Chad W. left this exceptional comment on the "Ambitious and Unfocused" post. It's worth reading on and acting in its entirety, some bold added by me for emphasis --
I would say this stands in analogy to what the science on skill acquisition has shown is necessary for any technique improvement. Predictable, long-term skill building requires 1. measurable goals, 2. dedicated practice focused on technique, and 3. immediate feedback within the second towards the first. If you see how this looks like every other predictable improvement machine (science, business/sales), you're getting it on a deep level.
Here, Sebastian connects this process to the structural embroideries that support (and integrate with) our skills. Sure, you could add informational management. But if you don't measure its impact in some objective way, how do you know what its effect is? Sheer subjective evaluation flows down the path of confirmation bias or eternal self-doubt. Unfortunately, the direct effects can be too difficult to measure, so we have to allow ourselves to back off to fuzzier proxies. Assuming you can hold the rest of your process relatively stable and perform the experiment over a sufficiently long period, look for an effect on the "bottom line". Sales, attention, error rates, words on the page, whatever it is that you want to improve or get done.
Which is not to say that I desire to throw a single stone towards those who haven't gone this route. I am still utterly mired in this information-storage overload. I have a foot of paper notes and nearing a megabyte of sheer ASCII text notes. I have, in fits and starts, tried and abandoned a handful structures and systems. Only recently have I come to Sebastian's conclusion: I must find singular projects to construct from the raw matter of my capabilities. With that goal in mind, the reprocessing of my (internally and externally) stored knowledge becomes a measurable variable in my process.