I have faced this problem recently too when switching from institutional learning to self-organized learning.
The problems is not in how notes are organized, but in how they are written. A distinction between note writing paradigms itself is not commonly discussed within the PKM community.
One is concerned about linking, the top-down file hierarchy, etc. in the belief that it will solve all problems. All of these are however of secondary nature. It does not matter how you organize the notes if the notes themselves are the problem.
The norm is to create notes in a declarative manner: one names a note after a specific topic and writes down all the associated facts with this concept.
To put it bluntly, one is basically writing a fancy dictionary. A dictionary is good for lookups, but it will not improve thinking.
In the same way, reading a dictionary will not guarantee that learned words will directly enter your active vocabulary; more engagement is needed.
In this regard, such types of note-taking are not productive. After all, your goal is not to merely learn definitions, but to acquire some level of expertise.
You are learning about things because you need to apply them in practice.
Your notes should reflect this.
An example
this is an excerpt from my actual note structure, before applying the above myself:
├── behavior
│ ├── 'psychological processes behind group motivation.md'
│ ├── 'self determination theory.md'
│ └── skinner
│ ├── 'causes of behavior.md'
│ ├── conditioning.md
│ ├── 'operant conditioning.md'
│ ├── reflexes.md
│ ├── respondent conditioning.md
│ ├── 'Are mental states important?.md'
│ ├── 'behaviorism 101.md'
│ └── vocabulary.md
├── inbox
│ ├── '_subtle detachment.md'
│ ├── nutrition.md
│ ├── cooking.md
│ ├── REM.md
│ ├── saliency.md
│ ├── 'social identity theory.md'
├── log
│ └── 'thoughts about mindfulness.md'
Great, you are certainly writing things down, but can you actually do something with these notes? - Are you just rephrasing information and don’t know how to use or engage with them?
This is the revised version:
├── behavior
│ ├── 'belonging is important for motivation.md'
│ ├── 'groups enforce behavior.md'
│ ├── motivation.md
│ ├── 'one may stop being motivated if others recommend to do X.md'
│ ├── 'self determination theory.md'
│ ├── skinner
│ │ ├── 'common misconceptions in behaviorism.md'
│ │ ├── 'Are mental states important?.md'
│ │ └── vocabulary.md
│ └── social
│ ├── 'being part of a group reduces individual uniqueness.md'
│ └── 'groups provide individual support.md'
├── integration
│ ├── 'planning ahead detaches one from the present moment.md'
├── knowledge
│ ├── PKM
│ │ └── 'every pkm program is becoming emacs.md'
│ └── 'saliency can be effectively manipulated.md'
├── cooking
│ ├── nutrition.md
│ └── 'carbs increase REM-sleep.md'
├── log
│ └── 'mindfulness makes one more aware.md'
At first, this may seem a bit odd as notes seem to now be claims.
We are often told to not formulate claims but instead to approach everything from a scientific perspective, where one starts by learning definitions and slowly expands from there.
This leads to naivety, where one thinks it is better to not draw any conclusions instead of inaccurate ones. But someone who fears mistakes and becomes hesitant due to them can not make reasonable progress.
Instead, one should engage as much as possible practically with the matter that one studies. Note-taking is not the goal, it’s a byproduct.
In this example, it means:
- read texts (or your previous notes); try to comprehend what they convey in depth
- formulate claims (this is the new note title)
- within the note, argue to why this is true
- lastly, add to the note examples for situations in which this claim arises
- claims are a hypothesis: observe the claim in practice
- refute or delete the note if the claim does not hold up
You can do this procedure on paper, with sticky-notes, Obsidian, or anything else. I recommend for a start to reduce tools and functions to the minimum; use the system and then reflect to what is really needed.
To expand on this: all the claims listed in my example above indirectly incentivize or describe a certain type of behavior.
Additionally, within the procedure of writing these notes, we already added examples for when each action occurs. As such, we are more likely to associate these situations with the behavior.
To not forget these associations and also to revise our notes, a tool such as spaced repetition for notes may be useful.
Lastly, this note-taking approach answers a lot of questions commonly faced in note-taking:
- How atomic should a note be / how much information should each note have?
- enough so that you can argue for the claim
- When do I know my notes are good?
- Upon later revision, the line of thought should be easy to follow. If the note inspires other ideas (= claims), write them down in a new note and link to them from the first note.
- (This also explained when to link notes: by intuition - it should reflect your thinking)
- My written notes feel mundane; I can’t seem to get any value out of them?!
- Try to find examples for when the information applies to your life.
Can’t find any? Maybe that is because these notes actually have no meaning for you; re-evaluate your relation to this topic.
Can you find applicable examples? The problem should have solved itself by now.
The core idea is from Andy Matuschak’s Evergreen Notes, I heavily recommend giving them a read.