"New" knowledge management method

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Hey everyone!

Today I would like to present you with one idea that’s been on my mind lately.

I think that for every note created that are two main questions:

  1. What should I write in this note? (so I can correctly remember the context and information in the note)
  2. How should I classify this note? (so it’s easier to find it when I need it and establish new connections)

However, we want to take notes in the frictionless way possible. To achieve that, there is really no one-size-fits-all answer to the first question other than “Take/make notes with your own words”. So the focus comes to the second question and the more I think about it, the more I find the answer to be what i call “Object Based Notes”.

This is not a new and revolutinairy concept, this is something that I think a lot of Obsidian users are already doing in some way or another but i never thought abount until I discovered Capacities.io (a note taking app where every note is an object) and is really clicked with me.

Object Based Notes are simply an organization method where your folders are now objects. For example, instead of having a folder for “Literature notes” you now have a “folder” called “Books” where you only have one type of note there (your book notes) and you create a new object every time you feel the need to. In obsidian, the creation of a new object is translated as the creation of a new template where a new object has it’s own metadata.
Like this:

---
aliases: ramakrishnanramachandranIntroductionInnovationManagement2020
year: 2020
bibliography: Ramachandran, Ramakrishnan. “Introduction to Innovation Management,” 2020. [https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.25436.00646](https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.25436.00646).
authors: Ramakrishnan Ramachandran
object: paper
---

or this

---
aliases: books to read
created: 2023-02-06
edited: 2023-02-06
object: list
Cssclass: cards
---

But what are the benefits of this?
Taking notes this way is simpler, beacuse you don’t need to worry about the taxonomy of the note itself, you can just select the appropriate note object (template), write everything that you want and it’s done. No worries if it’s a seed note, a tree, a literature note, atomic note or whatever.

But how do I connect the notes without a taxonomy?
That’s the interesting part, you do it by tags, in every object you will use as many tags as you want to give more context to your note, the important thing is to remember it when you need it.

I love this way of taking/making notes because it’s really Bottom-Up, I just set up a template for each type of object that I use and write my notes, if I need a new object, I just create a new template and insert the adequate metadata. If i need folders in the future, I can easily integrate them in my vault.

What do you guys think of it? I would love to read your comments on this.

2

I like your train of thought, and it will be interesting to hear from you how your experience with this approach pans out – specifically with the application of tags.

I am doing something similar – in a nutshell: I use the Metadata Menu plugin to define “objects”, while maintaining a flat folder structure, i.e., I only have one. :wink:

There are exceptions to the rule:

  • I use tags for a specific case only: as calendar entries to manage my over-, due and upcoming tasks.
  • I currently use one additional folder for my shopping list items. The folder note is my dynamic shopping list in which I can directly change the metadata of the items. Three plugins at play here: Dataview, Folder notes and Metadata Menu.
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