Reducing my PIM/Knowledge/Writing Tools

Posted by Cassius
Apr 5, 2007 at 06:31 AM

Far too many PIMs, far too many upgrades, far too many knowledge structuring concepts, and certainly, far too many information sources, and duplicative information sources.

This topic may be the most important of all that have appeared in this and the preceeding forums. Thank you, Dominik and those before, for explicating it. Even being retired, I spend far too much time searching for a “better” PIM. There are far more productive things I could be doing. Sleep, sex, and writing the book that’s burning in my brain come to mind.

I once worked with a fellow that EVERY week found a new, better software package to implement the project he led. Years past, but he never produced something that actually worked, but much that irksomely didn’t. To those who worked with him, the mere mention of his name, Felix, brings strong emotion.

We are consumers, who, faced with a plethora of brands, models, etc. of basically the same item, cannot make a definitive choice and so try to sample each, or sample none.

Sampling each = CRIMP
Sampling none = plain text editor

Opportunities lost:

A single sentence, heard at a conference, read in a book, or heard as an off-the-cuff remark may result in the blossoming of an entirely new approach to solving a problem, an entirely new approach to problem solving, or even an entirely new field of study.

I expect that most (all?) of us have had a cranky problem to solve and then, usually by chance, heard or seen something that gave us the inspiration, “That’s it !!!” But what if we didn’t hear or see that “something.” The fact is, we are finite: We cannot hear or see every potentially inspirational remark ... or evaluate every, potentially marvelous, PIM.

I believe that the contributors to this topic have pinpointed what each of us needs to do to keep from becoming mired in the CRIMP bog, that is, from becoming “Felixed.”:

*Decide what is most important for what we do.
*Find several software packages that singly, or together, will do these things.
*Eliminate those packages that cannot work together—that are too restricted in their import/export capabilities or require too much effort to move from our current software.
*If possible, eliminate those that have uncertain futures. (Have you noticed how much software won’t work with Vista?)
*Choose from among what remains, software that has an interface you are most comfortable with.
*Spend a LITTLE time seeing what’s new and reading this forum’s postings.
Finally, while the information we use is important and the PIMs we use are useful tools, our most important assets are our MINDS.

-c