Practice
Latest Help Tips & Tricks | Practices | Problem Solving | Practical Thought | Best Practice | Basics Video | General Template | Importing Documents with Excel
Latest Help,
Tips & Tricks
Based on the latest feedback from visitors and users.
If you are developing complex knowledge or your own philosophy, you can let others see and navigate any number of objects in your shared or distributed knowledgebase, using their own free copy of PMM. This is how I develop philosophy too, from one day to the next. Your readers can delete and rearrange the objects you created, related and visualized such as Notes and Relations on Sheets. However, they cannot add new objects in their free copy above the limitations for a free license.
You can delete related Notes from a Sheet you are working on, to reflect you thoughts, without worrying that you will lose them, as long as you keep the Sheet. The Notes or Relations do not need to be visible in the open Worksheet, nor in the Sheet panel, to still be available. This way, your current Worksheet can always be the premier carrier for all your thoughts.
When you have searched for Notes answering to a particular (set of) search strings, and you open one of them by double clicking it in the list, then normally the search term, where it first appears, is highlighted. However, sometimes due to previous similar actions, the word may not be found and the end of the Note is shown. When that happens, simply click the Note again and the word wìll show this time.
"Cannot open AVI" is an error message that may display when using the 'student version' PMM65SV with a particular combination of media player and operating system. If it occurs, uninstall and use the 'standard version' PMM65ST instead (they have the same features and are basically free).
If you have content you would like to import into PMM using Microsoft Excel, you will find instructions here.
When you have many Notes on a Sheet and the open Sheet window is larger than the screen, you need the window's scroll bars. However, after using these you may not be able to pick up and drag the Notes any longer. Then either zoom out so that the window fits the screen again (Notes shrink), or set the zoom percentage to 100% (Notes grow a bit).
The above is an addendum to the helpfile.
Practices
The student listens to lecturers and reads books. By taking notes from lectures or books (speed-reading), he tries to hold on to the essence of what is taught. However, the content and structure of his knowledge develops and changes dramatically over time. Bits of information that are correct must be kept and (re)structured, while other bits that are wrong, need to be eliminated. Here is an example.
The scenario-writer combines plot-lines in different settings. Each plot-line in one setting is represented by a person or a particular thing. Then the world turns and another setting has changed the relations between people and things, only slightly. This can go on forever.
The lawyer looks into a case and finds all sorts of information that may or may not be relevant to the case. Each bit of information could play a role in an argument. Truth hangs in the balance. When true becomes false, the whole picture must be turned around. Yet it is important to recollect (memorize) all information that may still be of value.
The police officer needs to map complex, fragmented and dynamically changing bits of information. How is person A related to person B, what was he doing with object C that he was carrying, might object D be related that was found near the crime scene, etcetera. All situations at all times can be mapped out. Reusing the notes of the people and objects, automatically integrates the scenes into possible scenario's.
The scientist researches a phenomenon of which the central mechanism isn't well understood. He builds a theory and tests hypotheses. Some ideas may have to be abandoned while others may have to be broadened. How do we manage more personal and general shifts in our understanding without losing all of our previous work?
The information analyst maps out the components of the software he is designing and modeling. To make sure there are no duplicate entries, he needs to 'normalize' the information. Tables are untwined and hooked up in other ways than before. Similarly, sheets as tables and notes as records, notes can be sorted into multiple sheets, linking them at the same time. All information is contained in each single note, from where the information architecture can always be reconstructed.
The philosopher carefully tracks his own thinking. Thoughts are developed slowly but steadily. Only when they 'light up' by validation and evidence, they are worthy of being noted down. How one insight develops from another insight, like a next stepping-stone, can be mapped out in PMM. The beauty of this practice is, that at any time, the roadmap can be traced back, or joined by other roads, making sure that spiritual energy is invested and re-used most wisely. Here is a personal example.
Everybody develops ideas. Look at things that interest you (object-orientation), from different sides, and slowly but surely recombine all the elements in a more favorable or functional manner (multi-perspectivism). Through PMM, you can collect all the elements you want to re-use, from different angles and change their (logical) relations. Automatically, all these (re)constructions are brought together and the design is optimized.
Setting your goal and then reaching it, can produce headaches now and then. To figure out by which means you can reach your goal, you first need to deduce your sub-goals, which in turn and almost infinitely, may have sub-goals of their own, which first need to be reached or fulfilled. A nice way of visualizing such road-maps is by mind-mapping entities (sub-goals) and relations (roads). PMM lets you draw those and adds to them, the ability to study your problem from all sides, using multi-perspectivism and object-orientation. Draw the shortest lines, as straight as possible. Do not forget anything or improve as long as you wish before you put your plans into action!
Everybody has expectations about his immediate future. Usually, the mind can 'project' these expectations so that they can conduct behavior. However, sometimes things do not go as expected and you have to stop and think again. A need for new recollections may arise any time, requested by present problem situations and recollected from the reservoir of memory. This is how PMM operates: new Sheets can hold new recollections of Notes queried from memory. Each Note carries its Relations to other Notes along with it and when two Notes get into each other's vicinity, these Relations will be visualized on Sheet windows.
Capturing current concepts and ideas is a complex and dynamic process, especially when you are ALSO trying to learn from them. You need to differentiate, continue, change, renew and keep it simple. Pen and paper may do, but the computer offers you more, like memory, computing power and visualization possibilities. And not just a bit, but a lifetime supply if necessary! This is what PMM is offering you. Create Notes and Relations. Describe and visualize them in Mind Maps. Different maps surround the same objects and use the same Notes differently related, from different perspectives.
When a problem occurs, the hardest part may be the accumulation of different problems that seem to be one, that you first need to separate and sort out. One way of resolving this is to use PMM and relate the same Notes in different concepts. Once you have made each concept clear and distinct in its own Sheet window, you can create one overview where all concepts will show you where they overlap and where there might still be missing links.
Relations between Notes support your personal way of thinking. You create your own set of Relation types that logically describe how A and B are related. When you discover logical flaws, you can always change everything immediately and see if there is a better fit. Finally all relations will reflect your reasoning from any starting point in any direction, even where your previous thoughts did not pave the way yet.
When you need to 'connect the dots' for a moment of decision making, you will need to analyze contents on different levels, both in general and on particular issues. Weighing the relevance of your thought may sometimes be subject to myopia (near-sightedness). Then there may arrive moments that everything turns around and minor details suddenly become major topics. This is no problem for PMM. You automatically create a network that can be presented as a hierarchy in may ways.
Once you have articulated your vision clearly and distinctly, your understanding may suddenly jump to a higher level. There your thoughts will want to reshuffle all that was put into bits of understanding (Notes). In PMM, you can always reuse all Notes on any level. When you recollect Notes from a much earlier date, you may find their Relations incorrect. When you change Notes, Relations and Relation types, then you automatically changed these where you first created them, at that Sheet of much earlier date.
Best Practice
Notice that the free downloadable version of PMM (both the Student Version and the STandard version), will let you create a maximum of 25 Notes and 10 Sheets per project. Therefore, to make Best Practice work to its and your full potential, you will need a personal license.
The best way I found out so far to work with PMM, is to create Notes directly in an open Sheet window and to create a new Sheet every time I want to hold on to a new concept 'right now'. Always work with the latest Sheets if I can, and reuse Notes if my current ideas extend what is already written down in any of these Notes. I often find, that while I am creating a new Note, I use words that are in fact referring to other Notes that I created not that long ago, so that is how the network or the story tends to grow! I can easily find my (latest) Notes using the Search window (CTRL-G or CTRL-F) and drag the Note from the Search results, onto the Sheet window, or from anywhere in the Project Tree. And relate it to the Note I was working on. If I want to open another Sheet window that already exists, I just have to click the name of the other Sheet in my Project Tree, and it appears on top.
I find myself always extending what is already there, improving it, and maybe correcting it, changing a Relation between Notes for example. My thoughts are literally growing along lines, sometimes differentiating, at other times integrating, or getting frustrated and stopped in their tracks. After creating a Note, I describe the thought or the observation in the memo area of the Note. I like to put a timestamp underneath (click calendar icon). Then, perhaps after an hour or a day, there is something to be added, so I extend the description and add another timestamp, or create a new Note and relate it to the first and/or to any other Note on the Sheet window. However, I may in the mean time be busy or troubled with wholly new thoughts, that require new Notes or even a new Sheet. Naturally I still use earlier Sheets and earlier Notes or reuse old Notes on new Sheets! So much the better if that happens for then Notes become 'linking pins' between insights / points-of-view / Sheets!
This is fun and very good for exploring, refreshing and above all developing my own mind. Ideas can only become more clear and distinct and when this happens, I usually mark the fact by using bold, italic, colors, icons, line-thickness, positioning on the Sheet or - you name it! This is my 'ongoing concern' and while I conduct my thought this way, I see that memory is served when I want to bring back ideas that are beginning to lose their freshness, so that all my best thinking is kept together, current and growing! Every Note is strengthening or inspiring other Notes, that I have related it to, and Relations, once they are created, will always automatically return and be immediately visible, wherever the Notes turn up to which they are related, so that the strength as one grand total ('whole') of Notes and their Relations is ever growing.
I must stress that I never consider using PMM as a 'discipline' but always as something I want, or rather, I feel I need, 'in-the-moment' so to speak. That is when some idea has struck me as reliable and valid, even when it appears in 'normal life' and not in my home 'lab', and I know I will rely on it for some time to come (days, weeks at most). PMM can purify and enrich this fuel almost indefinitely, so that I will benefit from my own experience, my own Élan Vital (Bergson's term), perhaps a lifetime long. And possibly others, if and when they are interested!
For example, this is how a Sheet developed over two days in my PMM knowledgebase of about 15 years with the following statistics:
General Template
Consider PMM to be a very flexible database. Design it freestyle, adding tables ('worksheets') on the fly, as you need them. Records ('notes') can be added simply by dragging them towards the tables. It is possible to have the same records in all tables. Visualize the records in open worksheets and the tables using note aggregation. Records can be related to their 'parents' by simply dragging them into/onto the (visualized) tables and can relate to each other by dragging one over the other until there is recognition ('link to this note') and then dropping them. Do this only once and the same relation will pop-up wherever the two records appear (or even one, when you open it). More information you will find in the helpfile and the demo-video's. If you have content you would like to import into PMM using Microsoft Excel, you will find instructions here.
