Hello Reader,

Some people believe you should struggle when doing research.

I disagree!

Challenging? Yes. An uncertain journey? For sure. But a struggle? There is no need for that.

Instead, let's remove as much friction as possible from our learning, thinking, and writing processes.

In today’s Playbook let’s review 4 steps to remove friction from your research.

​

1. Start a conscious Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) practice

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is the coordination and optimisation of our knowledge processes towards a goal.

Everyone has a PKM practice, but not everyone is conscious about it.

When you choose to read a source and leave all information only in your memory, that is a PKM choice.

When you choose to read, highlight your sources, and stack them on a pile of documents, that is a PKM choice.

When you choose to express your thoughts through notes, extract ideas, and create a network of ideas, that is a PKM choice.

Some practices would make your knowledge readily available for writing, others would make you spend 20 minutes looking for a source, whereas others would make you read half of your sources again (with a deadline hunting you).

If you want to remove friction from your research, start by making conscious decisions about your PKM choices.

​

2. Identify your preferred PKM mindsets

Making conscious decisions means climbing your own PKM Pyramid.

​

The first step is to choose which mindsets (i.e. which state of mind) you want to support at any given time.

For instance, if you want to express your thoughts you may want to:

• Follow your flow of thoughts without any constraints.
• Write your thoughts down as close as possible to the time they passed through your mind.
• See your notes as representations of your current understanding, even if vague, incomplete, or incorrect.

These are three types of mindsets I call “Follow the Flow”, “Write Through”, and “Notes as Pieces of Understanding”.

If you use their opposite mindsets when capturing thoughts (i.e. “Organise First”, “Write Up”, and “Notes as Pieces of Truth”) you may find a lot of friction and stop writing down your thoughts altogether.

Before considering methods and tools, reflect on the state of mind you want to have at a specific time. Your mindset is what will define what friction means later on.

​

3. Choose your methods

If you find friction when learning, thinking, or writing, your method may be the problem.

Having chosen a mindset, ask yourself whether the method you use supports that mindset.

Here is a simple example:

​
What happened?

With the pressure of time and the urge to move forward, you abandoned your flow of thinking for a fake sense of “completeness” (yey! You have answered all 7 questions! But.. so what? That wasn’t the goal in this instance. The goal was to express as much of your thinking as possible).

The method added friction to your thinking process because it led you away from your original intention.

A better method would be to set a timer for each prompt to explore your thoughts without the time pressure influencing your mind. A tiny simple change can make a big difference.

I call the first method “Multi-prompt Quick Jots”, and the second “Prompted Freewriting”. You can learn more about them (and their mindsets) in the Active Note-Taking course.

​

If you ever notice friction when applying a method, stop to reflect if the mindset you want to use is the same that your method is leading (or forcing) you to use.

​

4. Choose the best PKM tools for YOU

Finally, consider your tool.

If you have your mindsets and methods sorted, then your tool shouldn't be a problem, right?

Well, tools are also developed to support certain mindsets, and these may not be the mindsets you are looking for at a given time.

For example, if you don’t know what ideas you will express before you start writing, you chose the “Follow the Flow” mindset. You want to write whatever comes to mind.

Then you open your note-taking app, click to create a new document, and the app asks you:

• What is the name of your document? “Ahn.. dunno.. reflections.. the date.. which day is today?”
• In which folder do you want to place this document? “Ahn.. I don’t have a folder for reflections yet. Let me create one.. hm.. where should I put it? In the project folder or a general reflections folder?”

Suddenly you are thinking about folders, document names, and categorisations that have nothing to do with your original intention, which was to just write your thoughts down.

The app is creating unnecessary friction to something that should be as simple as: Click to open a document and start writing down your thoughts.

The problem is that we got so used to having to deal with documents and folders that we think this is “just the way things are”.

But the fact is, there are excellent new tools out there (even free ones!) ready to support your thinking. You only need to give them a chance.

So, again, next time you find friction, reflect if your app is the one getting in the way of expressing the mindset you want to use.

​

All in all, to decrease the friction in your learning, thinking, and writing:

1. start with the mindsets you want to support,
2. choose methods that put them into action, and
3. find an app (or hack your app) to support your way of thinking.

If you have any questions, please let me know by answering this email. Don't be shy! I may take some time to answer but I read and reply to all emails.

​

Talk to you soon.

Until then, take care.

Bianca