Do I Need Only One Personal Knowbase Data File or More? (Part 1)

New Personal Knowbase users often ask when they would want more than one PK database. Should they put all their notes in one data file? Or have several files? Why create a new file?

The short answer is to start out by putting everything in one file and to wait to split your data into multiple files until you're sure you need to.

There are pros and cons to keeping all your data in one place or spreading it into multiple files.

Organize Your Home Office Day

Today is Organize Your Home Office Day, which falls on the second Tuesday in March every year. Whether you're a self-employed contractor, run a home-based business, work at home regularly for your day job, or use a home office for your personal business, you need to keep it organized to use your time efficiently.

Here are some ways that Personal Knowbase can help you get your home office organized:

Personal Knowbase Helps with Your New Year's Resolutions

Many people start each New Year with resolutions to make changes in their lives. What are your resolutions for 2022?

Here are 10 resolutions that Personal Knowbase can help you with:

Getting Started Using Personal Knowbase for Miscellaneous Notes

A common purpose for starting to use Personal Knowbase is to take control of all the miscellaneous information that passes through our lives. Collected observations and ideas. Captured thoughts and conversations. They accumulate on bits of paper on our desk, in our drawers, or in boxes of 3x5 index cards. Or they may be scattered around your hard drive in emails and small text files in multiple software formats.

Many notes are not associated with a person or a date, so storing them in contact management software doesn't make sense. But we know they may be useful later, if only we can find them when we need them.

Reading Personal Knowbase Files over a Network

If you need multiple users to be able to read the same Personal Knowbase data file (KNO file), you may find it useful to place the data file on a network. A centrally located data file on a network allows any user with a computer connected to the network to read the data.

Using Personal Knowbase for Contact Management

A common use for Personal Knowbase is to store contact and address information. Create a Personal Knowbase "index card" file for your contacts.

In Personal Knowbase's terminology, we refer to each "index card" as an "article". Make an article for each contact containing all information and notes about that person, company, or organization. You can easily sort, print, search, index, and filter the list of entries.

Creating a Writing Snippets File with Personal Knowbase

Do you regularly delete perfectly good pieces of writing while editing? Do you have frequent "false starts" when you begin a writing project and stall? Do you have old unfinished attempts accumulating on your computer or in notebooks?

Consider keeping a writing snippets file where you can store miscellaneous pieces that don't have a home. You never know when these writings may be exactly what you need for a future project. And storing them away is less painful than deleting them.

Using PK Reader to Share Information with Students

Teachers, are you ready for the new school season? For ideas about organizing your notes and records, see our previous post on how Personal Knowbase can help educators stay organized.

But Personal Knowbase can also help you share information with your students. Using the Personal Knowbase Reader software provides a handy way to distribute materials. Whether you're in the classroom or teaching online from a virtual classroom, you need creative and secure ways to disseminate materials to your students.

Personal Knowbase Stay-at-Home Project Ideas

Many of us are finding unstructured time on our hands while on lockdown, quarantine, or shelter in place. Our last post outlined general productivity tips to help cope during "Shelter in Place".

If you decide to use your self-isolation time to start a project (or make progress on a previously languishing project), create a Personal Knowbase data file for it and collect all its notes in one place. Personal Knowbase's freeform note management system can help with organizing the related notes, research, and records. Use it to keep track of related website accounts and online resources. Attach related files to the corresponding PK articles.

Using Personal Knowbase to Organize Recipes

Whether you're an ardent chef, you're gathering together all your extended family's recipes, you're studying mixology, or you just bake occasionally for holidays, Personal Knowbase provides a natural and flexible way to organize your recipes. Collect all your recipes in one place where you can access them on your computer, print them, or export them to text files.

Here are some ideas for setting up a PK data file for your recipes.