Note-taking systems have changed a lot over the years. Like most people, I was a “sort notes by topic in folders” kind of guy for a long time, but back in 2020 I switched to Roam Research and it changed my whole philosophy of how to store notes.
I’ve changed systems a few more times for smaller reasons (to Obsidian, and then to Tana), but the basic idea is still the same. Rather than putting notes in folders, I organize and tag them in a way to make them more easily accessible.
In his book “How to Take Smart Notes“, author Sönke Ahrens explains the difference:
In the old system, the question is: Under which topic do I store this note? In the new system, the question is: In which context will I want to stumble upon it again? Most students sort their material by topic or even by seminars and semester. From the perspective of someone who writes, that makes as much sense as sorting your errands by purchase date and the store they were bought from. Can’t find your trousers? Maybe they are with the bleach you bought the same day at your department store.
This is why I make sure to always take the time to process my notes before I tuck them away. It’s easy to just toss them into your system to find them later, but then you end up with your trousers next to the bleach, which makes no sense. Related is the question of “what do you do with those pictures of slides?“, as many people just leave them where they took them, and hope to find them later.
It’s easy to say “take some time to process your notes”, but it’s certainly an additional commitment of time to do that. I’m the kind of person that likes to put in the effort to garden my notes, but not everyone has that kind of time. Thankfully, search features today allow you to find notes wherever you store them, so it’s not as big a deal as it used to be. For best results down the road, though, sorting things out properly will make your future self much happier.
