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Even the longest journey starts with a single step. I was searching for a way to organise knowledge and remember it, and there are many very good systems that can help. The best option might be to find a system you like and then customise and reorganise it to fit your needs.
[!Note] Underscores and Private Directories Inspired by the programming concept of private variables, these directories are used by the system to store things that the general public (or readers) need not bother with. Examples include:
_assets
: Storage of images or other files used in notes_templates
: Storage of note templates_calendar
: Storage of daily notes_dataview_database
: Dataview queries- And so on…
00_Fleeting_inbox
01_Reference
02_Ideas_and_projects
03_Literature_notes
01_Reference
directory have very practical notes, literature notes are wider range of ideas and personal thoughts about different concepts. When taking literature notes be mindful of a structure but also take note of important metadata.04_Expressions
05_Archive
There are two types of properties i will use, essential and optional. Essential properties must be included since those will help indexing and finding the relevant notes. Some plugins like Dataview
requires metadata to be included so you can query relevant information. In future i will probably use some static site generators or frameworks to publish my notes as an [[online digital garden]]. Such frameworks require properties like title
and description
to improve search engine optimisation, or published
being set to true
or false
which enables you to store the written note as an draft while you still work on it.
Create the [[_dataview_database/index|Dataview index]] to query the list of available frontmatter properties. It is important to review the index file with key-value pairs that are used often and don’t create new key-value pairs if it is not necessary. If i already have source: web
there is no need to create additional source: article
and source: blog
. If i already have URL
property there is no need to create additional link
property. Not going to wide will help later when you need to search for information.
[!tip]+ Essential properties
- tags: List datatype. With not more than 3 tags. It is critical to minimise number of tags and keep them specific. Tags are topic or content related
- type: String datatype. Indicates the type of a note. There must be only one type value. Type is not related to content or topic but more on the purpose or use case for a note. Look for available type values listed under [[#Type property]]
[!tip]+ Optional properties
- date: Date datatype.
- source. String datatype, source of note data
- author: String datatype, author of source
- title: String datatype, title of source
- URL: String datatype, link to source
- status: String datatype, draft, useful, detailed, master
Utilising YAML frontmatter, type is essential property that must be set for every file and with only one value written as a double quoted string.
It would be a mess going to wide with different types of notes. It will for sure loose the purpose. When i see a need to expand the list of available values i will for sure add more.
dv.header(3, "Current type values");
let types = {};
for (let file of dv.pages()) {
if (file.type) {
types[file.type] = (types[file.type] || 0) + 1;
}
}
dv.table(["Type", "Count"],
Object.entries(types).map(([type, count]) => [type, count])
);
Dataview
#project
or a list of all #reference
notes with a specific tag. It provides a JavaScript API and pipeline-based query language for filtering, sorting, and extracting data from Markdown pages. More info can be found at GitHub repository.Templater
Templater: Replace templates in the active file
or by shortcut alt + R
Excalidraw
Most, if not all my notes have listed additional reading materials or references at the bottom. Since note systems have a tendency to grow over time it would be wise to review them on a regular basis and include both inbound and outbound links to new notes or reference material if it becomes available. Frontmatter can have status
variable to indicate the level of maturity or completeness. There is a [[_dataview_database/properties - status property|dataview index file]] tracking the status stages of the whole vault.
Large number of notes can be time consuming to review. Try using dataview
queries as an [[_dataview_database/index|index page]] and try to build a [[02_Ideas_and_projects/ideas/maps of content|maps of content]] that will help with establishing connections between related topics.
Now is all we truly have
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