100 Days of Note-taking - Day 1

Introduction

A few weeks back, I joined Bianca Pereira's 100 days note-taking challenge. As usual, life happened, so I delayed my participation. But I've decided to commit to sharing my notes, trying to catch up with the challenge, (which is at day 16 at this point).

These posts will be different from what I usually publish, but I'll take advantage of the challenge's prompts to share more ideas about Knowledge Management, and background about past, and ongoing projects. We'll see where that leads us. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy those!

BTW, don't hesitate to participate. Subscriptions for the challenge are now closed (I believe), but don't let that stop you. Take the prompt, and have fun writing 🎉

Day 1: Which topic(s) would your "book of life" cover?

For the longest time, my life was about technology, games, and family. For as far as I can remember, I've always had a passion for software development, the World Wide Web, and technology in general.

That passion was a very powerful driver for me. It kept pushing me to learn more about how things worked. But as the Søren Kierkegaard beautifully put it:

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards

It took me a long while, and a lot of observation, to realize that what drove me was actually not the technology itself, but the act of learning new things, and sharing knowledge. And since I reached the Aha moment, I've understood that I enjoy learning things about many more domains. This has opened many locked doors in my mind, and it has pushed me to explore many other areas such as entrepreneurship, product development, marketing, sales, science, and more.

Since then, I've also put a lot more effort into managing my knowledge. It's not a term I'm a fan of, but it's really the act of externalizing knowledge in a way that enables me to leverage my knowledge, and to connect the dots. I've dived real deep into the "theory" behind serious note-taking, and connected more and more ideas together.

Whenever I decide to learn something, my Knowledge Management system is my go-to place to capture new ideas and learnings. It enables me to organize my exploration, organize my thoughts, ideas, and iterate quickly.

For example, when I rebooted Knowii last month, I wanted to give Laravel a serious try. It's a powerful PHP framework that I never looked at before, and I had a ton of things to discover. Thanks to my knowledge management system, I could take thoughtful steps into the unknown, never losing sight of what my goals were, and what the next steps needed to be. And I'm grateful to have it to support everything I do.

On the other hand, I also discovered that sharing knowledge was something that made me "shine". I love sharing ideas and writing about everything I discover.

I have a really strong belief that Knowledge Management is something that a vast majority of people are missing to help them tame the frenzy in their lives, and to be better organized (among other things). And that's why I'm focusing so much energy on writing and creating product in this field, so that more people get to discover and reap the benefits.

And the more revenue I can generate through this activity, the more I will be able to contribute. That's one of the reasons why I don't want to abandon this new path I've embarked on five years ago. I know that I can bring value to other people's lives. Every single time I get a "thank you" note, it reinforces my motivation to keep going. And I thank you all for that ❤️

To answer today's question, I hope my book of life will reflect that fact that I am a lifelong learner, with a passion for sharing knowledge, and empowering people. And even if I only manage to help my children grow, and a few strangers on the Internet to reach their next chapter, then I'll be forever proud, and grateful that I had the opportunity to help.