# Your JDex is your PKM

> Misconception: you have your JDex, and you have a PKM system. No: they're the same thing.

It might be [my fault](/22.00.0112/), but there can be confusion between what's _your Johnny.Decimal system_ and, for those of you who are into 'personal knowledge management', what's _your PKM system_.

## What's PKM?

If you're _not_ into PKM, here's a quick primer. People enjoy storing 'personal knowledge': facts and thoughts and notes about whatever it is that they're doing or learning or _anything_.

Then they like thinking about exactly _how_ to store this personal knowledge, because if you just chuck a bunch of notes in a folder you're unlikely to have a good time. That just became _personal knowledge management_, or PKM.

It's massive. Some significant percentage of YouTube is taken up by PKM. Discords and forums abound. Creators-a-plenty worship the god that is PKM.

## What's _not_ PKM?

I've never framed Johnny.Decimal as PKM; ref. [that post](/22.00.0112/) I linked at the start. This is a conscious decision: for those who _aren't_ into all that, and just want a way to neatly organise their files, I don't want it to feel like you have to join a cult just to be organised. You don't. You can keep it simple, be organised, and play outside.

But of course there isn't a clean break between these things. The Venn diagram of JD×PKM would look like a solar eclipse. So how do the two intersect?

## JD _is_ your PKM

The misconception is that you have this Johnny.Decimal system – say, [Life Admin](/las/) – **and** you have a PKM system. That might look like this.

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0137A-Before--light-1514x1188.png"
  alt="Two mindmaps. The upper has 5 IDs from each of the categories of the Life Admin System. The lower has 5 random notes."
  width={757}
  height={594}
/>

All I mean when I say that _JD is your PKM_ is that every piece of personal knowledge that you would like to manage _must be linked to an ID in your system_. In our highly contrived, too-neat-to-be-real example, it looks like this.

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0137B-After--light-2532x600.png"
  alt="The two mindmaps now lie side-by-side, and the nodes join. IDs are notes are IDs. Same thing."
  width={1266}
  height={300}
  caption="Figure 22.00.0137B. Right-click and open in new tab to embiggen."
/>

## Nothing doesn't have an ID

That's all it is. If you're a good Decimal there should be no notion of _a thing_ in your life that you can't fit into one of your IDs. That applies to personal knowledge in exactly the same what that it applies to your electricity bill or the confirmation of the flight you just booked.

And if you don't have an ID? Create one. You might need to create a new area or category to hold it. Do that.

## 'How do I PKM?' is answered

So the question of how to organise one's personal knowledge is that you organise it just like anything else. In a neat system, where nothing is buried too deep, where like concepts live near each other.

Johnny.Decimal, in other words.