Today marks the fourth chapter in the State of PKM. By the end of this email series, you will leave with a clearer and empowered sense of how you can improve your knowledge management efforts.

You can have a powerful system for your ideas.

Your can think confidently and creatively in your system.

If you're feeling scattered, you can use this system to get your thoughts in order.

But this isn't a regular 1-2-3 step system. Those systems break.

This is a dynamic system. An ideaverse. (I'll share the basics of this system on "growing your ideaverse" at the end of this chapter.)

You need a system that dynamically evolves with you throughout your life, growing stronger each day.

That's what makes linked notes a total game-changer. (Well, that's the only part we can cover today.)

It empowers us to trade fragile, linear systems—for robust, non-linear systems.

This is a deep rabbit hole, so let's keep it simple.

You need to balance structure and chaos.

• Too much structure causes friction and suffocates ideas.
• Too much chaos causes anxiety and lost thoughts.

Over the past decade, I uncovered a dynamic system that finds the balance.

It lands in the Goldilocks Zone: not too much, not too little.

Take a look at your PKM system, or your notes, or whatever you might call it.

• Does your space for notes have too much structure or too little?
• Do you wish you had more structure or less?

Wherever you are, the Linking Your Thinking frameworks will balance you out.

800 people have stress-tested the LYT frameworks for their needs, and I can confidently say that they give you exactly what you need. Need more structure? The LYT frameworks may be flexible, but they can be firm. Need less structure? The LYT frameworks are naturally fluid and adapt to your changing needs.

In balances another of The 6 Battlefields of PKM: Top-down vs Bottom-up.

(More on this, plus a third option, next chapter.)

As you get your thoughts in order, you can use links to develop ideas quickly and effortlessly—and you can zoom out and confidently see the bigger picture at any time.

You can use the LYT frameworks to feel more joy and confidence with your linked digital notes—your special ideaverse—not just in the short-term, but in the decades to come.

Again, I'll share the basics of this system on "growing your ideaverse" at the end of this chapter, but first...

The truth about notes

All of us grew up putting files into folders. That works well for receipts and tax forms.

It does not work well for ideas.

This is another of The 6 Battlefields of PKM: Folders vs Links.

Now with notes apps, our files are more appropriately called "notes". But many of us are still treating notes like files that go in folders. Let's dig into this...

What is a note? How do notes work? What can you do with notes?

The answers can be understood through three paradigms. Each paradigm helps to break our preconceptions and unlock a deeper understanding around how we work with notes.

The 3 Paradigms of Notes

The age of the linked note allows us to see the truth about notes.

• 🍯  Notes contain thoughts ☁️
• You can put anything inside—a journal, a grocery list, an idea…
• 🗣  Notes allow time travel ⌛
• Notes allow your old self to send messages to your future self.
• 🌱  Notes can change 🌲
• Notes are not written in concrete. Like us, notes can change.

Most of us treat notes as containers of thought.

Some of us recognize that notes allow conversations across time.

Few of us treat notes as changeable.

This last paradigm-shift is the most important in the age of the linked note.

Notes are not static. Notes can change. I have to repeat this because it's not what we were taught as we grew up putting static files into rigid folders.

But once you fully digest that notes are kinda these living entities, you'll start to feel the power of growing a special, digital ideaverse.

The basics of growing your ideaverse

• Encounter something and say "that's interesting".
• Then create a note and connect it to other notes. (Do note-making.)
• Do this 100 times.
• When you feel the "squeeze", gather notes into a Map of Content.
• Do this 10 times. (You'll discover it generates unexpected insights.)
• Create a home note to fully utilize, scale, and future-proof your thoughts.
• And every step of the way, fly around your ideaverse, accomplishing great works while maintaining a sense of calm and joy.

​That's the basic formula that leads to magical results.

In the next chapter, I'll share how you are already doing some of this, and how linking your notes unlocks a powerful and reliable way of improve your thinking and accelerate your ideation.