The 5 Pillars of Personal Knowledge Management

Do you ever feel like your brain is a browser with too many tabs open? 

If you're reading this, chances are you're like me – trying to make sense of the constant information overload and juggling multiple projects without dropping any balls. Over the years, I've been on a quest to reduce the chaos in my life through developing better systems for managing knowledge, projects, and ideas.

I believe that living life by design, rather than by accident, makes all the difference. When I was just reacting to whatever came my way, I felt scattered and overwhelmed. Once I developed a framework for managing my knowledge and work, I felt more in control and accomplished more of what mattered to me.

I've come to resonate with the term "digital gardening." It captures the idea of cultivating a system that takes the organic mess of notes and transforms it into something beautiful. I've created a framework for thinking about digital gardening which I hope is useful for people starting out on this journey.

I must acknowledge the reality that whilst most YouTube tutorials on this topic look neat and polished, like manicured gardens where there's no leaf out of place, my systems look more like a messy organic garden where everything is beautifully interconnected. And that’s perfectly okay.

The most important thing is the fruits of your system. You’ll know it’s working when you have more clarity and calm in your life.

The 5Ps Framework

The 5Ps framework is all about building a personal system that helps you keep track of all the open loops in your life and creates feedback systems to keep you on track with where you want to go.

Here's the breakdown:

1. Purpose

This is where you define your identity, vision, life themes, and core values that guide everything else. I've always felt an inherent tension between "being" and "becoming", and have found myself struggling with the idea of "productivity", where only through performing tasks can I feel worthy. But I've come to realize that we're goal-oriented creatures, and without something to aim towards, we settle into torpor. This is where depression kicks in.

When you define who you are and what you're moving towards, you also refine the information you process, and ensure that you're not just collecting information for the sake of it, or some unnecessary habit/busy work distraction.

Key takeaway: Your direction (i.e. identity and values) matter more than your speed.

2. Preparing

Before planting the seeds, you need to prepare the soil. This pillar is about preparing the ground for your work – removing obstacles and creating the right conditions for productivity.

I also like to think of this as creating the necessary mental structures to anchor your work. The world of ideas and thoughts can be ephemeral, and having the right anchor points can help you manage the chaos.

Using modern note-taking tools like Tana, Logseq and Obsidian that use a networked note-taking approach results in many disparate, often disjointed inputs. This is all 'bottom-up' work. At some point, however, you will need to add top-down structures to facilitate easy resurfacing of information to organise and develop your knowledge base.

Key takeaway: Good structure is supportive of you making progress in the direction you want.

3. Planting

Planting is all about capturing and inputting the information – the seeds of your future harvest. Most people will be familiar with the 'capture' part of the personal knowledge management workflow. Many practitioners also emphasize 'quick capture' to reduce the friction of entering information as much as possible.

But there's something else which is important to add: adding additional context or meta-data to help you resurface your notes. Using templates and/or a text expander to input metadata seamlessly will help you use the tool more effectively, as you are more easily able to resurface and organise information when you need it later on.

Key takeaway: Your input should be low friction, with good meta-data or mental hooks to allow for maximum recall.

4. Propagating

To propagate means 'to grow plants from a cutting' or 'to spread ideas widely'. In the context of personal knowledge management, it means to take what you've planted and transform it into something valuable.

This is all about growing and connecting ideas. Just like plants spread and multiply, your ideas can cross-pollinate and create new insights. In my own practice, this often happens when I review notes from different projects and suddenly see connections I hadn't noticed before.

Key takeaway: Connection is where the magic happens. Let your notes cross-pollinate by regularly reviewing and connecting them.

5. Probing

Gardeners don't just plant and hope for the best – they check their plants regularly. This step involves reviewing, reflecting, and course-correcting. It encourages you to clarify your open loops and helps you make progress in your activities, by resurfacing information in the right place at the right time.

In my own messy practice, I try to check in with my system regularly, although it’s an area where I’m looking to improve. When I do manage to look at all my open loops and ask myself what needs attention, it makes a world of difference.

Key takeaway: Reflection is where the harvest happens

In practice, these steps are not discrete, but an iterative back and forth as you move from one part to another.

How the 5Ps Work Across Different Areas of Your Life

The cool thing about this framework is that it works horizontally across different vertical areas of your life:

• Personal stuff – like self-reflection, managing your time better, or pursuing lifelong learning

• Professional projects – building reference materials, keeping track of meeting notes, or managing complex projects

• Research endeavours – organizing literature, structuring your research questions

The specifics will vary, but the 5Ps remain useful across all these domains. They give you a consistent way to approach different aspects of your life.

Why This Actually Matters

I'm not going to pretend that having the perfect PKM system will solve all your problems. I don’t even know if there is such a thing. 

But here's what I've found: when I know that important information is captured reliably, that my projects are tracked effectively, and that I have regular time for reflection built into my routine, my mind is clearer. I'm less stressed about forgetting things and more focused on what actually matters.

That mental clarity doesn't happen by accident – it happens by design.

In the coming weeks, I'll be diving deeper into each of the 5Ps exploring approaches within each of the pillars. But today I’d like to plant the seed. Do you have a vision to invest your life’s energy in? Which area of your life could benefit from a little more intention?

Thanks for reading 🙏🏻

If you’re more interested in mastering the tools to support you on this journey, have a look at Logseq Mastery or Unlock Tana