faux-productivity trap

20 Sep, 2025

I should preface this by saying these are my opinions on personal knowledge management and as such, I understand the topic is 'personal' to the individual - it's not an attack on any of the systems or processes mentioned.

I fell in love with Obsidian¹ as soon as I started using it.

The fact it could be incredibly simple or as complex as you wanted it to be was perfect for what I was looking for and that put me on the path of learning about the world of personal knowledge management (PKM).

Of course, there's some big names in the space, whether it's Sonke Ahrens and his book 'How to Take Smart Notes', Nick Milo and his 'Ideaverse' or Tiago Forte and 'Building a Second Brain'². Unfortunately, as I've become more immersed in the space, I find myself being increasingly disappointed.

My take on personal knowledge management is that it is a way of using the information you consume to create new and unique ideas.

This seems to go against the way that these content creators are portraying it, in which they want you to use all sorts of plug-ins and systems to make sure you've got the perfect note-taking/creation system.

And the frustrating part for me is that I fell into this trap, I found myself creating templates, folders and systems all in the hope of having this incredible content creating/idea generating system and instead, I found myself paralysed by not having the perfect system.

I've been stuck not doing the one thing I wanted the system for... Creating.

The major issue is that it feels like I'm being productive, I see the system and get excited about how it'll work for me and then I find myself tweaking and tinkering with the system rather than getting the work done.

I appreciate the work that these content creators have put into bringing the world of personal knowledge management to the masses, but the main issue is that we're trying to make a system tailored for everyone rather than tailoring the approach to the individual.

So for anyone struggling with their personal knowledge management system, do what feels right to you.

Start and then fix, don't fall into the faux-productivity trap. It's a dead-end.