Why Capacities Didn’t Click (At First)
I heard about Capacities a year or so ago – everyone on YouTube seemed to be comparing it to Notion and Obsidian.
I love Notion. Obsidian, honestly, looks like a clusterfuck waiting to happen with the way my brain works.
I liked the idea of it, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to make it work effectively. Until one day…
What Capacities Actually Is (Without the Buzzwords)
So, Capacities is a “PKM” (”personal knowledge management”) platform, available on the web & as an app.
What makes it different from most PKM platforms is that it uses “objects” in place of folder or topic hierarchies, which helps to tie things together more easily. They do offer an idea map like Obsidian does, which I think looks really cool, but I haven’t found a practical use for it yet 😅
It’s been available for public use for over 3 years now, and they’re always trying to make it more intuitive. They, of course, have AI integrated, but I don’t know anything about it (I think it requires a paid plan, but I’m not sure).
What Finally Made It Work for Me
I was watching a video on YouTube about using Apple Notes for daily logging, & it made something click in my head about how to use Capacities…
You don’t start with tags & pages, you build them off your daily notes!
The base of Capacities seems to be their “daily note”, which you can customize with a template if you’d like.
So, I started doing “interstitial journaling” (a Bullet Journal term) in my daily notes, and added pages & tags as I saw fit.
Those tags & pages become their own pages, where every related note is already connected and visible – no copying, no organizing gymnastics. (I must point out, though – “pages” have static space for notes to add to the “object”, while “tags” don’t. Just something to bear in mind)
For things like PKM, I feel like Capacities is much more flawless than Notion. It almost feels less organized – but it isn’t. It’s just organized in a way that actually matches how many peoples’ brains work.
I’ll obviously still use Notion for almost everything, but I’ve been enjoying playing with Capacities for about a month now. I like that I have pages for restaurants (so I know what to order next time I go there), shopping (so I know where to find unique items I’ve discovered), & I even have a “lawyer” page to keep track of some current bullshit (lol 😭) – being able to see everything connected in one place, without copying & pasting or forcing it into a system, is honestly kind of a relief.
Final Thoughts (Is It Worth It?)
Now that I actually understand how to use it, I really like Capacities. It’s simple, intuitive, and unexpectedly kind of fun.
If you’ve tried it and bounced off, try giving it another shot – I’d love to hear how you use it!
Stay real. Stay loud. And rock the fuck on. 💚🤘🏻
zen BLITZ 