Folder is the most basic way to categorize information
The only rule of it is one file can only belong to one folder, subfolder essentially share the same “trait/attribute” of parent, the biggest problem then is choosing where files belong
On choosing a structure for vault When making a choice of folder, makes sure the functionality of each is as orthogonal to each other as possible
Whichever folder you choose, and you can design around it
Folder name is a primary trait of an information, searching that gives you some information of duplicate
My tip is
- choose folder to be Orthogonal
- Often hard in practice, if you have two folders and adding something, is it a X → XY1, or Y → XY1?
- My example: logs can be in both Calendar or Effort
- Often hard in practice, if you have two folders and adding something, is it a X → XY1, or Y → XY1?
- avoid overly nest (my own preference)
- too many levels of silos, abstraction problem (fragile base class), a folder at a leaf needs to have this and this and this attribute
It’s bit low value, just put it in one place and use primarily link and search for navigation
- folder is good for export, scripting, viewing
Folder vs tags
- tag something with an attribute
- Use case: metadata
Tag vs links
- share similarity in the passive back links
- Looking at a list of back links is same
- Tag is easier to type, metadata
Following Metacognition of PKM is about different ways to index your brain
Thinking of the level of folder depth is simply the index level, the top most is the primary index (what you immediately recall to identify this information)
- if category of topic or areas of interest (life administration, travel, family, etc.) works for you as primary index, great use Johnny Decimal or just raw categories
- If category of essential nature, great use ACE
- If you’re a project oriented person, you may like PARA
- If you don’t use anything, that’s great too
Regardless, the point is that we naturally form structure in our head for information, so even if you’re not using folder to, you’re using something, be it a note, tags, or a good search that indexes for you (key words in files/file names, etc.)
As long as you can group information by some reasonable vicinity that makes sense to you, that’s good
The same structure arise for use cases, just different names and ways to organize around it, so I won’t worry about finding the right organization but rather just stick to one and focus on the use cases
- i.e. for mine, if I have a trip I’m planning, slot them in sub folder personal of Effort (thing of importance and action), if I want to do some research, I’ll create some notes, if I find it to be knowledge I’ll reference later, I’ll move them to Atlas
- This structure is the same if I use Johnny decimal and have a top folder called Life and subcategory Traveling
- this structure is the same if I have no folder and rely on a really good search to find the file or MoC
This vault is built around ACE as that’s the one I built mine around