# Introduction Personal Knowledge Management ([[Personal Knowledge Management|PKM]]) has emerged as a powerful categorical label, gathering diverse tools, methods, and workflows under its conceptual umbrella. Born in academic [[Knowledge Management]], it has proliferated through productivity blogs, YouTube channels, and software communities, accumulating new meanings with each migration. Like the term 'technology'—which no longer signifies the study of craft but refers directly to devices themselves ([[@coupayeTechnology2022]])—PKM has in recent years undergone its own semantic transformation. In order to make clear my critical targets, I first exposit what PKM denotes, tracking it across formal and informal usage in order to treat it as a site for investigating the relationship between *knowledge practices* and *technology*. In this way, PKM is not treated as circumscribable set of activities or tools, but as a theoretical construct which helps reveal how contemporary knowledge work is imagined and organised. The analytical challenge lies not in lacking theoretical resources for understanding technology and knowledge practices as co-constitutive—philosophy of technology [[@heideggerQuestionConcerningTechnology1977]]; [[@stieglerTechnicsTime1998]]), anthropology of technology [[@lemonnierElementsAnthropologyTechnology1992]] , and postphenomenology [[@ihdeTechnologyLifeworldGarden2010]] offer ample frameworks—but in identifying how instrumental conceptions are reproduced through PKM activities mediated by tools and discourse, obscuring technology's fundamental role. A role that is not merely technology _shaping_ knowledge work through material tools and infrastructure, but technology _making_ knowledge work by not being analytically separable from the processes of thinking and doing at all scales--distinctions that, as I will show in §2, are often arbitrarily drawn given their deep co-constitution. Both academic approaches (which often maintain that cognitive processes and technological mediation are analytically separable) and community driven PKM discourse (which intuits their entanglement but typically lacks the theoretical resources to articulate it) remain pervaded by these instrumental assumptions that prevent recognition of technology as constitutive. To approach this difficulty, I will draw upon [[Actor-Network Theory]] (ANT) and Latour's technology-as-durability thesis [[@latourTechnologySocietyMade1990]]. Using their theoretical and methodological resources, I claim that it helps with understanding how PKM organises diverse elements (people, tools, practices, concepts) into recognisable assemblages, making visible the constitutive sociotechnical relationships that typical knowledge work conceptualisations do not always consider or evaluate. This acknowledges the fact that as knowledge work and the contexts within which it takes place develop, the task of tracing the associations between the heterogenous things which make it up in order to better characterise and explain interworkings, must be conducted *pari passu* these very developments. To investigate this at an appropriate scale, the dissertation ultimately turns to examine [[atomic notes]] and their writing; an exemplary PKM artefact and technique. Atomic notes—discrete textual units designed for linking and recombination—demonstrate exceptional durability across contexts and platforms, achieving stability not merely through utility but through their capacity to make particular forms of knowledge work materially persistent. They exemplify how technology doesn't serve knowledge practices but establishes what counts as knowledge practice in contemporary digital environments. Before getting to atomic notes, the dissertation proceeds through three movements that elucidate PKM's broad dimensions: First, establishing a working definition of PKM while distinguishing analytical from vernacular conceptions. Second, exposing the predicative instrumental assumptions about technology which preclude adequate analytical clarity for the purposes of describing PKM influence on knowledge work. Third, developing an ANT-based framework for understanding PKM as sociotechnical assemblage. These movements are an attempt at addressing the questions: How do PKM technologies transcend instrumental framings to constitute knowledge practices? Why might have atomic notes, both as technical object and activity, achieved exceptional durability as compared to other note writing practices? # 1. Characterising Personal Knowledge Management ## 1.1 Towards a Formal Conception PKM emerged from Organisational Knowledge Management ([[Organisational Knowledge Management|OKM]]) as a complementary approach focused on individual knowledge workers' productivity [[@efimovaUnderstandingPersonalKnowledge2005]]. While organisational KM concerns collective processes, PKM represents a sub-domain emphasising the individual's crucial role [[@razmeritaPersonalKnowledgeManagement2009]], drawing insights from Knowledge Management (KM), cognitive psychology, philosophy, management science, and communications [[@pauleenPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]]. The literature reveals an evolving understanding of PKM's scope. Early definitions focused on systems design—Frand and Hixon (1999) characterised PKM simply as systems designed by individuals for personal use. However, subsequent scholarship expanded this narrow view. Higgison (2004) incorporated network maintenance and personal capital exploitation, while Martin (2006) shifted emphasis toward active processes: knowing, organising, mobilising and creating knowledge to accomplish goals. This progression from static systems to dynamic practices reflects growing recognition that PKM involves more than technical infrastructure. Other interpretations further broaden PKM's conceptual boundaries. Some frame it as enhancing productivity through better encoding, accessing, and reusing personal knowledge [[@volkelPersonalKnowledgeManagement2008]], while others propose more holistic visions—[[@mcfarlanePersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]] positions PKM as evolving understandings enabling individuals to prosper in complex environments across personal and professional dimensions. This expansion has generated diverse framings: people-centered knowledge management (Gurteen, 2009), bottom-up approaches (Pollard, 2008), and interpersonal knowledge management [[@jainPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]]. The most recent conceptualisations extend toward 'second brain' systems and personal AI companions [[@aalPersonalKnowledgeManagement2025]], suggesting PKM's continued evolution alongside technological capabilities. Core activities consistently identified across this literature encompass retrieving, evaluating, organising, collaborating, analysing, presenting and securing information (Avery et al., 2001, cited in Razmerita et al., 2009). Beyond these basics, essential skills span management, learning, communication and technology use, with forecasting and anticipating as advanced capabilities [[@pauleenPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]]. The specific skills required—from identifying sources and navigating information spaces to converting between tacit and explicit knowledge and building relationships [[@jainPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]]--highlight PKM's multifaceted nature. Importantly, PKM differs from OKM not merely in scale but in fundamental orientation. It functions as sophisticated career and life management for navigating turbulent environments [[@pauleenPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]], concerning how knowledge workers maintain professional currency and competitive advantage (Jarrahi et al., 2019). This individual focus necessitates personalised implementations—systems must be adaptable to support diverse working styles and contexts (Reck, 2023). Given the loaded nature of the term 'knowledge', especially in the context of talking about its relation to and differentiation from information, it is worth clarifying what distinguishes PKM from related notions. Indeed, PKM is often distinguished from another set of overlapping practices called 'Personal _Information_ Management' (PIM). The KM literature contains differing positions on the status and differences between information and knowledge. [[Information]] can be understood as a flow of messages that transform raw data—packaged in documents, files, or emails—and can be stored, retrieved, and manipulated (Buckland, 1991). Knowledge emerges when information is internalised and personalised through cognitive processing, resulting in beliefs and understandings shaped by individual experiences, values, and commitments (Polanyi, 1966; Nonaka, 1994; Gorman & Pauleen, 2011; [[@blacklerKnowledgeKnowledgeWork1995]]) This process imbues knowledge with both tacit and explicit dimensions rooted in personal interpretation (Nonaka, 1994). In management studies, information requires organising, storing, and mapping to meet specific needs. As such, PIM and its associated activities have closer associations with Library and Information Sciences. Knowledge management necessitates a further qualitative component reflecting particular ways of doing and knowing specific to both the kind of knowledge concerned and the individual engaged in its transformation [[@pauleenPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011]]. Hence, PKM is shaped by personal enquiry—the active pursuit of finding, connecting, learning, and exploring—which turns information into actionable, personalised knowledge to enhance individual effectiveness in personal, organisational, and social contexts (Clemente & Pollara, 2005, ; Pauleen & Gorman, 2011). Drawing from these conceptions, PKM can be formulated as involving two crucial components. First, essential to PKM is the transformation of information into knowledge through situated, contextually shaped cognitive processes of individuals. Second, this transformation involves skills or techniques (note-taking methods, organisational strategies) and the enrolment of technologies (apps, digital tools, software features). These two elements converge for the reflexive, conscious acquisition of competencies in the reproduction, deployment and performance of knowledge-centric activities, and the creation, appreciation and utilisation of knowledge objects. This reflexivity is crucial—PKM involves applying knowledge management to knowledge management itself, creating a recursive loop where the means and ends of knowledge work become entangled in ways that resist analytical separation between cognitive processes and their technological mediation. While this construal of PKM depends largely on formal frameworks, a parallel vernacular discourse with its own values and insights has emerged through tool ecosystems and online communities. ## 1.2 PKM in Productivity Culture: Vernacular Discourse The past fifteen years have witnessed PKM's transformation from niche interest to mainstream productivity phenomenon. This evolution, traced through tools and communities, reveals how informal discourse conceptualises PKM. The tool ecosystem developed through successive platforms, each shaping PKM narratives. PKM's popular emergence began with Evernote (2008), marketed as 'remember everything' and getting 'everything out of your head and into your new, online brain' (Ward, 2015). By 2016, Notion's 'all-in-one workspace' combined notes, databases, tasks, and wikis. Its appeal lay in flexibility—users could build custom systems, triggering what researchers identify as the 'IKEA effect' where people overvalue what they assemble themselves (Pandey, 2023). Roam Research's 2019 emergence marked a shift. Its bi-directional linking created what enthusiasts called 'as profound a mental prosthetic as hypertext' (SBI Growth, 2020). The '#roamcult' phenomenon demonstrated how PKM tools could spark communities around 'networked thought.' Obsidian (2020) extended this movement, attracting over one million users and fostering communities of 110,000+ on Discord despite no formal marketing (Newman, 2023). Online communities have shaped PKM practices through forums like r/Notion and r/Obsidian. YouTube hosts 'tens of thousands of videos' showcasing setups, creating what commentators call a 'metagame' around tools (Pandey, 2023). The 'digital gardening' movement exemplifies community innovation—practitioners use tools for private thinking, then selectively publish 'in-progress, informal' notes publicly (Appleton, 2020). Communities develop collaborative dimensions through mastermind groups and Discord servers. Tiago Forte's 'Building a Second Brain' methodology, launched in 2016, formalised PKM for mainstream audiences (Forte Labs, 2025). The [[PARA Method]] (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) and [[CODE Process]] (Capture, Organise, Distill, Express) offered actionable frameworks many adopted. # 2. The Instrumental View of Technology Across PKM Discourse Having provided a workable representation of PKM, we can now turn to examining how both the formal and community-driven discourse is pervaded by a separation between technology and knowledge practice—both failing to adequately articulate the nature and extent of their entanglement. Both perpetuate technology's instrumental status through two key moves. First, they distinguish processual, cognitive elements—skills, activities, competencies residing in individual minds—from technological tools, treating the former as shapeable through predominantly cognitive means. Second, they often position information overload as a core problem requiring intervention, reducing technologies in the process to solutions that manage the informational conditions people face, rather than examining how technology and practice might be fundamentally entangled. When [[@pauleenPersonalKnowledgeManagement2011 :3]] maintains that 'technology is a tool that can assist in making PKM more effective, but in no way should the technology be viewed as an equivalent of PKM' and that 'technology and its dependents such as social networking are the handmaidens of PKM, nothing more', or when Agnihotri and Troutt (2009:4) analytically distinguish 'PKM skills-tools fit' from 'utilisation' and 'user's context', they establish boundaries that serve certain investigative purposes. Elsewhere, tools are positioned as separate to 'create a clear delimitation between the personal dimension and collective dimension' (Razmerita et al., 2009:10), while the 'core focus' remains 'individual inquest... through combinations of technology and information skills' (Agnihotri & Troutt, 2009:1)—combinations that maintain each element's analytical distinctness. Digital technologies are acknowledged to transform information scarcity into 'ever-increasing attention-consuming information abundance', yet the proposed solution remains instrumental: better tools and methods for managing the flow (Schmitt, 2019:5,18). This framing leaves unsatisfactorily unexamined the possibility that tools become tools only through their enrolment within cognitive processes. The separation between technology and mind that Pauleen (2011:3) assumes may be an artificial distinction imposed after the fact, rather than reflecting how they actually develop together—a note-taking application becomes a knowledge tool only through its integration into thinking practices, just as those practices take shape through available technologies. What we recognise as 'tools' and what we understand as 'cognitive processes' emerge together through practice, not as pre-given entities that subsequently interact. This positions technology as facilitating rather than constituting knowledge work, without considering how tools might fundamentally shape what forms of thinking and doing become possible. The instrumental assumptions become particularly visible in how PKM frameworks characterise core activities. For example, at times the literature frames 'inefficient note-taking' as skill deficits requiring method training through approaches like the Cornell Method or Mind Mapping, rather than recognising these as products of particular tool-technique assemblages (Wright, 2005; Cheong & Tsui, 2011). Information is treated as raw material existing independently of its technological packaging, a human-centric view made explicit in claims that 'PKM skills are far more important than technical tools' (Jain, 2011:4). When discussing tool selection, the choice between platforms is presented as selecting neutral means for implementing predetermined strategies. PKM scholars assert that 'PKM tools should help people to exchange pieces of information into something that can be systematically applied' (Razmerita et al., 2009:10), positioning tools as passive facilitators. Similarly, the 'transformation of information into knowledge' is consistently located within individual cognition, with technology serving merely as storage and retrieval infrastructure. Tagging, classification, and review are treated as transferable skills independent of specific technological affordances (Keller & Tergan, 2005). This instrumental separation between tools and cognition extends beyond academic frameworks. The reproduction of instrumental thinking also manifests in informal PKM contexts, especially as it has been taken up within productivity culture. Success in PKM is increasingly measured through productivity metrics and note-counting practices, with practitioners tracking outputs and analysing link networks as scalable knowledge assets, applying corporate KPI mentalities to personal knowledge work (Carroll, 2022). Popular systems like 'Getting Things Done' (GTD) and 'PARA' explicitly import enterprise knowledge management approaches, while Forte's 'CODE' method directly reproduces linear processing models from management science, treating knowledge work as an assembly line of cognitive operations. Despite practical awareness that different tools enable different practices, informal discourse maintains that methods can be abstracted from their technological instantiation. The 'second brain' metaphor, while suggesting cognitive extension, is typically presented as achievable through any sufficiently featured app. While true in a practical sense, it exemplifies the kind of dualism--material tool on the one hand, ephemeral mind on the other--that instrumental thinking is partly predicated upon. The explanations also tend to be unsatisfactory. In the present, 'second brain' case, simplistic notions from philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience are deployed to explain that hyperlinks between notes are effective because they mirror the structure of human thought patterns (Burleson, 2025). These tendencies to treat technology as 'means to an end' that supports knowledge tasks rather than constituting them, with 'effectiveness depending on how well it matches the user's skills and task requirements' (Agnihotri & Troutt, 2009) are encountered everywhere. These examples, while not exhaustive, hopefully demonstrate how instrumental thinking pervades both academic and informal PKM discourse. ## 2.1 [[Information Overload]] This perspective on technology only becomes more apparent when looking to the proposed driving reasons behind PKM adoption. Central to productivity culture's PKM narrative is information overload (IO) as modern crisis. IO refers to a state of dysfunction occurring in an information processing entity which is subjected to either or both greater amounts and more complex information than it can readily process [[@JamesGrierMiller1978]] . In the case of the knowledge worker, information processing demands on their time exceed the supply or capacity of time available for such processing (Schick et al., 1990:1, 5-6). This has resulted in and been demonstrated by, for example, excessive noise, trivial chatter, and fragmented content that challenges search engine performance and academic information management (Schmitt, 2014). Non-urgent information gets deferred to 'to read' piles that accumulate indefinitely until exceptional events force evaluation (Bergman and Whittaker, 2016; Whittaker, 2011), while archives become cluttered with only marginally relevant data (Bergman and Whittaker, 2016). With this, deleterious effects on both individuals and broader society have been shown to ensue. The phenomenon has been variously identified with a 'poverty of attention' (Simon, 1971) and a reduction in decision-making effectiveness (Miller, 1956). It creates significant stress through the constant requirement to remain contactable (Pauleen & Gorman, 2011) and serves as a driving force behind the 'publish or perish' academic culture (Schmitt, 2014:7). As Pauleen and Gorman (2011) assert, there is no doubt that individuals face the enormous problem of having access to more information than they can comfortably assimilate and manage. They identify information overload as a prime example of an environmental change that rapidly and critically affects how individuals manage and act upon their knowledge. The development of PKM as field of academic enquiry, alongside PIM, is intrinsically linked to the technology revolution and the resulting problem of information overload (Pauleen and Gorman, 2011). Hence, PKM is cast as fundamentally an adaptive strategy, and the tools developed to assist them as intervening apparatuses, together equipping individuals with the skills, methodologies and instrumental means to manage, filter, and synthesise overwhelming information flows into actionable, personalised knowledge (Pauleen and Gorman, 2011; Razmerita et al., 2009). The narrative has been extensively adopted within community discourse, with influential methodologies explicitly framing PKM as antidote to 'Information Exhaustion' and promising cognitive relief through systematic capture and organisation (Forte, 2023; Garratt, n.d.; SaneBox, 2024). One solution mentioned earlier which has arisen in informal productivity discourses, popularised by Tiago Forte, reframes note-taking--a core PKM activity--as building a 'second brain' that 'expand[s] our memory and our intellect using modern tools' (Forte, cited in Carroll, 2022). This metaphor draws on cognitive science: 'our brains are for having ideas, not storing them' (Forte, cited in Carroll, 2022). The idea is that the second brain serves as external repository, allowing knowledge workers to 'capture, store, and retrieve information on demand', offloading mental burden to focus on creative and analytical tasks (Banks, 2023). Enthusiasts claim this practice helps synthesise information and avoid 'starting from scratch' when tackling new problems (Banks, 2023). The narrative extends beyond simple storage. As Forte explains, PKM (inferred in this context to mean both skills and tools) manages content—'the stories, evidence, metaphors, examples, research' that inform work (Forte, cited in Carroll, 2022). This positions PKM as productivity's counterpart: 'productivity is doing the work; PKM is designing and maintaining the knowledge scaffolding that makes the work effective' (Carroll, 2022). ## 2.2 Recursive Dynamics Importantly, IO is not presented as a static problem with a single, unified solution. Instead, IO is argued to be recursive and proliferating. As Rooney and McKenna put it, 'more uncertainty demands more knowledge, more knowledge increases complexity, more complexity demands more abstraction, and more abstraction increases uncertainty' (2005:316). This dominant explanatory narrative tends to centre on information overload as PKM's primary driver, presenting a linear causal progression: ICT expansion creates data abundance, overwhelming processing capacities and necessitating PKM as compensatory mechanism. Every intervention promising information overload relief—new organisational schemes, enhanced metadata, improved search—inevitably adds objects to the system, intensifying the very condition it purports to resolve. Academic research confirms this dynamic: technological advances create accessibility while generating 'redundancy, fragmentation, and obsolescence', with tools for content creation outpacing tools for sense-making (Schmitt, 2019:5,12,16), and despite substantial investments in KMS, many initiatives end in less than desirable outcomes due to a mismatch between the KMS and the kinds of knowledge work they aim to support (Hahn & Wang, 2009). This pattern also manifests in practitioner experiences through widespread 'tool hopping' and 'productivity procrastination'—spending more time optimising PKM systems than producing substantive work. While frequently discussed in productivity blogs and online communities, Murphy (2021) identifies this as PKM's central paradox: elaborate systems can become 'intellectual crutches' that replicate rather than resolve cognitive overload. In some cases, users demand increasingly complex technology believing it provides greater information control, while actual control shifts to technical experts (Jordan, 1999:140). Academic approaches to PKM typically assume recursion is self-terminating once optimal taxonomy is achieved, while informal practice either treats it as user error or celebrates it as creative exploration. The instrumental framework struggles to gain perspective on this recursive problem in order to provide any alternative recourse. Indeed, both perspectives seem to miss the structural--perhaps even constructed--nature of the problem. ## 2.3 Recapitulating the Consequences of Instrumental Thinking The instrumental framework I've tried to illustrate effectively establishes PKM as a set of portable metacognitive skills optimisable independently of technical contexts. Yet this separation obscures what the literature's own findings sometimes suggest: that digital tools actively shape cognitive processes, as 'when learners internalise the tool, they begin to think in terms of it' (Keller & Tergan, 2005). The consequences of this separation run deep. By treating tools as neutral instruments, the framework cannot recognise how technology mediating information access is constituted within value-laden cycles (Jordan, 1999:144). What appear as distinct 'means' (technologies) and 'ends' (knowledge practices) are instead 'different phases of the same essential action' (Latour, 1990)—a unity that the instrumental view systematically obscures. This blindness extends to the framework's own recursive failures. When practitioners identify 'productivity procrastination' or endless 'tool hopping', they frame these as user failures rather than recognising them as symptoms of instrumental thinking's limitations (Murphy, 2021). The recursive multiplication of information through PKM systems—where every intervention adds complexity—gets dismissed as implementation error rather than acknowledged as structural feature inherent to the instrumental approach itself. The framework constrains imagination about knowledge-technology relations even as practice exceeds it. Many users grasp that Obsidian's graph view doesn't represent note connections for purely aesthetic purposes—it materialises a theory of knowledge as network. Notion's blocks do not just store information—they constitute information as modular and recombinable. These aren't tools serving thought; they are, as Latour might suggest, thought made durable—socio-technical configurations that establish what counts as knowledge, management, and practice. Yet discourse lacks vocabulary to articulate these insights theoretically, leaving the field mired within inherited frameworks that cannot fully account for its own practices. This matters because PKM's widespread adoption indicates not just personal productivity concerns, but fundamental shifts in how knowledge, work, and technology are understood and practiced—transformations that instrumental thinking cannot fully grasp. The contradiction between what PKM practitioners do and how they conceptualise their practice demands resolution through alternative theoretical approaches. # 3 Technology as Society Made Durable: An Actor-Network Approach to PKM ## 3.1 Establishing Technical Categories Before proceeding to Latour's thesis, I adopt a distinction from philosophy and anthropology of technology that provides a linguistic frame to unify elements which PKM discourse treats as distinct categories. Following Simondon (1958) and the anthropological tradition of Mauss (1934) and Leroi-Gourhan (1943-1964), technics--formerly 'technology'--can be differentiated into three interrelated aspects: technical objects (tools and inscriptions), technical activities or techniques (patterned doings), and technical milieus (the material-social ecologies conditioning both). To move beyond the instrumentalist scheme requires categories that do not presuppose a prior split between human and technics. This framework enables PKM to be reconceptualised as a sociotechnical phenomenon where human knowledge practices are inseparable from technological mediation. This distinction will be drawn upon throughout: software becomes technical object; PARA method implementation becomes technical activity; plugin ecosystems become technical milieus; and so PKM's totality emerges as technicity--the condition by which technics act, evolve, and integrate with social, cognitive, and material processes. Crucially, this triad is relational and non-hierarchical: each term presupposes and is reciprocally modulated by the others. ## 3.2 Beyond Instrumental Conceptions: [[Actor-Network Theory]] The preceding analysis revealed how both analytical and vernacular conceptions of PKM reproduce instrumental assumptions about technic's neutral, external role in knowledge practices. This shared blind spot prevents adequate theoretical integration, generating apparent 'problems'—recursive dynamics, productivity paradoxes—that are artefacts of inadequate frameworks rather than genuine phenomena requiring solutions. To develop more accurate descriptions of what PKM actually represents requires a theoretical approach that can account for technics's constitutive rather than merely instrumental role in knowledge practices themselves. Bruno Latour's work offers a response to these instrumental assumptions through his analysis of how society and technics interrelate. The thesis I will utilise—that 'technics are society made durable'[^1] (1990:103)—that technological arrangements form the material foundation that enables social relations to maintain continuity and persistence across time. For understanding PKM, this points toward recognising that knowledge practices and their technological mediation shape each other in ways that frameworks pervaded by instrumentalist thinking cannot adequately capture. Before proceeding, it is necessary to acknowledge the substantial philosophical difficulties within Latour's Actor-Network Theory. Critics like [[@bloorAntiLatour1999]] have demonstrated that ANT's metaphysical foundations—particularly its attempt to transcend the subject-object schema through concepts like 'actants' and 'sociotechnical assemblages'—often collapse into conceptual confusion or revert to conventional sociological analysis. Terms like 'assemblages', 'networks of associations', and 'symmetrical anthropology' embed problematic ontological commitments that suggest radical equivalence between humans and non-humans, while Latour's actual analyses frequently rely on the very distinctions his theory claims to dissolve. A full treatment of these philosophical tensions lies beyond the scope of this dissertation. However, stripped of its more ambitious metaphysical claims, Latour's observation that 'technics are society made durable' (1990:103) provides crucial analytical leverage for understanding PKM systems. This analysis therefore adopts ANT's vocabulary pragmatically, using terms like 'sociotechnical' not to invoke ontological symmetry but to highlight how knowledge practices achieve stability through technological instantiation. The focus remains on durability as a concept for characterising how PKM technics—particularly atomic notes, as we shall see—function as crystallised methods rather than neutral tools. ### 3.2.1 The Great Divide and PKM's Instrumental Logic Latour posits a foundational separation within modernity—the 'Great Divide'—that allocates intentionality and culture solely to humans while consigning objects to a silent, mechanical domain (Latour, 1993:20–21, 114). This distinction is sustained through ongoing _purification_ work—the analytical process of maintaining clear boundaries between 'the social' and 'the technical'—despite the continuous proliferation of hybrid entities that are simultaneously material and semiotic (Latour, 1993:37–38, 57, 63, 73, 119).[^2] When academic approaches treat 'tagging notes by subject' as transferable cognitive skills independent of specific software affordances, they reproduce the Great Divide by locating agency solely within human cognition while reducing technical objects to neutral infrastructure. The separation becomes explicit in assertions that technical objects remain the 'handmaiden' of PKM, 'nothing more' (Pauleen & Gorman, 2011:3). The immaterial/material boundary shapes how PKM is conceived and practiced, influencing software design and user expectations while potentially limiting our understanding of how humans and technics interact in knowledge practices (Latour, 1993:110; 2005:82, 85–87). This conceptual division manifests in how PKM software is designed, marketed, and used—with assumed boundaries between 'user interfaces' and 'human operators'—though it may not fully capture the ongoing interactions between practitioners and their tools. In practice, what we observe are neither purely cognitive skills nor simply neutral tools, but rather knowledge practices that emerge through the interplay of human intentions, software affordances, established methods, and accumulated materials (Latour, 1990:8). ### 3.2.2 Symmetrical Analysis and Socio-Technical Networks Latour's methodological remedy involves _symmetrical anthropology_ that recognises all entities capable of making a difference—people, algorithms, tags, note-taking apps, organisational schemes—as _actants_ (Latour, 1993:103; 2005:20). Within a network, an actant refers to anything that acts or can be made to act—its identity stems from its actions within relational assemblages rather than inherent characteristics (Latour, 2005:64, 81–82). ANT reconceptualises 'the social' beyond human-only interactions to encompass connections and movements among all entities: chemical bonds, legal relationships, software protocols, citation networks—where linkages connect actants (Latour, 2005:15). This approach replaces explanations based on abstract 'social forces' with detailed network tracings that produce such effects. Network characteristics—length, density, and processes of translation—determine power, agency, and stability, not any presumed human or material essences. This perspective offers valuable insights for understanding PKM, though not necessarily through ANT's full theoretical apparatus. Rather than locating knowledge management predominantly within individual cognition enhanced by neutral tools, we can recognise how different technical platforms embody and perpetuate distinct approaches to knowledge work. When a user selects Obsidian over Notion, this choice involves more than tool selection—it represents adoption of different philosophies materialised in software: Obsidian's (Obsidian, n.d.) markdown files, graph-view visualisations, plugin ecosystem, and user community emphasise one set of practices, while Notion's (Notion, n.d.) database structures, block-based architecture, and productivity-focused design instantiate another. While formal academic studies comparing these preferences are lacking, informal discourse suggests Obsidian attracts users who value 'local files, coding, customisation' while Notion develops following around its all-in-one workspace flexibility (based on user forums and community discussions). Each platform durably encodes particular methods and assumptions about knowledge work, shaping what practitioners come to understand as effective knowledge management. A practitioner's note-taking competency doesn't reside solely in their cognitive skills but develops through the interplay of embodied practices, software affordances, methodological frameworks, community discourse, and accumulated notes. This suggests that adequate descriptions of knowledge work must account for how tools, methods, and social contexts shape practice, rather than focusing exclusively on individual cognitive capacities. What appears as a 'productivity paradox' from instrumental perspectives becomes more comprehensible when we recognise how each new tool or method introduces additional elements that must be integrated into existing practices. Rather than viewing these as neutral additions to a stable system, we can understand them as modifications to the durable arrangements through which knowledge work is accomplished. ### 3.2.3 Technics as Durability, Not Instrument Latour's framework reveals technics as more than instruments fulfilling human needs—it constitutes material configurations that entrench and reproduce specific modes of practice (Latour, 1990:27; 2005:45, 80). This approach reframes technical arrangements from passive infrastructure to active substrates that grant temporal persistence to ways of working. For Latour, durability represents an accomplishment demanding perpetual effort rather than an inherent quality. Without continuous reconstitution, collectives dissolve; achieving persistence necessitates material carriers that sustain continuity (Latour, 2005:45). Such durability arises through concrete operations in actor-networks rather than vague 'social forces'—operations that follow two primary mechanisms: association and translation. These mechanisms enable diverse statements—defined as 'anything thrown, sent, or delegated by an enunciator', encompassing words, sentences, objects, devices, or institutions (Latour, 1990:4)—to consolidate into 'black boxes.' Such durability arises through concrete operations in actor-networks rather than vague 'social forces'—operations that follow two primary mechanisms. Association incorporates additional actants or creates new linkages, extending or reinforcing connective pathways, while translation transforms elements, allowing them to substitute for or reorient others, thus reshaping network trajectories (Latour, 1990:4; 2005:116–18). Through these processes, entities present stable, dependable exteriors while concealing their constituent complexity. Within this conception, power and permanence emerge from relentless processes of connection, transformation, and preservation (Latour 1990:21, 27; 2005:80, 113, 248). Even reality depends on sustained network support; existence requires the web of relations that maintains it (Latour, 1990:16). Technics thus designates those concentrated nodes where consolidated associations form the material basis enabling practices to endure. However, ANT's strength in revealing _how_ connections endure contrasts with its relative silence on _why_ particular arrangements achieve black-box stability while others dissolve or succumb to competing forces. Latour's durability model—grounded in lengthening associational sequences—gives minimal consideration to categorical differences between association types. While recognising that extended chains produce stronger realities, the approach offers few conceptual tools to account for differential chain growth and survival. Latour might argue that such explanations emerge through careful empirical tracing of specific associations—a point I accept. Nevertheless, the ANT contains analytical possibilities that merit--and have gained since its original formulation--further development. To recapitulate: through association and translation, technics consolidate into black boxes—material configurations that entrench specific practices while concealing their internal complexity. This durability emerges not from inherent properties but from continuous network maintenance, where technics serve as the substrate enabling practices to persist across time and space. While ANT illuminates these mechanisms of persistence, questions remain about differential outcomes—why certain configurations achieve black-box stability while others disappear. To ground these theoretical considerations, we now examine atomic notes as an exemplary case of technical durability in action, before returning to develop analytical tools that might account for such differential persistence. ## 3.3 Atomic Notes: A Concrete Instance of Technical Durability Within contemporary knowledge management discourse, _atomic notes_ represent a particularly instructive case of how specific technical forms achieve durability through material instantiation. The concept derives from sociologist Niklas Luhmann's _Zettelkasten_ method, documented in his extensive slip-box archive now digitised at the University of Bielefeld (Niklas Luhmann-Archiv, n.d.). Luhmann's practice of writing discrete, interlinked notes on index cards—what he called 'Zettel'—has been reconceptualised for digital environments as the principle of 'atomicity': each note should encapsulate a single, self-contained idea to facilitate dense interlinking and flexible recombination. This principle gained renewed prominence following Sönke Ahrens's _How to Take Smart Notes_ (2017), which translated Luhmann's analog practices for digital tools. The subsequent proliferation of terminology—from Andy Matuschak's 'evergreen notes' [(Matuschak, n.d.)](https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes)) to variations like Jon Sterling's computational interpretations [(Sterling, n.d.)](https://www.jonmsterling.com/)—indicates broader recognition of how digital environments enable fundamentally different approaches to textual manipulation. Where Luhmann's physical cards imposed natural constraints on size and linkage, digital implementations permit unlimited connections, transclusion, and dynamic reorganisation. Community adoption reveals the principle's malleability across contexts. Online forums from [zettelkasten.de](https://zettelkasten.de/) to tool-specific communities on Reddit (r/ObsidianMD, r/RoamResearch) have developed competing interpretations: some advocate extreme granularity ('tweet-length' notes), while others emphasise conceptual completeness over size constraints. These communities advance specific claims about atomic notes' benefits—from enhanced organisation within 'Second Brains' to improved clarity of thinking and seamless integration with workflows like spaced repetition—that merit systematic examination. This interpretive flexibility has proven crucial to the method's durability—the core principle persists even as implementations vary dramatically. Contemporary tools instantiate atomicity through specific technical features. Roam Research pioneered block-level referencing, making every bullet point a potential 'atom.' Obsidian implements file-based atomicity with bidirectional linking and graph visualisation. Notion employs database structures that treat notes as discrete records. Each platform's affordances[^3]—a concept derived from Gibson's ecological approach (Gibson, 1979) that, while highly contested theoretically, has proven useful for describing digital environments and pervades discourse about software features—shape how practitioners understand and implement atomic principles. These affordances warrant particular attention: spatial manipulation capabilities that allow notes to be repositioned and juxtaposed on infinite canvases; metadata granularity enabled by narrow scope; and transclusion features that permit decomposition while maintaining navigability. Analytically, atomic notes present a dual character that requires investigation: they function both as products of technique (in Mauss's (1934) sense of efficacious traditional actions) and as technical objects in their own right. This duality suggests that atomic notes don't merely store information but actively transform epistemic practices—making explicit the contextual contingencies that shape knowledge validation and coherence. When software enforces atomic structures through interface constraints, file formats, or linking mechanisms, it doesn't merely 'support' a method—it constitutes what that method becomes in practice. This exemplifies durability: the principle achieves persistence not through ideological commitment but through embedding in tools, workflows, and communities. ### 3.3.1 From Atomic Notes to Broader Implications The atomic note principle illuminates how technological durability operates across PKM systems. Consider Obsidian's markdown philosophy, graph visualisation, and plugin architecture—these don't merely 'assist' pre-existing practices but help constitute what those practices become. When practitioners adopt Obsidian, they're not simply selecting a tool but entering a system where software affordances, community conventions materialised in plugins, and circulated methodologies together shape knowledge work. This exemplifies the key insight: PKM technologies help establish what counts as legitimate knowledge practice. Wiki-links don't facilitate connections between ideas—they make linking a central epistemic activity. Through repeated use, certain configurations achieve recursive reinforcement, strengthening their own conditions of existence. This explains why methods like Zettelkasten, GTD, and PARA maintain coherence across diverse contexts while others fragment. Recognising technological durability recasts the recursive dynamics identified earlier. PKM's tendency to regenerate its own problems reflects not implementation failure but how contemporary knowledge work operates—each intervention modifies existing practices while creating new coordination challenges. This opens a further question: What enables certain schemes to persist while others prove ephemeral? This moves beyond instrumental concerns to examine how knowledge practices and their technological supports co-develop, while also requiring theoretical tools capable of explaining differential persistence—why Obsidian's markdown philosophy achieves widespread adoption while other note-taking paradigms dissolve, or how the Zettelkasten principle maintains coherence across radically different technical instantiations. While ANT reveals how associations create durability, it offers limited resources for understanding why certain configurations succeed where others fail. The atomic note case exposes this analytical gap: we can trace how the principle achieves durability through material instantiation, but ANT's framework struggles to explain its remarkable persistence compared to countless forgotten knowledge management schemes. To address these questions about platform-specific practices and organisational scheme longevity, we must first develop ANT's latent analytical possibilities—particularly around how different types of associations and configurations create varying durability outcomes. ## 3.4 Extending ANT: Theorising Associative Potential Although Latour maintains that objects and social relations never appear in pure isolation, this position doesn't preclude recognising that entities possess identifiable boundaries (whether material or abstract) and demonstrate varying capacities for network engagement. When examining our environment, we can identify discrete entities—from tangible artefacts like atomic notes to abstract constructs like the principle of atomicity itself—that display markedly different abilities to create and sustain connections. I suggest conceptualising these variable capabilities as 'associative potential': the differential capacity among actants to forge, preserve, and proliferate network linkages. A bidirectional link in Obsidian, for example, exhibits particular associative potential toward connected notes that a written description of linking practices lacks. While this capacity isn't simply an inherent feature independent of context, but rather manifests through specific relational circumstances, such differential potential remains both genuine and significant for comprehending network emergence and persistence. The atomic note exemplifies this: its associative potential derives not from atomicity as abstract principle but from its instantiation within specific software environments that enable bidirectional linking, transclusion, and graph visualisation. This framework preserves ANT's relational foundation while providing additional analytical precision. Associative potential isn't a latent property awaiting activation but a relational capacity that emerges through specific material-semiotic arrangements. Just as Latour shows that power is 'composed' through associations rather than 'possessed' (1986:264-265), associative potential describes patterns in how associations form and stabilise rather than invoking essential qualities. Network connections don't occur randomly. When certain actants successfully recruit numerous entities, this pattern demands explanation beyond fortune or nebulous references to essential characteristics. ANT's underdeveloped aspect concerns how association _types_ and _configurations_ substantially influence durability prospects. Various arrangements yield different effect intensities and qualities. A bidirectional link in Obsidian creates functional pathways between notes, automatically updating backlinks and enabling direct navigation through knowledge structures; a written description of linking practices might explain the concept but cannot itself forge operational connections between ideas. Each participates in associative sequences, yet one directly constructs navigable relationships while the other functions via symbolic, representational channels. This contrast—distinguishing material from symbolic linkage—demonstrates how varied relational processes create categorically different network durabilities. Though Latour dismisses the possibility of encountering objects or relationships in isolation, ANT acknowledges significant variation between actants. If actants derive definition entirely from network positions, these positions necessarily manifest unequal recruitment potentials. This recognition suggests that associative strength depends both on enrolment quantity and structural arrangement—_configurational features_ that ANT scholars have theorised about. Callon's (1986) concept of 'obligatory passage points' identifies actants that control essential passages by making themselves indispensable to network function. Law (1992) explores how heterogeneous materials 'join together to generate themselves and reproduce institutional and organisational patterns', implying differential positional power within networks. Building on these insights, we can identify key configurational features: nodes (multiply-connected actants functioning as spokespersons or delegates), connectors (actants bridging separate networks), and constraints (obligatory passage points controlling critical channels). In the atomic note ecosystem, platforms like Obsidian function as obligatory passage points—users must work through their specific affordances to participate in the broader Zettelkasten community. Two analytical questions emerge. First, can we distinguish an actant's associative potential stemming from its composition versus its network location? Within ANT's framework, this becomes complicated since 'composition' already constitutes networked associations. However, certain patterns demonstrably recur across situations, indicating associative arrangement stability. The dual character of atomic notes illuminates this tension: as technical objects, they possess compositional features (modularity, self-containment) that persist across platforms; yet their associative potential varies dramatically depending on whether they exist within Roam's block-reference environment versus Obsidian's file-based system. For further clarity, we can differentiate two aspects of associative potential. Maintenance power refers to an actant's capacity to preserve current associations despite resistance or competing programs, while recruitment power denotes its capacity to incorporate new entities into its network. These dimensions operate independently. The Zettelkasten method itself exemplifies high maintenance power—persisting from Luhmann's analog cards through multiple digital incarnations—while individual platforms show variable recruitment power. Roam Research demonstrated explosive initial recruitment but struggled with maintenance as users migrated to alternatives. Meanwhile, the atomic note principle achieves excellence across both dimensions: maintaining coherence across decades and contexts while continuously recruiting new practitioners through varied technical instantiations. This framework clarifies durability patterns. Certain actants become essential conduits through harmonising maintenance (securing current links) and recruitment (establishing new connections). Others collapse from inability to balance these requirements. The proliferation of atomic note implementations—from 'tweet-length' interpretations to more substantial 'evergreen' notes—demonstrates how the principle's interpretive flexibility enables both maintenance of core concepts and recruitment of diverse communities. Crucially, this analytical approach preserves ANT's relational foundation while enhancing our capacity to examine durability variations. ## 3.5 Immutable Mobiles and the Durability of Knowledge Objects Having examined atomic notes as exemplars of technical durability, we can now explore why certain knowledge objects achieve exceptional persistence across diverse contexts. Latour's analysis of immutable mobiles—objects that maintain coherence while circulating across different sites—offers particularly valuable insights for understanding how practices like atomic note writing become paradigmatic within PKM communities. ### 3.5.1 Latour's Analysis of Durable Information Objects Latour defines immutable mobiles as representational artefacts—inscriptions, diagrams, charts, and maps—that remain stable while traveling across different contexts and distances (Latour, 1986:7). These objects accomplish the remarkable task of transporting information from one site to another without losing their essential form or meaning despite undergoing significant physical transformations in the process. The concept emerged from Latour's investigation of how scientific knowledge achieves universality and authority. Scientific facts depend not on abstract logical properties but on the material circulation of inscriptions that maintain their integrity while traveling across laboratories, conferences, and publications. Maps enable governance at a distance; laboratory diagrams allow comparison across experimental contexts; mathematical formulae facilitate calculation and aggregation of diverse data sets. These objects become crucial in the practical work of science and administration, since only they can circulate, be aggregated, and compared without degradation, thus allowing the construction of facts and the governance of large systems (Latour, 1986:13). They accumulate in what he terms 'centers of calculation'—sites where diverse inscriptions converge to enable comparison, synthesis, and strategic action. ### 3.5.2 From Immutable Mobiles to Associative Potential: Theorising Latour's Empirical Patterns Latour's analysis of immutable mobiles provides rich empirical descriptions of how certain inscriptions achieve exceptional durability. He identifies key properties—combinability, mobility with immutability, optical consistency—and observes that 'successful circulation tends to attract further associations' (1986:13). However, while Latour documents these self-reinforcing patterns, he stops short of theorising the mechanism that drives them. This analytical gap becomes apparent in his discussion of scientific inscriptions. Latour shows how 'positive feedback will get under way' (1986:13) when inscriptions accumulate, noting that 'the cost of disagreeing will increase' as more resources align. Yet he doesn't explain why some configurations trigger this feedback while others don't. His framework describes the cascade of inscriptions but not the differential capacity to initiate cascades. I propose the notion of 'associative potential' extends Latour's empirical observations by specifying the mechanism underlying these patterns. Where Latour identifies properties of successful immutable mobiles, associative potential theorises how these properties generate recursive dynamics through network positioning. Associative potential doesn't invoke inherent properties but rather describes how Latour's material characteristics—optical consistency, combinability, immutability—create differential capacities for network engagement. Consider Latour's example of perspective drawing (1986:7-8): its 'two-way relationship' between object and representation isn't just a property but a capacity that emerges from specific material configurations. The perspective drawing possesses associative potential not as essence but as a function of how its optical consistency enables particular types of connections. Building on Latour's insights about why certain objects achieve exceptional durability, we can observe that specific actants demonstrate associative potential that naturally becomes recursive—the capacity not only to maintain existing associations but to amplify their ability to enrol further actors through positive feedback loops. This recursive property emerges when associative potential is effectively realised: each successful association enhances the capacity for future associations, creating self-perpetuating dynamics. This helps explain how certain technological forms make particular practices durable while others remain ephemeral. This recursive dynamic operates not through superior functionality but through the capacity to constitute the very criteria by which functionality is assessed. When atomic notes become widespread, they don't just serve the practice of linking—they establish linking as fundamental to knowledge work. Each new user enrolled doesn't just adopt a tool but enters a socio-technical configuration where knowledge is already understood as atomic, linkable, and networked. The recursion occurs because the technics makes its own logic increasingly indispensable: the more knowledge becomes atomic, the more atomicity becomes necessary for participating in knowledge work. ### 3.5.3 From Properties to Potential: Analysing Latour's Nine Advantages Latour identifies nine advantages of inscriptions (1986:20-22): mobility, immutability, flat surfaces, scale modification, reproducibility, recombinability, superimposition, inscription-text integration, and two-dimensional manipulation. These aren't merely features but capabilities that enable differential network effects. These advantages cluster into two analytical dimensions. Maintenance power—comprising immutability, flat surfaces, and inscription-text integration—preserves existing associations by ensuring inscriptions retain their form, accumulate stably, and maintain internal coherence. Recruitment power—encompassing mobility, reproducibility, and recombinability—enables new associations by allowing inscriptions to travel across contexts, multiply their presence, and flexibly combine with other elements. This analysis reveals why certain immutable mobiles achieve cascade effects while others remain isolated: effective associative potential emerges when configurations optimise both dimensions simultaneously. Latour's account of La Pérouse's map (1986:5-7) illustrates associative potential in action. The map doesn't just possess mobility and immutability as properties—it demonstrates high associative potential by maintaining coherence across the long voyage from the Pacific to Versailles, enabling productive accumulation with other cartographic inscriptions at the centre of calculation, and establishing itself as an obligatory passage point through which all future Pacific navigation must pass. What Latour describes empirically, associative potential theorises systematically: the map's success derives from its positioning within networks that amplify both maintenance and recruitment capacities. ### 3.5.4 Immutable Mobiles and Boundary Objects: Convergent Patterns Latour's immutable mobiles and Star and Griesemer's boundary objects (1989) demonstrate similar patterns of associative potential through complementary mechanisms, suggesting underlying structural principles. Immutable mobiles achieve exceptional durability through their bridging capacity—connecting laboratory practices, theoretical frameworks, and field observations into coherent systems. By spanning otherwise disconnected domains, they become obligatory passage points whose removal would fragment networks. Their associative potential becomes recursive through this topological advantage: each successful translation across contexts strengthens their capacity for future enrolments. Boundary objects exhibit parallel dynamics through different means. These entities remain 'plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites' (Star & Griesemer, 1989:393). Their durability stems from accommodating diverse interpretations while preserving shared structure—a different manifestation of how associative potential can achieve recursive self-reinforcement. The independent emergence of these concepts across Science and Technology Studies suggests they capture fundamental principles of socio-technical durability. Both identify objects that achieve stability through enhanced connectivity rather than isolation—precisely the kind of effective associative potential that naturally exhibits recursive dynamics. ### 3.5.5 Atomic Notes as PKM's Immutable Mobiles and Boundary Objects Within PKM discourse, atomic notes exemplify both immutable mobiles and boundary objects, demonstrating how associative potential operates recursively in knowledge management contexts. They achieve immutability through structural integrity: their modular design maintains internal coherence regardless of context. They achieve mobility through digital affordances: wiki-style bidirectional linking, block transclusion, and metadata annotation enable seamless circulation within Integrated Thinking Environments like Obsidian, Roam Research, and Capacities. As boundary objects, atomic notes demonstrate remarkable adaptability, exhibiting 'variable degrees of structure'—functioning as loosely structured thought prompts in creative contexts while serving as rigorously formatted data points in analytical workflows. A single atomic note may simultaneously represent a supporting claim within one knowledge framework and an objection within another, making explicit the interpretive contingencies that shape knowledge validation. ### 3.5.6 Associative Potential in Agonistic Contexts Latour emphasises that inscriptions matter because they help actors 'win' in situations where 'you doubt of what I say? I'll show you' (1986:14). Associative potential extends this insight by explaining differential success in these agonistic encounters. Atomic notes demonstrate high associative potential precisely because they excel in PKM's competitive dynamics—the ongoing struggle to manage ever-expanding information. Their modular structure and linking capabilities don't just organise information; they help practitioners demonstrate mastery, share insights convincingly, and build authoritative knowledge structures. The recursive dynamics emerge because each successful use reinforces the very criteria by which PKM success is judged. ### 3.5.7 Digital Affordances and the Recursive Nature of Associative Potential Atomic notes exemplify technics as durability through their capacity to make particular forms of knowledge work persist. Their discrete structure doesn't merely enable manipulation—it constitutes discreteness as a fundamental property of knowledge itself. When knowledge becomes atomic, it becomes linkable, recombinerable, and searchable in ways that reshape what practitioners understand knowledge to be. Digital affordances participate in this constitution. Bidirectional linking doesn't facilitate pre-existing connections but establishes connection-making as the primary mode of knowing. Metadata structures don't simply organise information but define what aspects of knowledge become organisationally relevant. The visual graph doesn't represent relationships—it materialises a specific conception of knowledge as network. Each successful use of atomic notes strengthens this particular configuration of knowledge work. Notes that accumulate links become epistemically privileged not because they contain better information, but because the socio-technical assemblage constitutes linking as value. The recursive dynamics emerge naturally from effective associative potential: heavily-linked notes attract more links precisely because the technics has made linking constitutive of knowledge practice itself. This isn't a tool becoming more useful—it's a way of knowing becoming more durable through material instantiation. Through this analysis, atomic notes reveal themselves as PKM technologies with exceptional associative potential that exhibits strongly recursive properties—achieving durability not through superior information storage but through network configurations that naturally amplify their capacity for enrolment. Their success illuminates broader principles of socio-technical durability that Latour's analysis of immutable mobiles anticipated but didn't systematically theorise. ### 3.5.8 Resolving PKM's Recursive Problems The durability framework reveals PKM not as a solution to information overload but as a site where particular forms of knowledge work become materially persistent. The recursive problems identified in §2—where every solution multiplies complexity—emerge precisely because PKM technologies don't merely manage information but constitute what counts as information worth managing. Each intervention adds not just data but new criteria for what knowledge work should accomplish. This is technics as society made durable: not tools serving pre-existing practices, but material configurations that establish which practices persist and which perish. The concept of associative potential extends Latour's immutable mobiles framework by theorising the mechanism behind the recursive patterns he observes empirically, providing analytical tools through the dimensions of maintenance and recruitment power for comparing different configurations, and explaining differential durability while preserving ANT's relational ontology. Rather than departing from Latour's material focus, this approach systematises his insights about how certain inscriptions achieve exceptional network effects. It shifts the analytical question from Latour's 'how do inscriptions help actors win?' to the more specific 'why do some inscriptions help actors win more consistently than others?' These questions about differential persistence demand theoretical tools capable of explaining why certain configurations succeed where others fail. The concept of associative potential—with its inherent tendency toward recursive dynamics when effectively realised—provides such a tool, enabling more systematic examination of how different actants demonstrate varying capacities for network engagement and durability. Building on Latour's observation that technics marks when social assemblages achieve stability through actor-observer alignment (1990:27), this framework identifies associative potential as the specific _mechanism_ enabling such stability. Stability emerges via recursive dynamics generated when particular configurations prove effective at establishing and sustaining network connections. Under this reconceptualisation, technics comprises those network nodes whose unique associational arrangements grant them superior abilities to recruit and sustain additional connections. Rather than rejecting ANT's relational ontology, this approach expands it to address observable variations in durability—accounting for why some human-nonhuman actant configurations persist substantially longer than others. Having established how atomic notes achieve exceptional durability through recursive associative potential, we can now explore several implications of this ANT-based analysis. These implications concern the relationship between form and content in knowledge artefacts, the nature of linguistic stabilisation, and what it means for explicitly semantic objects to function as technical infrastructure. # 4. Implications and Conclusion ## 4.1 Toward Further Analysis Having traced how atomic notes achieve durability through recursive associative potential, we can explore what this might mean for how we understand knowledge artefacts. These implications touch on the relationship between form and content, the nature of linguistic stabilisation, and what happens when explicitly semantic objects start functioning as technical infrastructure. ## Form, Content, and Technical Stabilisation The question of whether atomic notes exhibit associative potential independently of their content seems worth pursuing. Consider their typical features: discrete boundaries, metadata fields, bidirectional links, and computational addressability. These formal properties stay the same whether a note contains a philosophical argument or a grocery list. But this consistency isn't neutral—it appears to shape what the content can do within knowledge networks. The atomic form might work as a kind of _technical envelope_ that gives specific capacities to whatever content it holds. When we atomise an insight about, say, Latour's immutable mobiles, it doesn't just become easier to find. It can now be transcluded without losing context, referenced without duplication, and recombined without falling apart. The form seems to grant what Latour calls 'combinability', but through digital rather than visual means. This could represent a shift in how linguistic statements achieve durability. Traditional writing persisted through physical inscription and institutional circulation—books, journals, archives. Atomic notes might achieve durability differently: by making language computationally tractable while keeping semantic richness. The metadata isn't just cataloging; it could be a technical membrane that lets semantic content interface with algorithmic operations while staying human-readable. What does it mean for semantic artefacts to stabilise as technical objects? When linguistic statements become atomic notes, they might not simply gain new properties—they could become nodes in a technical system where meaning emerges from connection patterns as much as from content. The graph view in Obsidian doesn't just visualise relationships; it might constitute knowledge as fundamentally relational, where orphaned notes appear as problems needing integration. As a technical activity, atomic note-taking seems to transform thinking practices. Breaking continuous thought into discrete, linkable units isn't necessarily a neutral operation—it could be a technical practice that reshapes idea development. Many practitioners report thinking in terms of potential connections while writing, anticipating future links. This might not be just tool influence but thinking _through_ the technical form, where anticipated associations shape initial expression. The meanings that seem to come with atomic form cluster around themes like: _modularity_ (expecting knowledge can be decomposed and recomposed), _addressability_ (assuming every idea needs a unique identifier), _connectivity_ (believing value emerges through relationships), and _versioning_ (seeing knowledge as evolving through traceable modifications). These might not be just features but epistemic commitments embedded in the form. What's interesting is how these formal meanings apparently persist across content domains. An atomic note about quantum mechanics and one about cooking both seem to carry the implicit assertion that knowledge benefits from decomposition, that ideas should be addressable, that value comes through connection. The form doesn't determine semantic content but might establish conditions for what becomes knowledge within the system. This analysis suggests atomic notes as a case of technical forms shaping semantic space—not replacing meaning with mechanism, but possibly establishing new conditions for meaningfulness. The recursive dynamics could emerge because each successful use reinforces these conditions: heavily-linked notes might attract further connections not because they contain better ideas but because they better embody what the system values. ## Conclusion Hopefully I have shown how PKM technologies, particularly atomic notes, might transcend instrumental framings to help constitute knowledge practices. By extending ANT's framework with the concept of associative potential, I've tried to present how certain configurations could achieve durability through recursive dynamics rather than some inexplicable superior functionality. The atomic note's apparent success suggests something worth considering: as linguistic statements stabilise through technical form, they might not simply become more manageable but participate in reconstituting what counts as knowledge in digital environments. This could exemplify technology as society made durable in Latour's sense—not tools serving thought but material configurations that help establish which forms of thinking persist and proliferate. These are preliminary observations that warrant further investigation. The relationship between technical form and semantic content in knowledge artefacts remains complex and deserving of continued attention as PKM practices evolve and spread. # Bibliography 1. Aal, K., & Rüller, M. (2025). From Personal Knowledge Management to the Second Brain to the Personal AI Companion. In _Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems_ (pp. 1–10). ACM. 2. Abandon Information Overload With Building A Second Brain. (2024, February 27). _SaneBox Blog_. [https://blog.sanebox.com/2024/02/27/abandon-information-overload-with-building-a-second-brain/](https://blog.sanebox.com/2024/02/27/abandon-information-overload-with-building-a-second-brain/) 3. Agnihotri, R., & Troutt, M. D. (2009). The effective use of technology in personal knowledge management: A framework of skills, tools and user context. _Online Information Review_, 33(2), 329–342. [https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520910951249](https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520910951249) 4. Ahrens, S. (2017). _How to take smart notes: One simple technique to boost writing, learning and thinking_. Sönke Ahrens. 5. Appleton, M. (2020). Tending Evergreen Notes in Roam Research. [https://maggieappleton.com/roam-garden/](https://maggieappleton.com/roam-garden/) 6. Avery, S., Brooks, R., Brown, J., Dorsey, P., & O'Connor, M. (2001). Personal knowledge management: Framework for integration and partnerships. In _Annual Conference of the Association of Small Computer Users in Education (ASCUE)_. 7. Banks, A. (2023). From Notetaking to Neuralink: The Problem of Information Overload and the Evolution of the Second Brain. _Contrary Research_. [https://research.contrary.com/deep-dive/from-notetaking-to-neuralink](https://research.contrary.com/deep-dive/from-notetaking-to-neuralink) 8. Bergman, O., & Whittaker, S. (2016). _The science of managing our digital stuff_. The MIT Press. 9. Best Note Taking App—Organise Your Notes with Evernote. (n.d.). _Evernote_. Retrieved May 28, 2025, from [https://evernote.com/](https://evernote.com/) 10. Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organisations: An Overview and Interpretation. _Organisation Studies_, 16(6), 1021-1046. 11. Bloor, D. (1999). Anti-Latour. _Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A_, _30_(1), 81–112. [https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-3681(98)00038-7](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-3681\(98\)00038-7) 12. Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as thing. _Journal of the American Society for Information Science_, 42(5), 351-360. 13. Burleson, C. (2025, March 2). Patterns for PKM: Bidirectional Linking. _Medium_. [https://medium.com/@cody.burleson/patterns-for-pkm-bidirectional-linking-c0c61f380334](https://medium.com/@cody.burleson/patterns-for-pkm-bidirectional-linking-c0c61f380334 14. Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), _Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?_ (pp. 196-233). London: Routledge. 15. Carroll, R. (2022). Building a Second Brain: An Interview with Tiago Forte. _Bullet Journal Blog_. [https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/building-a-second-brain-an-interview-with-tiago-forte](https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/building-a-second-brain-an-interview-with-tiago-forte) 16. Chakrabarty, D. (2000). _Provincialising Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (New Edition)_. Princeton University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rsx9 17. Cheong, R. K. F., & Tsui, E. (2011). From Skills and Competencies to Outcome-based Collaborative Work: Tracking a Decade's Development of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Models. _Knowledge and Process Management_, 18(3), 175–193. [https://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.380](https://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.380) 18. Clemente, B. E., & Pollara, V. J. (2005). Mapping the Course, Marking the Trail. _IT Professional_, 7(6), 10–15. [https://doi.org/10.1109/MITP.2005.149](https://doi.org/10.1109/MITP.2005.149) 19. Collins, H. M. (1992). Epistemological Chicken HM Collins and Steven Yearley. In Andrew Pickering, Science as practice and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 301. 20. Coupaye, L. (2022). Technology. In L. A. De Cunzo & C. D. Roeber (Eds.), _The Cambridge Handbook of Material Culture Studies_ (1st ed., pp. 436–468). Cambridge University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622639.018](https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622639.018) 21. Efimova, L. (2006). Personal knowledge management: The key to individual productivity. _Inside Knowledge_, 9(6). 22. Feenberg, 2002 - Andrew Feenberg's 'Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited' (2002) 23. Floridi, Luciano. _Information - a Very Short Introduction_. Very Short Introductions 225. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 24. ForteLabs.co. (n.d.). _Forte Labs_. Retrieved May 28, 2025, from [https://fortelabs.com/](https://fortelabs.com/) 25. Frand, J., & Hixon, C. (1999). Personal knowledge management: Who, what, why, when, where, how? _UCLA Anderson School of Management Working Paper_. 26. Garratt, S. (2024, July 22). Your Second Brain: The answer to information overload. _The Creative Life_. [https://thecreativelife.net/second-brain/](https://thecreativelife.net/second-brain/) 27. Goody, J. (1977). _The domestication of the savage mind_. Cambridge University Press. 28. Gorman, G. E., & Pauleen, D. J. (2010). The nature and value of personal knowledge management. In D. J. Pauleen & G. E. Gorman (Eds.), _Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organisational and Social Perspectives_ (pp. 1-16). Gower. 29. Gurteen, D. (2009). People-centred knowledge management. Retrieved from [http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/pckm](http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/pckm) 30. Hahn, J., & Wang, T. (2009). Knowledge management systems and organisational knowledge processing challenges: A field experiment. _Decision Support Systems_, 47(4), 332–342. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2009.03.001](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2009.03.001) 31. Heidegger, M. (1977). _The question concerning technology, and other essays_. Garland Publishing. 32. Higgison, C. (2004). Personal knowledge management: A strategy for managing personal information and knowledge. _The Knowledge Tree_, Issue 6. 33. Ihde, D. (Ed.). (2010). _Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth_. Indiana University Press. 34. Jain, P. (2011). Personal knowledge management: The foundation of organisational knowledge management. _South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science_, 77(1), 1–14. [https://doi.org/10.7553/77-1-62](https://doi.org/10.7553/77-1-62) 35. Jarrahi, M. H., Phillips, G., Sutherland, W., Sawyer, S., & Erickson, I. (2019). Personalisation of knowledge, personal knowledge ecology, and digital nomadism. _Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology_, 70(4), 313–324. [https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24134](https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24134) 36. Jordan, T. (1999). _Cyberpower: The culture and politics of cyberspace and the Internet_. Routledge. 37. Keller, T., & Tergan, S.-O. (Eds.). (2005). _Knowledge and Information Visualisation: Searching for Synergies_. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. [https://doi.org/10.1007/b138081](https://doi.org/10.1007/b138081) 38. Latour, B. (1990). Technology is Society Made Durable. _The Sociological Review_, 38(1_suppl), 103–131. [https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03350.x](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03350.x) 39. Latour, B. (1993). _We have never been modern_. Harvard University Press. 40. Latour, B. (2005). _Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory_. Oxford University Press. 41. Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity. _Systems Practice_, 5(4), 379-393. 42. Lemonnier, P. (2014). _Elements for an Anthropology of technology_ (Repr.). University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology. 43. Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1943). _L'homme et la matière_. Albin Michel. 44. Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1945). _Milieu et techniques_. Albin Michel. 45. Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1964). _Le geste et la parole I: Technique et langage_. Albin Michel. 46. Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1965). _Le geste et la parole II: La mémoire et les rythmes_. Albin Michel. 47. Matuschak, A. (n.d.). _Evergreen notes_. [https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes](https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes) 48. Martin, J. (2006). Personal knowledge management: The basis of corporate and institutional knowledge management. Retrieved from [http://www.spottedcowpress.ca/KnowledgeManagement/pdfs/06MartinJ.pdf](http://www.spottedcowpress.ca/KnowledgeManagement/pdfs/06MartinJ.pdf) 49. Mauss, M. (1934). Les techniques du corps. _Journal de Psychologie_, 32, 271–293. 50. McFarlane, D. A. (2011). Personal knowledge management (PKM): Are we really ready? _Journal of Knowledge Management Practice_, 12(3). 51. Miller, G. A. (1956). The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. _Psychological Review_, 63(2), 81-97. 52. Miller, J. G. (1978). _Living systems_. McGraw-Hill. 53. Murphy, J. (2021). Personal Knowledge Management is Bullshit. _Other Life_ (newsletter). [https://letter.otherlife.co/p/personal-knowledge-management-bullshit](https://letter.otherlife.co/p/personal-knowledge-management-bullshit) 54. Newman, J. (2023). The cult of Obsidian: Why people are obsessed with the note‑taking app. _FastCompany_. [https://www.fastcompany.com/90960653/why-people-are-obsessed-with-obsidian-the-indie-darling-of-notetaking-apps](https://www.fastcompany.com/90960653/why-people-are-obsessed-with-obsidian-the-indie-darling-of-notetaking-apps) 55. Niklas Luhmann-Archiv. (n.d.). _Niklas Luhmann-Archiv_. Universität Bielefeld. [https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/](https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/) 56. Nonaka, I. (1994). A Dynamic Theory of Organisational Knowledge Creation. _Organisation Science_, 5(1), 14–37. [https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.1.14](https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.1.14) 57. Norman, D. A. (1988). _The design of everyday things_. 58. Notion. _Your connected workspace for wiki, docs & projects_. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 May 2025, from [https://www.notion.com/](https://www.notion.com/) 59. Obsidian—Sharpen your thinking. (n.d.). _Obsidian_. Retrieved May 28, 2025, from [https://obsidian.md/](https://obsidian.md/) 60. Oliver, M. (2005). The problem with affordance. _E-Learning and Digital Media_, 2(4), 402-413. 61. Pandey, A. (2023). Psychology of Notion — Why everyone is obsessed with it. _Medium_. [https://medium.com/@yoursocialwis/psychology-of-notion-why-everyone-is-obsessed-with-it-1044643e03ab](https://medium.com/@yoursocialwis/psychology-of-notion-why-everyone-is-obsessed-with-it-1044643e03ab) 62. Parchoma, G. (2014). The contested ontology of affordances: Implications for researching technological affordances for collaborative knowledge production. _Computers in Human Behavior_, 37, 360–368. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.05.028](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.05.028) 63. Pauleen, D. J. (2010). Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organisational and Social Perspectives. In D. J. Pauleen & G. E. Gorman (Eds.), _Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organisational and Social Perspectives_ (pp. 3-8). Gower. 64. Pauleen, D. J., & Gorman, G. E. (2010). The nature and value of personal knowledge management. In D. J. Pauleen & G. E. Gorman (Eds.), _Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organisational and Social Perspectives_ (pp. 9–22). Gower. 65. Polanyi, M. (1966). _The Tacit Dimension_. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 66. Pollard, D. (2008). PKM: A bottom-up approach to knowledge management. In T. K. Srikantaiah & M. E. D. Koenig (Eds.), _Knowledge Management in Practice: Connections and Context_ (pp. 95–114). Information Today. 67. Razmerita, L., Kirchner, K., & Nabeth, T. (2009). Personal knowledge management: The role of Web 2.0 tools for managing knowledge at individual and collective levels. _Knowledge Management Research & Practice_, 7(4), 378–386. 68. Razmerita, L., Kirchner, K., & Sudzina, F. (2009). Personal knowledge management: The role of Web 2.0 tools for managing knowledge at individual and organisational levels. _Online Information Review_, 33(6), 1021-1039. [https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520911010981](https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520911010981) 69. Reck, C. (2023). Tips for creating a functional personal knowledge management system in academia. _OSF Preprints_. [https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/qgnyw](https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/qgnyw) 70. Rooney, D., & Mckenna, B. (2005). Should the Knowledge‐based Economy be a Savant or a Sage? Wisdom and Socially Intelligent Innovation. _Prometheus_, 23(3), 307–323. [https://doi.org/10.1080/08109020500211025](https://doi.org/10.1080/08109020500211025) 71. SBI Growth. (2020). Roam Research: The Cult Packaging Playbook. [https://sbigrowth.com/insights/cult-packaging-playbook](https://sbigrowth.com/insights/cult-packaging-playbook) 72. Schick, A. G., Gordon, L. A., & Haka, S. (1990). Information overload—A temporal approach. _Accounting, Organisations and Society_, 15(3), 199–220. [https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-3682(90)90005-F](https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-3682\(90\)90005-F) 73. Schmitt, U. (2014). Personal Knowledge Management Devices—The next co-evolutionary Driver of Human Development?! [https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.4035.0401](https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.4035.0401) 74. Schmitt, U. (2019). Decentralising Knowledge Management: Affordances and Impacts. _Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management_, 17(2), 114-130. 75. Seth, S. (2009). Putting knowledge in its place: science, colonialism, and the postcolonial. _Postcolonial Studies_, _12_(4), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790903350633 76. Simon, H. A. (1971). _Computers, communications, and the public interest_. Johns Hopkins Press. 77. Simondon, G. (1958). _Du mode d'existence des objets techniques_. Aubier. 78. Sterling, J. (n.d.). _Jon Sterling's forest_. [https://www.jonmsterling.com/](https://www.jonmsterling.com/) 79. Stiegler, B. (1998). _Technics and Time_ (G. Collins & R. Beardsworth, Trans.). Stanford University Press. 80. Street, B. (1984). _Literacy in Theory and Practice_. https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA07235800 81. Völkel, M., & Abecker, A. (2008). Knowledge management: Theory and practice. _Journal of Knowledge Management_, 12(5), 92–101. 82. Ward, D. M. (2015). Why you should be using Evernote. Really. _Real Life Practice blog_. [https://www.reallifepractice.com/2015/04/why-you-should-be-using-evernote-really-2/](https://www.reallifepractice.com/2015/04/why-you-should-be-using-evernote-really-2/) 83. Whittaker, S. (2011). Personal information management: From information consumption to curation. _Annual Review of Information Science and Technology_, 45(1), 1–62. [https://doi.org/10.1002/aris.2011.1440450108](https://doi.org/10.1002/aris.2011.1440450108) 84. Winner, L. (1993). Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology. _Science, Technology, & Human Values_, _18_(3), 362–378. http://www.jstor.org/stable/689726 85. Wright, K. (2005). Personal knowledge management: supporting individual knowledge worker performance. _Knowledge Management Research and Practice_, 3(3), 156–165. # End Notes [^1]: The title of Latour's 1991 essay, _'Technology is Society Made Durable'_, reflects a reformulation of a phrase he first coined in French: _« Les techniques, c'est la société rendue durable »_—literally, _'Technics are society made durable.'_ This expression appears in _La science en action_ (Latour, 1989, p. 177). The English essay does not correspond to a direct French-language original under the title _'La technologie est la société rendue durable'_, and its use of 'technology'' instead of 'technics' represents a subtle translation shift that generalises Latour's point. The distinction is conceptually important, as 'les techniques' refers more narrowly to material practices and artefacts, whereas 'technology' in English often carries broader and more abstract connotations. [^2]: The Great Divide represents one of the most extensively theorised concepts within Science and Technology Studies, with substantial literatures addressing its implications across anthropology (see Goody, 1977; Street, 1984), sociology of knowledge (Collins & Yearley, 1992; Bloor, 1999), philosophy of technology (Winner, 1993; Feenberg, 2002), and postcolonial studies (Chakrabarty, 2000; Seth, 2009). This treatment of PKM as exemplifying modern purification work therefore represents one canonical application among many possible approaches to understanding technology's role in knowledge practices. [^3]: The concept of affordance has generated substantial debate regarding its ontological status, the role of perception versus convention, and its applicability beyond Gibson's original ecological framework (see Norman, 1988; Oliver, 2005). While a full treatment of these theoretical tensions lies beyond this dissertation's scope, I employ the term pragmatically to denote the action possibilities that users perceive and exploit within digital environments.