3 Book Recommendations for Knowledge Management in 2024 and Beyond
Tabletop must-haves if you want to organise your thinking.
A glimpse into my eLibrary
It's this time of the year again. In a few days,
You're hitting the gym (and so am I).
You're shifting your attention from doom-scrolling to things moving the needle.
You're stocking up on better reads.
The usual suspects for wider audiences are household names from the self-help ilk. But if you're past this phase and need actionable recipes and inspiration from legit folks, the following selection is for you.
This evergreen list is for those who want to organise their knowledge. These books withstood the test of time and can be safely bought in a hardcover format.
My highlights are in my digital garden.
How to Read a Book
Authors: Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren
This meta-read will set you up with terrific ways of reading other books. It's ancient and doesn't read like a thriller, but it's as relevant as when it was released in 1940.
It'll teach you to modulate reading speed based on the context and introduce different reading levels, such as inspectional and syntopical, as well as what to do before and after you dive into any book.
How to Take Smart Notes
Author: Sönke Ahrens
The title sounds as ridiculously obvious as the previous recommendation. After all, we've been reading and taking notes all our lives. Yet, there's excellent use in getting philosophical about seemingly banal things.
This book is a PKM staple. It's almost impossible to chat with a fellow knowledge manager without thoroughly reading and highlighting a copy of Sönke's short oeuvre first.
Getting Things Done
Author: David Allen
This tabletop reference is for people inundated with todos, things to read and projects to start working on in the future, which is about all of us.
Although it's generally classified as a productivity book, it also applies to knowledge management. It'll be helpful to those who shy away from the monumental task of bringing order into the pile of post-its, magazines and other disconnected pieces of information lumped in a shoebox.
We'll often return to this methodology in this publication. I'll let you into the inner mechanism of my implementation.
A Few Mantras Before You Begin
Don't let the reading progress gauge derail you from what's truly important. It's ok if you read less than the year's goal sucked out of your thumb. The name of the game is to read deeper.
Leave your ego at the gym/library door: Set an achievable goal a notch further than your typical reading amount but not further.
Implementing one recipe from one book will yield more effect than not implementing a single one from fifty.
Don't fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy cognitive bias: if you're in the middle of a book that doesn't cut it–discard it. Managing knowledge is looking for gold nuggets. You'll need to filter through a lot of dirt.
If you're serious about reading or want to share your recommendations, let's connect on GoodReads.
Happy reading and happy New Year.
Special thanks to for reading the drafts of it.