There are three main ways to organize notes in Obsidian: - [[#Folders]] - [[#Links]] - [[#Tags]] ## Folders Using folders promotes [[Top-Down Thinking]] as a note can only be in one folder. ### View ```button name Files: Show File Explorer type command action Files: Show File Explorer ``` There is also a more functional folder view using the `File Tree Alternative Plugin` that you might enjoy more. This lets you better navigate your folders with things like: - Isolated views to only show the selected folder's contents - Custom sorting - Searching I have heard it once caused performance issues for a customer, so if you find your Obsidian slowing down it could be a culprit 🧐 You can open it through the button: ```button name File Tree Alternative: Open File Tree View type command action File Tree Alternative: Open File Tree View ``` ### Uses I don't actually access notes through folders most of the time, so I don't use them with retrievability and navigation in mind. Instead, I mostly use them to group the different [[Note types]] in the vault into their folders. This is why there might be a good amount of. This is because I feel using [[View notes]] allows for much more functionality and customizability compared to navigating through folders. And you can already technically navigate with folders since they are recognized during search in [[Creating and modifying notes]] By having any note type in it's own folder, the root folder will be the one full of just purely [[Conceptual notes]]. Some of the important folder design choices in [[USV]] include: - Anything in the `Hidden` folder can be easily excluded in queries or search methods by including it as part of the criteria - This is because you wouldn't want to see things like templates, [[QuickAdd Plugin]] fileClasses, archived notes, etc - There are some nested notes if they are a subtype of the main note, but that is about it. - ex) [[Inputs]] `#input` has various subtypes to further classify the type of input it is, like `#input/books` - Also used to organize the different file types aside from markdown (attachments, [[Obsidian Canvas]], [[Excalidraw Plugin]]) ## Tags Used to classify the [[Note types]] in the vault, and organize them into sub-types. When you tag a note with something, you set it up to have specific metadata based on the [[Metadata Menu Plugin]]. To see the properties associated with each tag, you can look at [[Projects]] Some notes will also have a subtag associated with it, like `#input/video, #input/article, etc` These help you further organize these broad types of notes, which can then be accessed in notes like [[My Videos]] or [[My Articles]]. ![[Auto Note Mover Plugin#Specifying type of input]] By specifically categorizing our data, we can give it detailed metadata most related to the type of information we are storing in there, which can be set using the [[Metadata Menu Plugin]] ## Links Links are a dynamic way of organizing your notes by relatedness of ideas. They allow for the functionality of both previous organizing methodologies. Just replace the idea of a folder or tag with a note representing it: - You can still achieve the hierarchical organization of folders by using the `Links` [[Metadata]] to link to the parent "folder", which is actually a note - Just like tags, we can classify a note as multiple things by linking it to "tag", which is actually just a note This gives us another dimension to organize things, as beyond just the actual name of folders and tags, we can add context using the text surrounding a link. For a certain type of thing in our Obsidian notes, the classification evolves from `Thing/note` to `#thing` to This note is a `[[thing]]` because of x In previous versions of the vault I had my note types also link back to their main note, like linking the book note `[[Building a Second Brain]] to [[My Books]]`, but I feel like it only clutters the backlinks and graph view. I use links for… - **Understanding** - Connect something new to something we already know, recording and building off of my previous thinking - **Creativity** - The emergence of our own ideas by infusing our own personal ideas and the synthesis of various ideas - **Productivity** - Organize based on actionability by linking the note to whatever goal, project, area, etc. I will need it for # Your Turn [[Lesson Action Items#Organization methods in Obsidian]] Then go back to [[USV Module - Learn Obsidian]]