This is imo how most people should start and use it. All these "structure first" approaches are like using someone else's preferred way of learning and memorizing, if it works its an happy accident.
You'll get your structure out of your mind once you learn to know it.
Articles like this are useful to see what's possible. You don't have to copy his workflow 1:1, you can take ideas from many places and design a workflow that works for you.
Guaranteed the author didn't start "structure first". It's something that developed into its current form over a long time of experimenting and refinement.
Construction / Foundation / Shallow Strip Foundation.md
Hobby / 3D Printing / On Shape.md
And so on.
I don't even think that I need links. May be some. What I need is the ability to show multiple files at once. For example show all files in Computer / Kubernetes / Helm directory, separated with horizontal lines with the ability to edit this in one editor window. I hate when I need to constantly switch around in traditional editors.
That is very true to me as well, in my head things are organized in a hierarchy of concepts. The nice thing about tags is that it allows you to store a note below multiple tags like in my case a note about something I did with Python at work, tagged with #work, #work/project_name but also with #python.
I use a plugin called Tag Wrangler to show my tags as a tree like folders (it interprets the "/" as a parent directory).
This allows me to keep a note below multiple tags which I think is useful, at least for my own usecase.
Where / how do you save a HN shitpost that is definitely not worthy to be part of the atomic note of `Kubernetes.md`, but is still relevant / insightful and related to it?
I would add it to either quotes.md or the daily note with #kubernetes tag.
I legitimately forgot to even consider folders once I had taken "enough" notes / diary entries. Just forgot they exist at all. I see everything relevant in the linked / unlinked mentions that I use to refresh the context.
Tags I barely use, except for things I can't put into "atomic notes". Like when someone mentions a book and 1-3 sentence review, I add it to today's diary entry and use #book tag on it.
Memory, on a biological level, is tied very strongly to place or paths. Not just in humans, not just in mammals.
My folder hierarchy gives me a path that lets me find things. I remember where I put them, I remember where to find them.
If I need to search, fd and rg at a high level of the folder tree is a godsend.
Tags mean it is just floating in some cloud somewhere, locationless.
There can be friction if something could go into multiple categories, and one will always need a wildcard category, but these can be managed.
The Johnny Decimal system https://johnnydecimal.com/ can be a nice structured approach. Creator is here on HN somewhere; that's where I learned about it.
same here. I've been using obsidian for more than a year now, and my notes are highly categorized in a structured hierarchy. But I regularly feel this is not optimal (sometime a note could fall into 2 different branches of my hierarchy), and I can feel the friction it creates when I want to add a note but I first have to think where to put it.
So for people not leveraging folders, do you just create all the notes in the same folder ? (resulting on a folder with thousands of notes ? and then what's your process to add a new note ? do a search, see if there currently is a relevant note to ammend, if not create a new one ?
Personnally I use tags for this usecase, I tag every single note in obsidian and I use a plugin called Tag Wrangler to show my tags as a tree. Tags then act like folders (for example a tag #python/pip will be under python > pip).
Pros :
- A note can fall under as many tags as you want
- The map view is pleasing to watch because tags can be shown but folders cannot, it also helps to categorize orhpan notes visually
Cons :
- You have to maintain the habit to tag each notes you write
Finally, Tag Wrangler allows you to rename / edit tags in bulk so that it is close to be as fluid as moving notes between folders.
All of mine are in same folder, and I use search or linked / unlinked panels for finding / creating links. Thousands of notes in same folder doesnt really matter if you use the Obs. provided tools to navigate it.
The structure is there, it's just not in the file / folder layout, but in the wikilinks and whatever else Obsidian can uncover (ie. unlinked mentions, orphaned file output).
I guess I learned how my own learning and memorizing works, and managed to match it better with how Obsidian works, and now I don't have to think about silly file / folder structure anymore. Your experience maybe different.
I'm very curious about this way of using obsidian (which sounds like the original "second brain" promise). I would love to connect in private to konw more. I don't see your address in your profile but you reach me at my hn user name with Gmail.
You'll get your structure out of your mind once you learn to know it.