Do you keep a notebook full of ideas and research? Is that notebook disorganized? Or do you keep lists of unintelligible notes on your phone or tablet? If that sounds like you, you may want to know what is a knowledge base.
A personal knowledge base is an online tool to organize and expand your knowledge. It captures your thoughts and develops your ideas. Instead of a notebook where your notes are chaotic and disorganized, a knowledge base puts your thinking into a coherent form.
A knowledge base collects everything you have learned on a particular topic and the sources from which you learned. Once everything is compiled onto your knowledge base, you continue to add it. This allows your knowledge to grow and improve.
Compiling Your Knowledge Base
The first thing to do is think about what you want on your knowledge base. To get started, collect any notes you have on the subject you have chosen. You will also want to have your research sources handy. The rest of what you need is in your brain.
Next, you will create a root document for your knowledge base. Here you should write an overview of everything you know about the topic. A knowledge base is a space for the information in the way you understand it. So, be sure to write it in a way that makes sense to you.
Once you have your root document, you can move on to creating sub-documents. This is where you get into the finer details of your chosen topic. You can organize these sub-documents however you like. The organization is meant to make it easy to return to specific sub-topics later.
After you have written out your knowledge, go through and include your sources. So, you can use your knowledge base to jump back into your research anytime. This way, you don’t have to waste time searching for those pages you were reading or that video you were watching.
For example, say you know all about cooking. Maybe you have a recipe book full of notes, or you just keep grandma’s cookie recipe in your head. When you put that knowledge on a knowledge base, you would write out those notes. In addition, you could include pictures of the recipes or websites you often visit for inspiration. Your cooking expertise is laid out entirely on the knowledge base and can be referenced as needed.
Keeping Your Personal Knowledge Relevant
Your personal knowledge base is a reference you can continuously return to. It holds all of that knowledge for you to use whenever you need it. Therefore, a knowledge base shouldn’t be wholly abandoned once you have it all written out.
Every time you learn new information on your knowledge base’s topic, go back and add it. Your personal knowledge base is meant to evolve with your understanding of the information. This way, your knowledge grows infinitely.
Another great way to keep your knowledge base growing is to share it with your peers. Having someone else read through your knowledge base is beneficial to you and the reader. The reader learns something new from you, and they may be able to add something you didn’t know about.
Doing this continuously develops your ideas and deepens your understanding. This is a significant benefit to a personal knowledge base. It allows your thoughts to never stop evolving. Keeping your personal knowledge base relevant greatly increases its usefulness.
Lightmap is a site for building personal knowledge bases. They give a comprehensive tutorial to help you get started. It's free to sign up, and you will quickly see just how helpful a knowledge base can be. Create your personal knowledge base with Lightmap here.