I recently made some fundamental changes to the structure of my system, and need to make a few decisions forward.
I’m writing this post to get some help and advice from other folks.
I like to name notes with the same name, e.g. there’s a note in Standard Operating Procedures, in checklists, and in templates with the same name “Weekly”. They are all differentiated by relative paths.
The lazy part of me contended to search the term and choose the right note, but that’s needless friction if you have even a couple of notes with the same name.
The change I made is to separate PKM from the Johnny Decimal system. I used to keep PKM as an area inside of it, but realised that the nature of JD does not allow for the free flow of ideas.
I like thinking in terms of IDs. One thing that also helped me with the problem of names, is knowing the ID of the note. I’d like to keep some UID organisation in my notes. I don’t want to use the same format as the Decimal system, but something short and rememberable.
I think the best solution would be to automatically assign an UID as an alias to a note when it is created (similar to how the UID timestamp works in Zettelkasten), but it can’t be longer than 5 characters.
So this is where I’m at in my thought atm. Feel free to comment and ask questions!
This might be a mis-characterisation of my views? I’ve never ‘insisted’ anything. In fact I go to great pains to make it clear that you should adapt my system to your own needs, and that it is rarely a one-stop solution.
I have also never, ever claimed to be part of the PKM ecosystem. My system is used by many within it, for sure. But it’s not a badge I wear.
I might have slightly exaggerated some of it, but I vividly remember this being the case. I know in your last iterations of the website it has changed, but on some occasions you did insist on something being right or wrong.
I have to agree you’re mostly right, and some of it is just my interpretation, but in many instances what you wrote made not only me feel similar, and that’s not for no reason…
In any case, I have no grudges, and that part was emotional. I think your work is good in general.
Remember, I’m writing a single website that’s consumed by everyone. I can’t change the tone or message depending on the audience.
This forces a writer to make decisions. Do you ‘put your hat in the ring’ and make a claim; say a thing is right or wrong? Well now, inevitably, some people are going to disagree with that claim.
But the opposite is no better; arguably it’s worse. Make no claims, have no opinion, and now you’re wishy-washy. Now you’re probably not helpful, because you don’t dare feel like you’re telling people what to do.
(In this space, as I’ve seen with the ‘life admin’ pack, many people positively want to be told what to do. Who wants to spend any more time working out where to save their electricity bill?! It should be a solved problem by now.)
Of course it’s fine that people disagree with things that I actually say. That’s part of a healthy discourse.