The 5 Best Tools for Creating an Effective Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) System

Key findings

• Obsidian and Notion offer valuable PKM features for free, while Evernote requires a paid subscription for full access.
• Capacities and Reflect Notes are newer PKM tools on the market and offer unique AI capabilities and chart views.
• Consider workflow, budget, and note-taking style when choosing between these popular PKM tools for optimal organization.

Do you often have trouble finding important information in your endless notes? It can be frustrating and overwhelming when valuable ideas, insights, thoughts and knowledge get lost. This is where a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system proves invaluable. A well-designed PKM system acts as your second brain and allows you to capture and link your ideas seamlessly. Here are the top five PKM tools that will change the way you manage your knowledge.

5 Performance

Notion is one of the most popular tools in the productivity space. It offers an innovative block editor, flexibility, integration with third-party apps, a feature-rich forward slash (/) command, and more. Using Notion for a PKM system allows you to organize your thoughts on different pages and link relevant pages for better understanding.

Notion has a fantastic template library and you can also access third-party templates from other Notion users. Whether you need an expense tracker, subscription tracker, kanban board, daily dashboard, life planner or bullet journal, there is a template available for every purpose.

A common practice among Notion users is to set up a homepage that links to different subpages, which makes navigation smoother and more intuitive. In addition, the company has introduced calendar integration that lets you quickly view your Gmail or Outlook meeting events. Another interesting feature is Notion AI, which helps you expand your thoughts and ideas using artificial intelligence.

The only problem with Notion is the learning curve. You’ll need to spend some time getting familiar with the sheer number of features and options. Paid plans start at $10 per month.

4 Capacities

Capacities is another effective PKM tool with a unique approach. The company describes itself as “A studio for your mind.” It comes with several objects by default, such as projects, quotes, writing down client details, or keeping track of your favorite books or recipes. You can also create custom objects according to your needs. This makes it easy to keep track of different types of materials.

Capacities uses a block editor and offers different page layouts, split views, and even backlinks. The latter is an interesting add-on that allows you to connect your relevant notes and check their relationship in a special diagram view.

The company offers a comprehensive free plan that allows you to create an unlimited number of rooms, objects, and blocks, while the Pro plan starts at $10 per month.

3 Reflect on notes

Right out of the box, Reflect Notes offers daily notes to jot down your daily thoughts and ideas. You can even pin them and share them with a private link. It’s the perfect combination of Notion and Roam Research. Reflect Notes offers the flexibility of Notion and detailed chart views like the ones you find in Roam Research.

With its long list of features including backlinks, instant capture, calendar integration, and web publishing, you won’t have a hard time capturing and managing your thoughts. There’s also a GPT-4-powered AI assistant that lets you create outlines, correct grammar, and improve your writing with a single click.

After you’ve created the notes you need, you can use backlinks and tags to keep things organized. Once your free trial is over, you’ll need to shell out $10 per month to continue using Reflect Notes.

2 Evernote

Evernote has undergone a number of changes recently. The Green Elephant brand significantly reduced its offering of free plans and encouraged users to opt for paid subscriptions. Nevertheless, Evernote has been quick to introduce new features following its acquisition by Bending Spoons.

Evernote offers an effective tagging system for recording and organizing ideas. The company has introduced a new homepage that displays recent notes, a notepad, calendar events, and tasks. In fact, Evernote has added calendar integration with Gmail and Outlook, as well as the ability to create and track tasks directly in your notes.

Other features include a powerful web clipper, an infinite whiteboard, a powerful document scanner, templates, an AI add-on for brainstorming ideas, and more. Pricing starts at $15 per month.

1 Obsidian

When we talk about the best PKM tools, we can’t leave Obsidian out of the list. The versatile Markdown-based tool is at the top of our recommendation list for several reasons. You can easily create vaults and add notes. While Obsidian may seem simple at first glance, a look into the plugin menu can reveal its true capabilities.

You can create multiple vaults for different topics and use cases, as well as folders, subfolders, and pages for effective organization. There’s also support for tags to filter your relevant thoughts and ideas in a snap.

As for other add-ons, Obsidian supports backlinks, diagram views, canvas to display your thoughts on a blank whiteboard, split view, and a robust theme menu to change the look and feel of the software. All Obsidian features are completely free to use. You only need to pay for the Sync ($4 per month) and Publish ($8 per month) plugins to extend the functionality.

Declutter your digital life

Choosing an ideal PKM tool can be challenging at times. Let’s simplify the equation here. Notion and Obsidian are two of the most popular tools on the market that come with a powerful free plan to get you started. Evernote has a familiar tagging system and toolbar, and with recent improvements, it’s better than ever.

This brings us to Capacities and Reflect Notes – both relatively new but quite powerful with AI features, charts, and more. You can choose an app based on your workflow, budget, note-taking style, and device settings. If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, you may want to try Microsoft’s productivity apps to create a PKM system.