Personal information management (PIM), in contrast with PKM, is the system for managing information and informational items to support day-to-day tasks or to fulfill roles.
“Management” is a big word for such a personal system, but the foundation is simple: stay on top of your personal information so it’s right where you need it when you need it.
- Gathering: Collecting all those important pieces of information.
- Organizing: Putting them in a way that makes sense to you, so you can find them later.
- Storing: Keeping them safe and secure, whether it’s on your computer, in the cloud, or even in a physical filing cabinet.
- Retrieving: Being able to quickly and easily find the information you need, when you need it.
- Maintaining: Keeping the information up-to-date and accurate.
The best example of PIM in practice is when I joined the multinational company I’m in now. They had the strictest process I’ve ever gone through for a job, even after I had already accepted the offer. I needed to scramble through past employers — some of whom were already out of business — in order to acquire proof I worked for them before.
I partially learned my lesson through that ordeal, and now try to maintain my documents in a central place. Still, it’s nowhere near as maintained as my PKM base.
Currently my PIM base includes:
- past employer documents
- insurance documents
- government documents
- bare-bones contact management