I've always written a lot of notes, but apart from the notes themselves, I rarely have any tangible output to speak of. I might share some of my insights with friends, or in a comment on reddit, but I never seem to get around to writing the blog posts I always plan on, and now I know why…

I recently read the paper The Marks are on the Knowledge Worker (1994) via a reddit discussion, and it totally blew my mind. It argues that the "defining characteristic [of knowledge workers] is that they are changed by the information they process." "Humans are informed (ie. given form) by perceiving their environment and act more effectively in relation to the environment as a result."

So a knowledge worker is changed by the information they process, and it's this change that's important/valuable compared to any material output they might produce. Put another way, the result of working with my ZK is myself! I grapple with content in order to shape myself and engage with the world from a new/better/more informed perspective.