Your personal knowledge management system does not work because you don’t have personal knowledge to manage

It’s not about the app. Switching to Obsidian won’t help. Using super-templates in Notion is not the answer.

The tool does not matter.

The problem is that we have nothing to put into the tool. If we had, the tool wouldn’t be an obstacle.

Instead we’re trying to optimise our process for hours on end in the hopes of it magically solving the big question - why doesn’t it work?

The reason might be deceptively simple, one that we don’t want to admit to ourselves: We don’t have anything worthwhile to save.

Or if we do, it’s not a lot. It does not need a tool as complex as Logseq. Because sure, with Roam Research you could link your thinking, reference any note from any other note with a click of a button / typing a couple of brackety bois, but when you add the three notes you want to save about the upcoming renovation project and then get stuck; it’s not that Craft is a fundamentally bad tool, so much so that it’s preventing you from creating the knowledge graph of your life - but that you actually only have enough information for three pieces of notes.

This is not to say that some apps are better suited for certain people than others, and vice-versa. There’s the whole “are you an architect / gardener / librarian type note-taker?” question. Depending on the answer to that question, you may want to look into one type of app over another.

But if we have so little to save, then the tool won’t help us realise the promises that it gives. We won't be able to create a second brain if we don't put in the work of writing our thoughts and references down.

In all of this, the tool is not the problem. We are.