G’day.
Lately I’ve been revisiting the early pages of my notes system. the half-formed notes, messy mind maps, abandoned product sketches.
They remind me of something simple: everything I sell today started as a passing thought I nearly forgot to write down.
It wasn’t strategy. It was attention.
And the notes system quietly did the rest.
Main Note — From learning system to product studio
Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) often starts as a way to organize what we learn.
But after years of writing and linking, something changes.
The notes system stops feeling like a library, it begins to feel like a workshop.
Every product I’ve built, the PKM Sprint Tracker, Knowledge Vault, and Layered Thinking Notes (LTN) came from this slow conversion of insight into structure.
Not from a content calendar or a sales funnel, but from revisiting the same questions until patterns emerged.
I didn’t sit down to “build a product.”
I followed curiosity, noticed recurring solutions, and eventually realized: these systems could help others too.
The process looked like this:
I’d notice I was repeating a workflow - capturing ideas the same way, linking notes the same way.
I’d distill that repetition into a reusable template.
Then, after weeks of refinement, I’d test it in real creative work.
What started as a personal note became a shared system. It is polished only through use, not planning.
That’s the quiet advantage of PKM-driven creation:
You don’t need to brainstorm ideas for products.
Your daily notes already contain them, they just haven’t been recognized yet.
When you review your notes system regularly, you start to see these repeatable patterns.
And once you can name a pattern, you can teach it.
That’s the moment when your knowledge system stops being a storage tool and starts becoming a product studio.
Everyday scenarios
When I was refining the Knowledge Vault, I didn’t start in Notion.
I started by reading old Zettels tagged review loop, note lifecycle, idea reuse.
The through-line was obvious: I was obsessed with how ideas evolve through iteration.
So I built a dashboard that made that process visible.
When I designed the PKM Sprint Tracker, it began as a one-page note titled “5-Day Experiment.”
The structure was already in my notes - daily capture, reflection, and review prompts.
I simply wrapped it in clearer framing and shared it.
The same pattern repeated with Layered Thinking Note:
Hundreds of scattered notes on thinking, layering, and synthesis slowly formed a system.
The vault didn’t just record those ideas, it trained me to see what wanted to exist next.
Lab Log
This week I revisited the earliest versions of the Knowledge Vault.
Each file carried small decisions that still shape my products today, the naming conventions, color logic, even the way I phrase prompts.
It reminded me that creativity rarely arrives in leaps. It accrues quietly through cycles of use and revision.
I also tested a new review workflow: every Sunday, I scan five old notes tagged pattern.
No goal beyond noticing.
Already, two potential micro-products have surfaced, both were buried in notes from over a year ago.
The system rewards patience.
It pays in clarity, not speed.
Translating notes into products
The key isn’t collecting more.
It’s translating what you already know into usable form.
Here’s what that translation looked like in my own workflow:
Move from reference to design — instead of just keeping notes on frameworks, I prototype them.
Move from review to reuse — I don’t summarize old notes; I combine them into working structures.
Move from insight to interface — each product is simply a way to make a useful idea easier to apply.
You don’t need to chase novelty to build something original.
You need to respect what keeps resurfacing.
If an idea keeps returning in your notes, it’s not noise, it’s direction.
Follow it until it takes form.
Before I go
Looking back, my notes system didn’t just help me think better.
It gave shape to what I could offer.
Not by planning products, but by paying attention to the natural shape of my work.
That’s why I see PKM not as a knowledge tool but as a creative apprenticeship.
You learn by watching your own mind build.
If your notes system is filling with echoes, don’t rush to organize them.
Sit with them.
That’s where the next product begins.
Creator Block
This week’s deep dive isn’t new, it’s a reflection.
I’m wrapping up the recent 12-week series of thinker and book deep dives- six thinkers, six books and revisiting what they taught me about writing, systems, and attention.
It’s less about adding more ideas, more about connecting the dots between them.
You’ll see how the threads between those studies quietly shaped the way I now create and teach PKM.
Follow me on Threads @gavin.create for the full deep dive this Saturday.
That’s it from me this week. I hope this issue gives you a few ideas on how to start building products directly from your PKM system without needing funnels or complex plans.
Hit reply if you have any questions or want to share your own product creation story.
Until next time,
From the desk of Gav.
