Personal information management (PIM) refers to both the practice and the study of

the activities people perform in order to acquire, organize, maintain, retrieve and use
information items such as documents (paper-based and digital), web pages and email
messages for everyday use to complete tasks (work-related or not) and fulfill a person’s
various roles (as parent, employee, friend, member of community, etc.).

“Personal information” means any information that describes anything about a person, or
that indicates actions done by or to a person, or that indicates that a person possesses
certain personal characteristics, and that contains, and can be retrieved from a system
by, a name, identifying number, symbol, or other identifier assigned to a person.

One ideal of PIM is that we always have the right information in the right place, in the
right form, and of sufficient completeness and quality to meet our current need.
Technologies and tools such as personal information managers help us spend less time
with time-consuming and error-prone activities of PIM (such as looking for information).
We then have more time to make creative, intelligent use of the information at hand in
order to get things done, or to simply enjoy the information itself.

History & Background

A seminal paper in personal information management research is "Finding and

Reminding" by Barreau and Nardi in 1995.[1] It shows how ethographic field studies can
be used to derive testable theories for improving personal information management
practices and tools. Many publications by others followed, until a workshop series was
initiated with the first NSF-sponsored workshop on PIM held in Seattle, Washington, on
January 27-29, 2005. The group gathered at this workshop started defining the field in a
published report.[2] This report formed the basis of the book Personal Information
Management and follow-up workshops.

Research in the area of PIM also relates to work done under the term personal knowledge
management. Whereas the focus there is on philosophy and integration with the theories
created within knowledge management – a holistic approach – the focus of PIM research
is on collecting statistically relevant data to support the core hypothesis of PIM (see for
example the work of Steve Whittaker), and on creating and validating tools for PIM (see
works by William Jones or David Karger).

Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an

organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and
experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in
individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice.

Tools

There are a number of tools available for managing personal information, but these tools
can become a part of the problem leading to “information fragmentation”. Different
devices and applications often come with their separate ways of storing and organizing
information. NOTE: Many people confuse PIM tools with the study and practice of
personal information management itself. Please see personal information manager for
information about tools for personal information management.

A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a
PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The
acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to Personal information
management as a field of study.[citation needed] As an information management tool, a PIM
tool's purpose is to facilitate the recording, tracking, and management of certain types of
"personal information".

Application software, also known as an application, is computer software designed to

help the user to perform singular or multiple related specific tasks. Examples include
enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software, and media
players.

A personal organizer, day planner, personal analog assistant, or personal planner is

a small book/binder, designed to be portable, usually containing a diary, calendar, address
book, and other sections usually including blank paper. It may also include pages with
useful information, such as maps, telephone codes. It is related to the separate desktop
stationery items that have one or more of the same functions, such as appointment
calendars, rolodexes, notebooks, and almanacs.[citation needed]

Personal knowledge management (PKM) refers to a collection of processes that an

individual carries out to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve, and share knowledge in
his/her daily activities (Grundspenkis 2007) and how these processes support work
activities (Wright 2005). It is a response to the idea that knowledge workers increasingly
need to be responsible for their own growth and learning (Smedley 2009) and represents
a bottom-up approach to knowledge management, as opposed to more traditional, top-
down KM (Pollard

Human-computer and human-information interaction

The study of PIM is also related to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). But
PIM research puts emphasis on the broader study of how people manage their
information over time using a variety of tools – some computer-based, some not.

Management of data, information, knowledge, time and tasks

The study of information management and knowledge management in organizations

relates to the study of PIM. Jones notes that issues seen first at an organizational level
often migrate to the PIM domain.[6]

PIM can help to motivate and will also benefit from work in information retrieval and
database management. For example, data mining techniques might be applied to mine
and structure personal information.
Information retrieval (IR) is the science of searching for documents, for information
within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching
relational databases and the World Wide Web. There is overlap in the usage of the terms
data retrieval, document retrieval, information retrieval, and text retrieval, but each also
has its own body of literature, theory, praxis, and technologies. IR is interdisciplinary,
based on computer science, mathematics, library science, information science,
information architecture, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and statistics.

A Database Management System (DBMS) is a set of computer programs that controls

the creation, maintenance, and the use of a database. It allows organizations to place
control of database development in the hands of database administrators (DBAs) and
other specialists. A DBMS is a system software package that helps the use of integrated
collection of data records and files known as databases. It allows different user
application programs to easily access the same database. DBMSs may use any of a
variety of database models, such as the network model or relational model. In large
systems, a DBMS allows users and other software to store and retrieve data in a
structured way. Instead of having to write computer programs to extract information, user
can ask simple questions in a query language. Thus, many DBMS packages provide
Fourth-generation programming language (4GLs) and other application development
features. It helps to specify the logical organization for a database and access and use the
information within a database. It provides facilities for controlling data access, enforcing
data integrity, managing concurrency, and restoring the database from backups. A DBMS
also provides the ability to logically present database information to users.

Relation to time management and productivity

By similar argument, a discussion of time management or task management on a personal

level quickly takes us back to a discussion of PIM. Both time and task management make
heavy use of information tools and external forms of information such as to-do lists,
calendars, timelines, Gantt charts, etc. This information, to be managed like other
information.

Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time
when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. This set encompasses a wide
scope of activities, and these include planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation,
analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing. Initially, time
management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term
broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed
combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods.

Task management is the process of managing a task (or task portfolio) through its life
cycle, including planning, testing, tracking and reporting. Task management can help
either individuals achieve goals, or groups of individuals collaborate and share
knowledge for the accomplishment of collective goals.[1] Tasks also differentiate by
complexity, from low to high.[2]
Effective task management supposes managing all aspects of a task, including its status,
priority, time, human and financial resources assignments, recurrency, notifications and
so on. These can be lumped together broadly into the basic activities of task management.

Managing multiple individual or team tasks may require special task management
software which is available on the Web. Specific software dimensions support common
task management activities. These dimensions exist across software products and services
and fit different task management initiatives in numerous ways. In fact, many people
believe that task management should serve as a foundation for project management
activities.[3]

Task management may form part of project management and process management and
can serve as the foundation for efficient workflow in an organisation. Project managers
adhering to task-oriented management are known for having a detailed and up-to-date
project schedule, and are usually good at directing team members and moving the project
forward.[4]

Information management (IM) is the collection and management of information from

one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences.
This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information.
Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing and
delivery of information.

Throughout the 1970s this was largely limited to files, file maintenance, and the life cycle
management of paper-based files, other media and records. With the proliferation of
information technology starting in the 1970s, the job of information management took on
a new light, and also began to include the field of Data maintenance. No longer was
information management a simple job that could be performed by almost anyone. An
understanding of the technology involved, and the theory behind it became necessary. As
information storage shifted to electronic means, this became more and more difficult. By
the late 1990s when information was regularly disseminated across computer networks
and by other electronic means, network managers, in a sense, became information
managers. Those individuals found themselves tasked with increasingly complex tasks,
hardware and software. With the latest tools available, information management has
become a powerful resource and a large expense for many organizations.

In short, information management entails organizing, retrieving, acquiring and

maintaining information. It is closely related to and overlapping with the practice of Data
Management.