I understand the sentiment, but disagree with the solution. PKMs can be overwhelming if someone nerdy enough to use one ends up using it ineffectively.
The way I do it that I find works well is to have the following:
1. each day, have a journal page for a given day. Content only happens in the journal pages
2. have a series of topics that you tag. This system is up to you, but I usually find something with a hierarchy that is <=3 levels deep is best, e.g. I have "Job Search/2025/Company"
3. for each of the relevant tag pages, have those have some sort of "query" that will pull in all relevant tasks from all the journal pages, sort them by priority / state / deadline so you can see this all in one place (e.g. "What's the next step I have to do for my Nvidia application?" -> easy to answer with this system). Depending on your PKM, the hierarchy enables you to easily answer that question at a higher level, e.g. "What's the next steps I have to do for ALL of my applications?".
In each journal page, you can also write down a "task backlog" so minor tasks that you remember don't take up headspace while you intend to work on other major tasks (e.g. write down "get back to Joel about the Nvidia referral").
Regarding a point other folks have made: treat the journal and these tags as more of a "stream" of things you're doing in your life, instead of a collection of every-expanding obligations or a mausoleum of unexplored ambition.
I built this in Logseq, which seems to be the only one that has an advanced-enough query language to do this in that is possible to do local-only (no mandatory cloud data) in text files. If anyone knows how to build such a system in a different application, I'd be happy to learn! Logseq has been stale for a year or 2 as the authors are working on a much needed near-total rewrite which I'm not sure is ever going to arrive at this point.
The way I do it that I find works well is to have the following:
1. each day, have a journal page for a given day. Content only happens in the journal pages
2. have a series of topics that you tag. This system is up to you, but I usually find something with a hierarchy that is <=3 levels deep is best, e.g. I have "Job Search/2025/Company"
3. for each of the relevant tag pages, have those have some sort of "query" that will pull in all relevant tasks from all the journal pages, sort them by priority / state / deadline so you can see this all in one place (e.g. "What's the next step I have to do for my Nvidia application?" -> easy to answer with this system). Depending on your PKM, the hierarchy enables you to easily answer that question at a higher level, e.g. "What's the next steps I have to do for ALL of my applications?".
In each journal page, you can also write down a "task backlog" so minor tasks that you remember don't take up headspace while you intend to work on other major tasks (e.g. write down "get back to Joel about the Nvidia referral").
Regarding a point other folks have made: treat the journal and these tags as more of a "stream" of things you're doing in your life, instead of a collection of every-expanding obligations or a mausoleum of unexplored ambition.
I built this in Logseq, which seems to be the only one that has an advanced-enough query language to do this in that is possible to do local-only (no mandatory cloud data) in text files. If anyone knows how to build such a system in a different application, I'd be happy to learn! Logseq has been stale for a year or 2 as the authors are working on a much needed near-total rewrite which I'm not sure is ever going to arrive at this point.