New user seeking guidance on organisation of literature notes

Hi all,

New user, first post so apologies if this is in the wrong place.

I’m just beginning to use Obsidian so I’m currently a bit bogged down in trying to get my head around organisation of notes.

My current thinking is that a Zettelkasten is the best fit for me, combined with an index and MOCs. I get that this index applies to the permanent notes within the Zettelkasten, but do people employ any particular organisational structure within their literature notes, such as using a standalone index? Or MOCs? Or do people just rely on links and tags to organise?

I’d be very grateful for the views of others. I appreciate that I have enough flexibility to do anything, but rather like arriving at the supermarket when there are hundreds of spaces, I’m now struggling with choosing where to park.

Thanks very much indeed.

2 Likes

First of all, welcome! :slight_smile:
I can only tell you what I did and what works for me:
I have two folders: “Zettelkasten” and “Literatur”
Bildschirmfoto 2021-09-04 um 11.46.59
All my literature notes are in “Literatur” without any further structure.

Some literature notes have tag links to certain topics I’m interested in. But that for when I want to remember a specific book for a topic.
But I don’t need any structure for my literature notes because my important work happens inside the Zettelkasten. So my literature (or reference) notes are only jumping off points that provide the source information for my notes.

Firstly, thank you for your warm welcome.

Secondly, I really am most grateful for the time you’ve taken to respond. Very kind of you indeed. That is really helpful. I kinda had arrived at the position that this was likely to be the right set up for me and this just confirms it.

Best wishes