"Philosophical" question on best practices for historic/biographical atomic notes

Knowledge management
,
1

I’ve been using Obsidian for a few years, but recently started a history PhD so I’ve been rethinking my vault structure.

Specifically, I’ve been struggling with folder structures, as I’ve noticed that I reread books taking copious notes multiple times, then slotting the book note into a different folder and only realizing later.

To prevent that I’ve gotten rid of all (most) folders and put all source notes into a single folder which are named with citekey from Zotero. I’m trying to learn about MOCs, though I’m not sure I’m a big fan of those.

I’ve also just rewatched morganeua’s cool video on Zettelkasten, and atomic notes, specifically the “irreducible” nature of those, and paying attention to writing things in my own words and then linking more.

My question now is how I could best deal with biographies of historic people. Since there are going to be more of those soon, I thought it best to find a solution for those.

Currently they’re in my Atomic Notes folder, but that doesn’t really fit just because of the nature of Atomic Notes and the nature of biographies consisting of more than a single idea.

I realize this is a silly problem to have, I’m just really trying to simplify my vault structure to make things easier on myself when I have a ton more notes.

Currently my vault structure is

Admin (everything that doesn't go in with the actual notes, e.g. meeting notes, calendar stuff, todos, etc.)
MOCs
Ideas ("fleeting" notes)
Atomic notes
Sources

I’m mostly asking for ideas and how other academics, scholars, hobbyists, or anyone deals with this.

Thanks :slight_smile:

3

did you generate this answer with AI?

4

I keep bios in subfolder in a “Reference” folder. I add descriptive front matter properties to the bio (with a template) as well as the alias: property so that different spellings of a person’s name, or different titles can easily be accommodated when referencing that person in atomic notes, book and article highlights, or elsewhere in the vault.

(Related, though not on topic, I also use the “Strange New Worlds” plugin, which simplifies reviewing the context for linked references.)

5

As RoyRogers, I keep my notes of biographies (or other books/articles, etc.) in a Reference folder, where all my observations, notes or quotes are written on the page of the item, with frontmatter and proprieties.

If I understand Atomic Notes correctly, you could make those from the initial biography and be free to have different ideas from them in your Atomic notes folder?

My formula is heavily inspired by 01 Notetaking for Historians - Doing History with Zotero and Obsidian - Obsidian Publish.