I’ve been somewhat distant from writing articles recently.
The reason for being so was explained in my most recent newsletter issue but if you haven’t read it, I’ll share it here to help you out…
Just a little more than a week ago, I was assaulted in the street in the city I live near in the UK. Following this, I spent days in the hospital gradually recovering to a point where I could be discharged and go home.
And that day was a couple of days ago now. I’ve been writing, moving as much as possible, and generally trying to get back into my usual routine.
But it’s not been easy. My head and lower back hit the ground very hard when I was knocked out and my memory, movement and processing power have been greatly reduced since then.
How, then, have I managed to keep writing and producing content?
It comes mainly down to the fact that I’m used to it and that I’ve been putting systems in place to help with the management of knowledge and creation of content for the last couple of years now.
They were, for a long time, structures that would simply guide me to doing the right thing and I hoped they’d always remain this way.
However, recently, the assault put me at a point where I struggled to think and process things and I needed a little more robust input from my PKM system. But fortunately, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been creating a system that’s capable of this for years.
What important improvements have I made over the years leading up to this problem I’ve faced over the last week or so? This is the main point of what I want to discuss in the rest of this article…
I’ve not been able to think as nimbly as I normally can and it’s taking me a bit longer than usual to create content. Luckily I’ve got a very set method I follow within my PKM system to create content that I can use freely and without confusion on a regular basis.
You can read a bit more about the system in this piece below — I’m going to avoid writing details while my brain is still recovering…
This system is useful — and I’ve also got some other tricks in place that keep me away from too much time on distracting websites. Think Cold Turkey Blocker on MacBook and Refocus on iPhone. These are the two absolute best solutions for the job. And I’ve been looking for a while now.
But the most useful thing is to simply have a system for PKM that you’ve developed yourself over years of consistent use — one that you’re confident in finding things in and using.
It doesn’t matter that my first brain is a little slower than usual. The second brain can compensate in areas in which I might be struggling. And you deserve this insurance for your own work too.
Because of this, I’ve been more than productive in the last day or so (I’ve just gotten out of hospital) — you can watch the video part of the newsletter issue below and read the actual written portion of the newsletter here…
And it’s all possible because of building a knowledge management practice. The actual nature of this can vary a lot from person to person as well — so long as it helps you create and share, it’s effective. I use Obsidian for all my notes, drafting articles and planning the content that I want to share.
The system makes it easy to do things that I’m drawn to, like creating and writing, even when my brain is not working perfectly. Without it, I likely wouldn’t have gotten my focus and attention together enough to publish any work at all.
Anyway — this is just a quick thought or two that I wanted to share with you.
There’s not much insight into building this system in this piece itself, but I have written about this before, so I’m going to share some more resources with you now, here…
I hope that this is a satisfactory piece to start with after being quite well and truly mashed into the pavement.
I’ll get back to sharing deeper insights again soon, but it might be storytelling and conversational writing that come easier while my mind’s struggling.
Please bear with me, and thanks for reading as always!
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