this part, we will focus on the worst way to build a knowledge management system.

Have you ever dropped whatever you were doing to organize your notes? It's a compelling impulse. It happens when the pain of your own chaotic digital system becomes so intense, that you choose to procrastinate on everything else—just so you can finally build the perfect system.

"This is going to be the best system yet!" You secretly say to yourself.

Hours later, your energy starts to fizzle out, but "it was worth it", right?

Days later, you keep fiddling with it—and keep procrastinating—thinking what you need are just a couple of tweaks.

Weeks later, you have abandoned your "perfect" system. You feel shame that it didn't work out.

Months later, "what system?"

What happened? You wound up doing nothing but working ON the system rather than IN the system. This is the # 1 point of failure in knowledge management: building structure you didn't earn. It leads to the next Rule of Ideas:

Structure must be earned!

Let's explore why.

Applying Gall's Law to TV Editing

Gall’s Law is a rule of thumb for the design of systems that states:

"All complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked. [And conversely...] A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work."

So don't build unearned structure. Don't build walls in the desert.

Avoid costly structuring traps.

If you want to build a complex system that works, you have to build a simpler system first, and then improve it over time. This is a major component of the Idea Emergence framework we.

Put another way, the only structure that can work over time, is the structure that slowly emerges over time—validating its own existence through its successful use.

Practically speaking, DO NOT start structuring your "ultimate" system in one fell swoop. It will fail you, because it will be fragile, because it wasn't forged in the fire of practical usage. You will waste time and enthusiasm—and could possibly burn out.

That doesn’t mean you can’t try out new things. You weren't born yesterday. When I was learning how to be a TV Editor, I already had a sense of what was good. I had my preferred "taste". I just couldn't edit something that lived up to that level. I needed practice to get my "skills" up to the level of my "tastes".

So I powered rapidly through the Knowledge Cycle. Based on the notes I collected and connected while sitting on the couch behind an Emmy award-winning editor, I created new tests. I would edit an action scene and try removing a couple frames from intense moments. Then I'd play it back to collect feedback from myself. I realized (connected) that I did that trick so many times it not only lost its effect; it became annoying. So I scaled it back as I created several more cuts of the scene.

I earned the structure of my action scene by rapidly testing small parts of it; and gradually evolving it into something halfway decent. I didn't try to make the "perfect" scene on my first pass—I would have instantly frozen my creativity.

So even though your custom PKM may not all be "earned", you are also not starting from scratch. You just have to be smart about it. Your structuring efforts should be tiny tests that:

• Take minimal effort to test (minutes, not days)
• Are easy to undo
• Are easy to learn from

Can't I just use someone else's system?

Setting up a custom knowledge system takes a lot of time and energy. So when you see someone else's beautiful template, you can't help but think, "If only I had that system, then all my thinking problems would be solved!"

So you try somebody else's template. And well, it just doesn't end up working for you.

Why?

Because you haven't put in the work. It will never be as brilliant you hope. Remember, PKM is personal. Even if you have the perfect template, you don't have the reps with it. It didn't emerge through your own work. And that's why it fails.

But maybe it gets you closer to your own custom version.

And that's important too.

Just know: a template isn't the destination, it's a clue.

Templates give clues, but frameworks give power.

PKM systems should be like snowflakes: similar but different.

The Knowledge Cycle is a framework. Idea Emergence is a framework. Master these frameworks and you will master PKM. That's because they give you the universal pattern of how knowledge works. Some might call them "mental models". These two frameworks (and others) are at the core of "Linking Your Thinking". We apply these frameworks throughout the LYT Workshop.

You apply the frameworks to build your own knowledge structure that will beautifully work and naturally evolve with you over the weeks, months, and years to come.

These frameworks allow you to: collect notes, connect them to other notes, and use them to create valuable things in both short and long spans of time. The LYT "way" will empower you with a holistic system that you can rely on forever.

Are there any more Rules of Ideas?

We are now going to go deeper on four Idea Rules we've already covered.

• The worst way to learn is to connect the new to the nothing
• The best way to learn is to connect the new to the known
• The best way to remember is to reconnect the known to the known
• The best way to imagine is to connect the known to the unknown

Now we are going to give each of those rules its own corollary:

Rule: The worst way to learn is to connect the new to the nothing

Corollary: What's churned will be burned

Following that rule is this one:

Rule: The best way to learn is to connect the new to the known

Corollary: What's earned will be learned

Following that rule is this one:

Rule: The best way to remember is to reconnect the known to the known

Corollary: What's known can be grown

Following that rule is this one:

Rule: The best way to imagine is to connect the known to the unknown

Corollary: What's grown can be shown

Let's consolidate these corollaries into our memory by connecting them in a poem:

What's churned will be burned
What's earned will be learned
What's known can be grown
What's grown can be shown

As you look at these images, ask yourself again, where are you getting stuck with your ideas?

I bet you have already thought of a tiny strategy to test.

Will you test it out today?

Remember to make it a tiny test, because in PKM, structure must be earned!

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