[[Organization & Productivity]] Lots of people have different ways of structuring / organizing things, and to a degree it also depends on how you search / recall notes. But i can give you a primer on some basic concepts, ones that i use myself. # 1. Avoid using folders as much as possible It's easiest to understand why with an example. Let's say you have a note about calculus. Calculus can be applied in many different fields (economics, physics, engineering, comp-sci, medicine, etc). Let's say each one of those fields is its own folder, seems reasonable right? Putting aside Obsidians capabilities for a second, here's the question: Using purely files / folders, how do you make that single calculus note, part of those multiple folders?... It's basically impossible without duplication. And duplication is generally *bad* when it comes to referential integrity of information stores: 1. You duplicate the calculus note and have one in each of those folders. Which means there's a race condition i.e. if you make a change to 1 calculus note you'd have to "remember" to change all the others in the other places. Otherwise when you recall information may not be the most recent. 2. You could mess around with symlinks, but this breaks easily when doing copy / move actions, and also introduces application race conditions if the devs didn't account for symlink usage when they coded it. 3. You could try and do a nested folder structure and make a rule any note in the `math` root folder also applies to nested child folders. But then what happens if you had something like a completely different field that warranted it's own root folder like `design`? Clearly `math` can be used in `design`, but there is much more in design that *is not* about math, so it makes no sense to nest it... which means we're back to duplicating: math/ ├── comp-sci/ ├── economics/ ├── engineering/ ├── physics/ └── calculus.md design/ ├── calculus.md └── ... You'll notice nested folder hierarchies are very rigid and fragile. They're very "top-down" and difficult to change / use if you haven't thought out all the possibilities in advance. To the point where it increases administrative overhead because you end up playing the "musical [chairs] files" game and tying yourself in knots. All just to try and avoid having to rename a bunch of stuff and make things "fit" into your existing scheme, and usually it fails, you abandon whatever organization scheme you had going. So if you can't use folders, how do you organize stuff in Obsidian? # 2. Links / Graph The answer is you use even more notes. Generally they're referred to as index notes or Maps of Content by others. Even though they're the same as any other note, for all intents and purposes you can consider them as a different type or class of note. Their sole purpose is what it sounds like, they serve as an index. That is, rather than a folder containing a bunch of files, instead you have *a note containing a bunch of links*. It's the same thing of grouping files together, it's just a different way of doing it. In the global graph, ⚙️ → Display → Arrows (turn them on). Then follow the heuristic: parent notes (including indexes / MoCs), *point* via the arrows, to their child notes. There are 2 community plugins i recommend: Dataview: This is the way to automatically create your index / MoC notes. For example if you have a MoC called `math`, and another note called `calculus`. Inside the calculus note you could have a front matter property or [inline dataview field](https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/annotation/add-metadata/#inline-fields) with the value `math`. Then inside the `math` note, you can add a dataview query and anything that returns in that query result you can format as a link to produce all your links. Quick Switcher ++ : This is for effectively navigating between notes. It adds a function you can access from the command palette `Open Related items for the active editor` which lets you fuzzy match and go to outlinks and backlinks. If you followed the heuristic i mentioned before all links (outlinks) are child notes. All backlinks are parent notes. Now that hierarchy and category in notes can be represented via the graph and links, this liberates folders so they can be used for something else. # 3. When to use Folders? The main use for folders (at least what i use them for) is to help facilitate workflow. The workflow i created is based mostly on Zettelkasten. I have 2 main folders in the Obsidian vault called `⚗️Lab` and `💲Bank`. All new note files (no matter what they are) are created in the `⚗️Lab` (experimental space). This is particularly helpful if i'm time constrained, like if i have have a random thought and need to create a fleeting note, but don't have the time to name it / organize things correctly. Or if i'm taking notes rapid-fire. I know that all i gotta do is look in the `⚗️Lab` later. Furthermore the number of notes in the `⚗️Lab` should be relatively small, there is the impetus to "keep the lab clean". The `💲Bank` is essentially the permanent long-term archive (safety deposit box). That is, once i've thoroughly reviewed a note, formatted it, added the links, etc. It gets moved from the `⚗️Lab` to the `💲Bank`. This ensures the high quality stuff is all together in the `💲Bank` folder, while the more tentative notes remain in `⚗️Lab`. *Note*: Links work across folders. Just be sure to go to Settings → Files and Links → Automatically update internal links (turn on). I try to avoid using folders (as stated) but there is one exception. If i need to keep a note and/or other files grouped for use *in a different application other than Obsidian*. For example if you visit github, many coding projects will have `Readme.md` `LICENCE` agreements code of conduct `CoC` statements. All of which are plain text and can be viewed by Obsidian, but they are also project code files which have nothing to do with Obsidian. Best to use a folder in that case. ### Important Fundamentally i'm still using folders with this workflow, which means it's still possible to create 2 files with the same name and even the same content, in each `⚗️Lab` and `💲Bank`. We've established duplication is bad. To avoid this make sure you *always* create note files via the quick switcher because it will list any matches first if they exist in either `⚗️Lab` or `💲Bank`, at which point you can choose to open / append to them.