How does discipline affect personal knowledge management? I came across this interesting question recently through a student in Northwestern's MS-LOC program. The specific question was
How does behavioral self-regulation fit into the concepts of personal knowledge management? [And do you have any research on this topic?]
I don't have the low-down on the academic research, but the question itself makes a lot of sense to me. While people talk a lot about tools and techniques under the guise of PKM, there is a whole realm of behaviors and practices that go along with these things. I think this is why I make such a strong connection to Getting Things Done and related ideas: while it has a framework for organizing "things," the primary focus is on action. And in my mind, action is multiples bigger in importance to the specific tools I end up using in support of that action. After all, I don't get payed to have Inbox Zero.
Checking on the specific term, behavioral self-regulation seems to be close to what I assumed from the context. It's about how the individual takes control of their own destiny. A paper related to athletes tasks about the concept in terms of self-monitoring against goals and targets with the idea of modifying and changing behavior based on that monitoring input. It applies in just about any human endeavor.
Reflecting on this, one thing that may be missing in the personal knowledge management discussion is the thought of the reasoning behind PKM. What is the goal (or goals) that PKM supports for the individual? How do they evaluate their "mastery" of PKM against those goals? As I said, interesting question.
So, where and how do discipline and "behavioral self-regulation" fit into personal knowledge management?
[Photo: "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it." by wildphotons]