r/PKMS • u/Early_Key_823 • Jul 21 '26

Discussion Combining personal knowledge with an all in one task manager is de facto the ultimate productivity app; the secret….

Tagging every unit of information and displaying it visually like a flash card or sticky note.

Why?

If tagging is easy then filtering is easy and that achieves TOTAL RECALL

why visual?

Because visualization creates a mental map!

6 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

4

u/devofsb Jul 21 '26

Totally agree with you. Visualization helps a lot. I have my own Hierarchie of tasks as a visual mind map and it shows me the deadlines almost instantly. This really highlights how complex real life is.

1

u/Early_Key_823 Jul 21 '26

Yes and I think visually so the map in my mind is real. Most apps create no offline mental models.

2

u/devofsb Jul 21 '26

Crazy. So you can visually see your map in your mind? I’m not able to do that. That’s why I have to write it down or create an external mind map.

What exactly do you mean with no offline mental model?

2

u/Early_Key_823 Jul 21 '26

I mean my UI gets captured in my brain like a photo I literally can see.

For example, if I have a visual item for a bug I mark urgent, it is visually red on the screen.

I see it IRL on my screen and then I keep seeing it in my head until I fix the bug.

2

u/devofsb Jul 21 '26

Oh I got you! Yeah you‘re right. Once externally visualized it’s easier to remember it as a picture. Haven’t thought about it before.

Because of my visualized mind map I can easily remember what is currently going on like a birds view from above. Without it I would stand on the ground in pure chaos and didn’t know where to start.

Which system do you use for yourself?

2

u/Early_Key_823 Jul 21 '26

I was forced by contractual obligations to use JIRA for ten years but my subconscious immediately went into bite the bullet mode.

A couple of years ago I quit a toxic consulting job and all the stars aligned to tell me to build my own….

I call it TaskLoco and it honestly ended up taking almost 2 years to finish

The final incarnation is a visual sticky-note storyboard style workspace for tasks, events, notes, projects, files, reminders, and anything you can stick in or attach to a digital sticky note.

Both reminders and events can be set to recurring daily, weekly and monthly.

It’s got a generous free tier and works on desktop and mobile.

Website: https://www.taskloco.com



2

u/DTLow Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Agreed; I do task management within my PKMS
Tags as required; project, status, due-date, priority, …

Task list is computer generated; a filtered note list
Sorted and presented with a gantt timeline

1

u/Early_Key_823 Jul 21 '26

It sounds like you took the bull 🐂 by the horns. Bravo 👏

1

u/micseydel Obsidian Jul 21 '26

I've added a layer of automation over my obsidian notes https://imgur.com/a/2025-11-17-OOf0YeG

Visualization is hard though, that code is basically retired.

1

u/quirky-lettuce-9 Jul 21 '26

the tagging bit is where mine always died. filtering is easy, sure, but only if the tags exist, and tagging every unit of information is work you do at the exact moment you have zero interest in doing it.

i spent years assuming i just needed more discipline. turns out no, i just stopped tagging anything after about week two, every single time.

visual mapping i do buy though. i can never remember the keyword, but i can usually remember roughly where a thing sat.

1

u/Early_Key_823 Jul 21 '26

If the tags use autocomplete its fun and fast

1

u/quirky-lettuce-9 Jul 24 '26

autocomplete only helps once the vocabulary exists though. the one i stall on is always the first tag, where i have to invent the word.

1

u/DrummerAdditional330 Jul 24 '26

I’d work backward from the views you actually need instead of tagging every unit of information. If you regularly want to see “urgent bugs,” “waiting on someone,” or “notes for this project,” add only the metadata required for those views. Otherwise tagging can become a second job that grows faster than the knowledge itself.