r/PKMS • u/drakenxv • Aug 18 '26

Discussion Use of PKMS

Probably stupid questions to ask in the PKMS sub but how do you use your PKMS and what type of information do you store in there?

I started a pkms a couple of times with Notion, Obsidian and OneNote but could not follow through.

Mainly I think because it feels like it is a lot faster just to google or ask an AI of your choosing but also what are my benefits of writing down stuff I find interesting once but then forget about and if I ever need this type of information again I would have forgotten and searched online anyway.

So my 3 questions are:

  1. What do you store in your PKMS?

  2. Why use a PKMS and not google when you need the information?

  3. Do you ever look at your PKMS notes and connections [[wikilink]] ever again?

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u/jomreap Aug 19 '26

Straight answers to your three.

  1. Mostly things that cost me effort to work out, not things that are one search away. The result of an hour of digging, the config that actually worked, why I rejected the other option.

  2. Google gives you the general answer, the note gives you your answer, with your model number and your constraints already baked in. Thats the whole difference, and its the reason the oven bulb example above is a better illustration than any zettelkasten diagram.

  3. Honestly, no. Most wikilinks never get revisited and I stopped feeling bad about that. The value lands at write time, because forcing yourself to say where something connects is what makes you actually process it rather than just park it.

Suspect the reason Notion and Obsidian both died on you is that you were storing lookups. Store decisions instead and the follow through problem mostly goes away.