Knowledge Management |

Redefining my writing workflow

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 09:36:59 +0000

One of the things I have started recently is a book-project. For this purpose I have been working on a new writing workflow which combines reference management, reading, highlighting and note-taking, writing and publishing. In this short post I will try to describe the setup and workflow.

My book-writing workflow in detail

Sources: Of course, the basis of all writing is reading :-). To identify prior work and to get an overview about the domain I have collected approximately 80 sources which I have started to read. These sources are mainly journal articles, some are books and book-chapters. I mostly start with GoogleScholar and combine it with some meta-databases like EBSCOHost, but I also appreciate article newsletters from journals (and can recommend the for our domain). The list of potential sources to identify related work is of course endless and I want to try in the future AI services like or (which I both got to know through conversations with Yanay Zaguri: Thanks!).
Reference management: I have switched some years ago from Mendely to and besides a little outdated interface I really appreciate the reliability and extendability of Zotero. I can recommend for example the extension . The extension takes for example care for renaming PDF and sorting them into a specific folder. In general, Zotero works great in importing references from the web and it can for example also generate references to books based on ISBN-numbers. You can easily collect a nice list of well-formated references.
Reading and structured notetaking: has really changed the way I read papers and take notes about them. As described in an the PDF-reader and annotation environment is perfect for taking structured notes. The nice thing is, that I can directly access papers from Zotero. I can start a paper from my database and open it on the left side of the screen while I have a chapter structure for my book-projekt as an outline on the right side. Whenever I think something fits into this structure I can either mark and shift pieces of text from left to rigth, or I can note down ideas for chapters.
Writing: My main target format for the book is a well-formatted PDF. Due to this requirement I am using as a visual editor which can produce nicely formatted documents via LaTeX. Again, the interface looks a little outdated, but the functionaliy is really great. LyX can access directly my reference libary from Zotero and has sufficient styling options to produce a nice looking text.
Publishing: As already mentioned, one important output format is a PDF file. This is the standard format of the editor I am using for writing. At the same time, I would like to produce a web-version of the text. For this purpose I have configured LyX to produce MarkDown files from the same text which I can easily integrate into which is running on the basis of . Via this route I can easily give people access who can provide feedback to the chapters during the writing process.

Window management for professional knowledge workers

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 06:22:31 +0100

Since many years I am using at least one external monitor for work and it has supported my productivity a lot. During an intensive time of online-meetings and online-teaching in the last 3 years I have extended my setup with another external screen so that I have three screens available. On a normal working day I am switching many windows from and between these screens and sometimes I am also disconnecting my machine (a Macbook Air M1) completely from the setup. This means a lot of shuffling and moving of application-windows between the screens. For this purpose I have bought a version of StreamDeck to see if it is possible to define scenarios which allow to automate the switching between different productivity modes easily with an external button.

My setup for the use of three monitors**

I could now finally realize this scenario with a relatively easy set of ingredients after a lot of trial-and-error and I would like to share the setup here:

Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 –
A small application called which costs around 12 EUR
The

After installing all applications including the Stream Deck software for defining the functions of the buttons, I have ordered in Moom now the windows in the different screens according to productivity scenarios: A scenario for teaching and presenting online, a scenario for writing, a scenario for information aquisition and so on. In Moom it is very easy to save these scenarios. After all windows have been positioned, I can just chose “Save Windows Layout Snapshot” and the settings are stored. In the Stream Deck software I can now select the “Moom profile activator” and shift it to one of the buttons. After selecting now the required profile and naming the button accordingly, I can switch and position all application windows with a click of a single button. As a nice extra functionality, Moom allows me also to ignore the windows in the background and to select a standard scenario depending in how many external monitors are connected.

Restarting my personal knowledge management

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 09:36:59 +0000

The break and transition into the new year is always a time for me to optimise my workflows or to explore some changes in the way I handle information, tasks or communication. Via some tweets by I have discovered as a new framework and tool to handle my information workflow. I have experimented with it in the last days and would like to summarise why I think this could become a game changer for my personal knowledge management.

Usage scenario of Logseq for my personal knowledge management

Outlining: First of all, for handling notes I need a very simple structure with some basic formatting and indentation and lists to structure information. Logseq is using an outlining technique which is very simple to learn and allows fast note taking.
Simple tagging: In Logseq you can either use an inline-tagging approach with double brackets [[]] or you can use a hashtag. The underlying theoretical basis for Logseq is the so called knowledge-graph, a semantic network of linked information entities. Via these tags, no hierarchical but rather a networked space of ideas and information is growing. Depending on the tags used, those can create a task list, a reading schedule, a communication plan - whatever you like.
Information integration and rendering: A third component which is vital to my knowledge management is that I need to be able to integrate different types of information into the same document. I heavily rely on my Twitter network and regularly spot information there which I mostly like and forget afterwards. In Logseq I can copy the tweet URL and integrate it into my note and it gets rendered correctly in the document. Besides Twitter I can also embed HTML, Youtube or Vimeo videos. Since some information is resting at a specific timestamp in a video, you can even embed a link to this timestamp. And of course I can take notes by indentation why this information is relevant or what I would like to do with it.

Embedded tweet in Logseq
PDF reader and annotation: For someone who is reading a lot of documents in PDF-format, each productivity solution needs to offer a way how PDFs can be read and snippets from these documents can be quoted, copied or commented. In Logseq it is easy to upload a PDF which is then opened on the left half of the window while on the right side.

Chose a PDF to upload

PDF reader left, Logseq right

The nice functionality is now that I can color-code text in the PDF and the put a reference to it in Logseq and can again indent and add notes and ideas to it.

Marking text

Putting a ref into Logseq
Zotero integration: Recently, Zotero has been integrated into Logseq and via this integration I can save publications via a browser-plugin and then access the files via Logseq and can follow the same approach like mentioned in 3.

If you want to start diving into Logseq I can recommend the video series below by Dario from .

Future development

I have already tested how to publish my knowledge graph to Github to easily access it from everyhwere and I am also testing the mobile app at the moment, but collaboration is not vital and my main work happens at the desktop. Logseq is open source and free but is apparently planning a payed pro-version for the future.