Why not both? Something like Obsidian has a folder system but also for linking and tagging. Folders are incredibly useful, specially if you don't want to be tied down to a single app.
I was thinking about what kind of listener Tiago Forte is. I like how he reacts, digests, and follows what others tell him. He never has the urge to tell the other person "I know something, too". I would describe Tiago as a "supportive progressive listener". He provides a good atmosphere, is eager to hear something new and propels the discussion forward by noting the findings and insights. In addition: His questions are short. Amazing quality.
Also, I think that while certain apps claim to "not have folders" information still needs to be grouped in some way and even if they don't act quite the same, are still basically folders.
Nice click bait. This is nothing more than an arguably better self organising tool. Try running anything more than a one person operation and this is utopian nonsense. For businesses who have hundreds of employees, accreditations, documents, customers, invoices etc, who provide a tangible useful product, they'll continue to use folders.
The thing is, that people today rely way too much on online services. Why would you hand out google all your informations? Google says that they scan all of your data und collect informations about you and what you're doing, they are scanning your calendar, your mails, your notes - everything. And Roam only stores your files on their servers, you have no control on your own notes and informations. Who tells you they are doing their backups right? What are you doing when their service is down because they got hacked or something else happens, like they rolled out a new version which has undscovered bugs and you can't use your notes for weeks? That's nothing new, these things happen all the time. I just don't get it, because it's so easy to avoid. For example, i'm using Obsidian, which stores all files localy, but i do that within my own Nextcloud, so i have it synced to all of my devices, i can create my own backups, my notes are on my own server and even when my internet or my server goes down, i still can use all of my notes. It's not very smart to use Google services if it is not only for personal use, and i would'nt use it for that either.
Interesting thoughts and workflow. I think labels and tags are just folders by another name, they're just a very flat construct and if you started to nest them to reflect relationships you'd be back to the same hierarchy folders get you into... Maybe 🤔
Not totally so, because the note can be placed only in one folder, but can have many tags at the same time. But in other aspects you are right, they become very alike. For example, building up folder- or tags structure, maintenance, finding (many) suitable tags to mark the note or trying to remember what tag put on it... :)))
Devonthink treats tags and groups (folders) pretty much the same way. Tagging a note causes it to replicate to the tag as if the tag were a folder and you can custom order the items in a tag just like you can in a group. You can emerge an alternate taxonomy from tags, which can be very helpful, but you can also use tags for different purposes. For example, create notes. Categorize, link, and tag them as fits their subjects. When it's time to write a paper from those notes, create a top level tag for the name of the paper with subtags for the various sections in your outline for the manuscript. Add those subtags to the notes that provide citation for those sections. Now you've emerged an outline with citations from a library of notes. Later in the semester, when it's time to prepare for a test, create a tag for the test and add that tag to every note that matters. Study the material for the test along with how it evolved from early lectures.
@@leolit55 Still, there’s only an amount of tags you can remember and have time to type. Sometimes the category is obscure or you just can’t figure it out in the moment. In my case it’s those I always end up loosing or having to read large chunks all over again just to remember.
The simplicity and the amount of automation in Anne´s system is simply gorgous. Despite being a confident Evernote user for a long time the "shiny object syndrome" hits hard now 😅
So the [[tags]] on Roam are essentially a programmed command to create a folder named [[tags]]. (Computer folders are not folders, after all. That's just the metaphor we use.)
I think the difference is that in traditional computer folders, a file can only "live" in one folder at time - unless you start messing about with shortcuts, which break the minute you move the file. OTOH, you can tag a document with many tags, and it will show up under them. You can even search for documents that have only certain combinations of tags, to get better granularity. Tags extend folders with additional functionality - yes, they both are used to bring together similar information, but for me that's as far as it goes.
Honestly tags and filters are really the same to me. Say on a real estate website I want to filter out any results that are not SALE ONLY listings. I don't even want Sale/Lease listings. Sale only. So you set the filter to show you only those. Or using the tag phrase, you click the tag of Sale and it shows you sale only info. In my personal work system (for the company I work for) I use them differently. I use color coded tags as visual cues rather than for sorting purposes. Or like in gmail - you have "labels" rather than "folders". So you just search for the specific label (tag) and any email you have put that label on will show up. So any email I ever get from my boss has a label with his initials and I can see every piece of communication ever with him. Every property listing has its own label so any piece of communication I have regarding that property is always visible just by clicking that label/tag. What I love so much is being able to have multiple tags so I can see that prop info, but I can also move on to a specific person's label if I need something else that maybe missed getting tagged. I set up filters so that the tags for everyone in the office is automatically applied whenever a message is received from them. That's my baseline. Can't lose it if their name is on it. I can label further after that into proper categories.
To me it seems that way! Baclkinks are like folders and subfolders anyways (or tags, it can be subjective). I am used to seeing my folders properly organized on the side panel, as opposed to having to browse through an ocean of "pages" on the page search engine (which is what Roam Research does). Also, nowadays most "folder-based" note-taking apps have bi-directional backlinking anyways, so you get the best of both worlds.
Whether the conceptual label is [[tags]] or “pages” or “docs” or “folders”, underlying all of this is the relationship. Is it a 1:1 relationship (where a dock sits in a folder in a folder) in a hierarchy. whereby one “doc” can only sit in one “folder”. Or can one page sit in multiple pages (1:many relationship). Kind of like the difference between tabular data, and a database where tabular data can only have one entry in a cell (1:1) whereas a database can have many entries in a cell (1:many).
I'm using a digital zettelkasten (zk) , where my filenames determine the order. A, b, c, d, etc. If I then want to insert something between a and b, I can do a1, a2, a3, etc. If I want to go deeper I can do a1a, a1b, a1c - alternating letters and numbers. This is based on how Luhmann (the OG, as far as I care) ordered his own zk. I can then reference the file by its name. This keeps things structured, without having to mess around with folders - a nice flat structure.
That what Final Cut does with their tag system and I find it very nice to use, speeds up the whole process. I also have my video library stored in only one folder, as I name each video using multiple prefixes specifying categories and sub categories of a surtain area. PM me if you want to know more. It's functioning very well, my computer RAM is less busy this way when collecting media from my drive, works flawlessly!
That’s why Evernote has been my go to app for over a decade unless I am writing a paper, presentation or a formal document. Even the planning for these is done in Evernote.
Apps like this are interesting, and awesome, and .. not fulfilling the same purpose as folders. In fact, is there any reason why we can’t write a GPT agent to create our metadata tags for us from our raw files in folders and build the relationship graph and use this to generate summaries for us, without even dragging sections around? .. folders just collect a default sort of our topics. People have been talking about databases replacing file systems for a long time, but that didn’t happen because the speed of a simple default sort, not the whole relationship graph, is important.. not just for humans consuming files , but even for machines
What I never get is how processing the captured material (like highlights) is not enjoyable. To me, it is most of the fun since I get to actually take a deep dive into each individual capture and bring it to my personal knowledge ecosystem. It is similar to crossfit or similar types of training. The effort is the very thing that makes fun happen.
Also that is actually when the learning happens in my experience because you actually process the information as you capture it, and you automatically compare it to your entire body of research. It seems like this is good for people with unreasonable deadlines and demands for constant output that they do not necessarily have to learn. As in if you already know the subject matter by heart but want to pump out essays or blogs or articles.
I've been stuck for a week now wondering how to progress to the next step. Even posted this question in the community earlier this morning. And then saw this. Perfect! I'm unstuck now. Still don't know exactly what to do but at least have a direction to play with. Thank you!!! Need to tweak it for Obsidian. They seem to be similar. Still stuck on folder thinking hoping working on letting it go. Working on 50+ years using them.
Young people don’t even know history before 9/11. Doom to repeat history if they don’t learn… Folders are dead… Long live folders…especially the ones marked Top Secret…😂
The use of tags and databases to organize things is very useful, but it is important to understand a simple folder tree organization method too. Different situations call for different organization methods. Kids entering college and not knowing what a folder on a computer is? That's not a sign of folders being dead, but a sign of a lack of computer education.
So I started using Obsidian, which, like other note taking apps, allows all kinds of associations between notes. Links, back links, tags, etc. But notes are still kept in files, and files in directories (or folders). And I believe there is great semantic benefit to be harvested in establishing meaningful hierarchies. So I have to ask, what's wrong with using the best of both worlds? Now as a computer programmer, I've often wondered why we should care about files. Using an object oriented language, items are naturally organized by class, subclass, containment, etc. And it's often arbitrary what appears in a particular file. So I'd love an IDE that treats that code like a database of items without regard to what file or folder those items might be in.
as a Gen z kid, we havent forgotten how to use folders, were just not used to using them because we have such efficient search systems that make it extremely easy to find stuff from the laptop, so insted of putting stuff in folders, one can just name it exactly at face value and look for it in search. hey tiago, if ur reading this, can u like my comment?
You can’t hack a folder if it’s on paper in someone’s office like note apps. Security and controlled access will always be a thing. This is more a promotion of a product.
Folders are dead was a catchy title but actually the piece is about note taking and so the folders are dead was only relevant in the case of folders for notes... which have been dead a long time.
Thank you for these series, Tiago! Are you planning to do a similar review of Evernote? I know you are a heavy user and maybe you can invite another expert for a discussion too?
I totally see where she is coming from! Alas, as a developer, organizing my files for a project is essential. I think what she's doing is incredible! But for me, for the foreseeable future, it's folders all the way down.
The best strategy is probably both. Well organized folders with some advanced tags and a dedicated information/ productivity system. It would only take a little bit longer than a well organized folder hierarchy.
One beauty of tags is the ability to link to information all over the place, rather than only hierarchically. And I think using tags as the primary organization scheme facilitates multiple contributors working together, or combining their work more smoothly. Tags allow multiple contributors to mark salient characteristics of a shared corpus, whereas if folders is the only marking paradigm, different contributors might conflict about what the "correct" folder hierarchy should be. Good tooling definitely helps, such as Roam's ability to automatically create a page containing all the material tagged with a particular tag.
I love how Tiago shows us, other people's Second brains and how they use them, but I would love to see him show us his workflow and what apps he uses on regular bases.
I use the decimal system with folders. Only two folders and then the note or documents I’m looking for. Pretty simple. My wife can access it and know if 50-59 they’re a personal documents. Oh she’s 51 all of her specific documents are in there.
How does her system replace folders on MacOS? This seems more complex. Where do we put our Photoshop files? PDFs? Screenshots? The reason we have folders is because they mimic real-life folders and it's easy to just drag and drop files into them. I'm all for a new system, but I don't think this will work for me. I'll stick with folders for now.
It strikes me as false to say that just because things are organized in folders, you HAVE to go down layer by layer in the folders to find a particular note. I may find it grounding to group documents related to a project into a single folder, but I can still use search to find a particular note, as well as related notes that are not inside that folder.
maybe maybe not. As I have many many many maaaaaany images named Aerial In for example, just searching for that will give me all those images. But I only need one related to a certain property and it's not named as such. It's far easier in that case to go to that property folder and find any subsequent folders that I have hidden things in for visual organizational peace. Just an example of how some of us use things differently in different settings.
@@DawnPeacock I think the point was that no one was making the folders at all and that in itself was astonishing. As for its sustainability, it works for students as they go through different courses and devices without looking back.
@@Justgoodvids If people are comfortable without folders, that's fine with me. I'm happy for them 👍👍 But in the video they said that if something is in a folder, you HAVE TO SEARCH FOR IT by descending through the levels of folders, and that is simply not true. You can still use search, even if your stuff is organized into folders.
@@timbushell8640 When I'm on the go I use GKeep for quick capture. Basically O is my second brain where I journal and distill information. When on PC I even quick capture in Daily notes page of O. For content creation I use my distilled notes from O and create a draft in Docs as shown in video.
Is it possible to create this backlink summary page, mentioned around 4:00, in Obsidian? I know there is a menu option to see them, but to have a stable, reviewable, standalone page like Anne-Laure is describing, seems pretty useful.
The program she says she uses is unavailable, and even if it were available the data storage for it is obligate-remote so to use it I MUST be connected to some remote server or I'm screwed. This absolute dependence upon and faith in remote data amazes me.
im curious how much are they worried about security, if it is it on your computer people cannot get it off your site also are they worried about the company such as roam would delete or freeze there account?
Fatal flaw with Apple iCloud. If you move all your data out of the Documents, Downloads and Desktop, to another iCloud Archive for the PARA Archive folder system, the files disappear. In my case files moved to the wrong folder but some files are now missing and Apple technicians have to go back and see if my files exist anywhere. This is a major warning to your viewers! I’m having to go back to other backups to find and rebuild my files. My advices is to copy a few folders at a time our then manually delete. Remember, whatever you do to those key Apple iCloud folders you do across ALL of your devices. Never delete off iCloud unless you absolutely don’t need the files.
I can't live without the folder system. In fact I'm looking for an all-in-one productivity app that I can operate easily from android phone other than Evernote, one note & notion... Any suggestions?
So basically... take notes like you're making instagram posts, and dont misspell your tags?? I'm not sure if this would break my brain or not. There's a lot of memory required here.
I need both. I need folders to put generally related things into because it would be really complicated to make a tag for every type of thing I want to store. Not everything fits into a cut and dried category. I can go through a folder and then sort out what I want to do with it.
Beginning to Obsidian here. I love the idea at @5:16. How can I implement what happens in Roam in Obsidian where it will create a page automatically based on search results?
I'd really like to hear Tiago once explain how to use Google keep as a librarian architype, as he mentioned it in videos before, but noone seem to talk about keep from this perspective
As someone currently in my junior year of college I'm considered pretty damn young. It's interesting that people don't know what a "folder" is on computers because most certainly they ARE using them every day. Otherwise kids with laptops are just cluttering their desktops and can't access any files that aren't in their immediate visual vicinity. That seems ridiculous. I'm usually w you but this one is a strange point.
An interesting conversation. I don't use folders because it requires you to know where things are. Google's machine learning algorithms make folders unnecessary if used correctly. I disagree that Google keep is not capable of managing information in fact I think it's by far the best for managing short-term information. Evernote is not good for managing ideas because it takes too many steps to record them. We use Evernote for long-term information storage. If you use keywords and labels in Google Keep it is by far the best tool for effortlessly capturing information in various forms then archiving and retrieving it at will. I teach people how to efficiently manage communications and data, which is everything you do and Google Keep is the primary tool we use to do it.
For me folders certainly can look like doom boxes or messy desktops but you know it’s there somewhere and tags I can only use for things that have a very clear very conclusive place already so they’re not really helpful for the beginnings of creative work.
I have trouble envisioning how this system works. I actually prefer to use naming conventions to sort rather than folders (out of sight is out of mind), so that suits me. Interesting comment about folders disappearing. The only reason I'd use them is because too many files causes slow loading, such as with photos and video.
YOOOO can you imagine that read list, connecting to chat gpt, having give a break down a summery of each one so you can see which ones are worth investigating further.
It's not supposed to, it does however, show we are in big trouble as a society. Everyone's looking at their smart devices and not where we are going. Not ro mention there is a cohort of young people who now have induced learning difficulties over the last two years and they want use to continue in this vein. It's either incompetence or it's pure evil.
Does this system nkt require remembering what all the tags are? If I need to find a project item several years later, I need to remember what the tags are I used for it?
I'd honestly be really interested to see an entry in this video series on the Apple Ecosystem for notetaking. Primarily on Apple Notes, since it's the dedicated notetaking app in the suite, but maybe also a look at Freeform and how it can factor into notetaking.
This is WONDERFUL!! True collaboration is impossible with folders. We deny insight to our coworkers when we silo our intellectual contributions within barriers, restricting file sharing to individual buckets. Your love letters can give key insight to your code development methodology, even if your fellow developers include several of your simultaneous personfriends. Never put different things in different folders, it's not the modern way, and remember corporate management is better informed if your resumes to competitors aren't selfishly hidden in different folders from what you share with your chain of command. The sickness of folders carries over into the physical world, too. You have a bird bath. "Tag" it with "kitchen sink" by installing water faucets on it, and when you recognize other needs in your home, enhance the "tagging" by adding a flushing system. Tag the front yard with "kitchen" and "bathroom" - voila, you've freed your home from fossilized categorization. For barely more than the construction cost of a birdbath, you've got a sink to wash your dishes, a toilet, and freedom from hidebound compartments! Or, maybe not knowing what folders are can be cured with a short tutorial. On a serious note, I appreciate insights into the methods of thinking and developing knowledge sets. Here's a positive contribution and an example of how folders can be healthy. Our minds work in contexts. You get up because you want a glass of water. By the time you get to the kitchen you've forgotten why you're there. That's because you have a highly organized mind - seriously. It's called the doorway effect. When you walked into the kitchen your brain switched from home office context to kitchen context. You protected your home office thoughts from the kitchen by shifting mental contexts. That's why focussing or hoisting an outline can be effective. It truly encourages focus. Compartmentalization can work wonders. If I want to be sure to remember trash bags at the store, I imagine walking into Walmart with a box of trash bags in my hands. I then cheerfully forget the whole idea. Like magic, when I walk in through Walmart's door, the image of a box of trash bags will pop into my head. My guess, folders aren't completely dead, at least not until coworkers evolve jealously into an egalitarian appreciation for mutually conflicting love letters. Let's all work on that. 😉
The video didn't address it specifically, but she doesn't organise the documents in Google Docs in folders either? I'm just wondering, how does she find the articles again? Does she find them by name, or content, or date? Or is it irrelevant to find them since they are on the website and in Roam anyway?
It's a feature of Roam, when you tag you create a "tag name" page which shows a list of every block in which that tag was referenced. She uses the "EEG" tag and opens the EEG page for the overview of what has been tagged. I assume she removes the EEG tag after processing thar block into the article she's working on
Thanks for the great conversation, Tiago - always a pleasure to discuss productivity & creativity systems with you! 🧠
Hey Anne, love your ideas on productivity and creativity! very inspirational
It’s okay. Use Alfred.
And then there is me, who uses a folder system that goes 8 layers deep at the deepest point
Exactly how I feel about all this. Different strokes for different folks.
You’re my kind of people 😂but I do love her logic and concept.
The only thing stopping me is the character limit for file paths
@@adco it is not about you being different, it is about your use case
but i think if an app (like apple notes) is powerful in search, you really don’t have to be worried about tagging/labelling
Why not both?
Something like Obsidian has a folder system but also for linking and tagging. Folders are incredibly useful, specially if you don't want to be tied down to a single app.
[ 2:01 ] - First time I've seen anyone do it at the bottom of the page 😊
I was thinking about what kind of listener Tiago Forte is. I like how he reacts, digests, and follows what others tell him. He never has the urge to tell the other person "I know something, too". I would describe Tiago as a "supportive progressive listener". He provides a good atmosphere, is eager to hear something new and propels the discussion forward by noting the findings and insights.
In addition: His questions are short. Amazing quality.
Very well said. I totally agree.
I get that folders are "out of fashion" among PKM folk these days, but I still find them incredibly useful.
Fully agreed.
it’s like while you can put your clothes anywhere in your place, but eventually you want them to be stored inside your wardrobe
@@ritchiewlc do the really though
Also, I think that while certain apps claim to "not have folders" information still needs to be grouped in some way and even if they don't act quite the same, are still basically folders.
FOLDERS - pooof!! 🗂️
Nice click bait. This is nothing more than an arguably better self organising tool. Try running anything more than a one person operation and this is utopian nonsense.
For businesses who have hundreds of employees, accreditations, documents, customers, invoices etc, who provide a tangible useful product, they'll continue to use folders.
With my ADD, creating a "read later" list that long would translate to "collect lists like a hoarder, only read a few".
The thing is, that people today rely way too much on online services. Why would you hand out google all your informations? Google says that they scan all of your data und collect informations about you and what you're doing, they are scanning your calendar, your mails, your notes - everything. And Roam only stores your files on their servers, you have no control on your own notes and informations. Who tells you they are doing their backups right? What are you doing when their service is down because they got hacked or something else happens, like they rolled out a new version which has undscovered bugs and you can't use your notes for weeks? That's nothing new, these things happen all the time. I just don't get it, because it's so easy to avoid. For example, i'm using Obsidian, which stores all files localy, but i do that within my own Nextcloud, so i have it synced to all of my devices, i can create my own backups, my notes are on my own server and even when my internet or my server goes down, i still can use all of my notes. It's not very smart to use Google services if it is not only for personal use, and i would'nt use it for that either.
Interesting thoughts and workflow. I think labels and tags are just folders by another name, they're just a very flat construct and if you started to nest them to reflect relationships you'd be back to the same hierarchy folders get you into... Maybe 🤔
Not totally so, because the note can be placed only in one folder, but can have many tags at the same time. But in other aspects you are right, they become very alike. For example, building up folder- or tags structure, maintenance, finding (many) suitable tags to mark the note or trying to remember what tag put on it... :)))
Devonthink treats tags and groups (folders) pretty much the same way. Tagging a note causes it to replicate to the tag as if the tag were a folder and you can custom order the items in a tag just like you can in a group.
You can emerge an alternate taxonomy from tags, which can be very helpful, but you can also use tags for different purposes.
For example, create notes. Categorize, link, and tag them as fits their subjects. When it's time to write a paper from those notes, create a top level tag for the name of the paper with subtags for the various sections in your outline for the manuscript. Add those subtags to the notes that provide citation for those sections. Now you've emerged an outline with citations from a library of notes.
Later in the semester, when it's time to prepare for a test, create a tag for the test and add that tag to every note that matters. Study the material for the test along with how it evolved from early lectures.
Surely. Haha
@@leolit55 Still, there’s only an amount of tags you can remember and have time to type. Sometimes the category is obscure or you just can’t figure it out in the moment. In my case it’s those I always end up loosing or having to read large chunks all over again just to remember.
The simplicity and the amount of automation in Anne´s system is simply gorgous. Despite being a confident Evernote user for a long time the "shiny object syndrome" hits hard now 😅
So the [[tags]] on Roam are essentially a programmed command to create a folder named [[tags]]. (Computer folders are not folders, after all. That's just the metaphor we use.)
I think the difference is that in traditional computer folders, a file can only "live" in one folder at time - unless you start messing about with shortcuts, which break the minute you move the file. OTOH, you can tag a document with many tags, and it will show up under them. You can even search for documents that have only certain combinations of tags, to get better granularity. Tags extend folders with additional functionality - yes, they both are used to bring together similar information, but for me that's as far as it goes.
Honestly tags and filters are really the same to me. Say on a real estate website I want to filter out any results that are not SALE ONLY listings. I don't even want Sale/Lease listings. Sale only. So you set the filter to show you only those. Or using the tag phrase, you click the tag of Sale and it shows you sale only info.
In my personal work system (for the company I work for) I use them differently. I use color coded tags as visual cues rather than for sorting purposes.
Or like in gmail - you have "labels" rather than "folders". So you just search for the specific label (tag) and any email you have put that label on will show up. So any email I ever get from my boss has a label with his initials and I can see every piece of communication ever with him. Every property listing has its own label so any piece of communication I have regarding that property is always visible just by clicking that label/tag. What I love so much is being able to have multiple tags so I can see that prop info, but I can also move on to a specific person's label if I need something else that maybe missed getting tagged. I set up filters so that the tags for everyone in the office is automatically applied whenever a message is received from them. That's my baseline. Can't lose it if their name is on it. I can label further after that into proper categories.
@@shannonbenzing9361 isn't filtering a process?
To me it seems that way! Baclkinks are like folders and subfolders anyways (or tags, it can be subjective). I am used to seeing my folders properly organized on the side panel, as opposed to having to browse through an ocean of "pages" on the page search engine (which is what Roam Research does). Also, nowadays most "folder-based" note-taking apps have bi-directional backlinking anyways, so you get the best of both worlds.
Whether the conceptual label is [[tags]] or “pages” or “docs” or “folders”, underlying all of this is the relationship. Is it a 1:1 relationship (where a dock sits in a folder in a folder) in a hierarchy. whereby one “doc” can only sit in one “folder”. Or can one page sit in multiple pages (1:many relationship). Kind of like the difference between tabular data, and a database where tabular data can only have one entry in a cell (1:1) whereas a database can have many entries in a cell (1:many).
I'm using a digital zettelkasten (zk) , where my filenames determine the order. A, b, c, d, etc. If I then want to insert something between a and b, I can do a1, a2, a3, etc. If I want to go deeper I can do a1a, a1b, a1c - alternating letters and numbers.
This is based on how Luhmann (the OG, as far as I care) ordered his own zk. I can then reference the file by its name. This keeps things structured, without having to mess around with folders - a nice flat structure.
Thank you. This is a very insightful interview. I'd love to see more of this type of thing.
Cracking to see your wisdoms merge!! 🎉🎉
Gen Z - Owning no money, no home, no car and no folders.
I have been "flattening" my work as well, but heavily investing in taxonomies for imposing structure and organization.
Try managing an adobe premiere video project or an indesign layout project without folders...
That what Final Cut does with their tag system and I find it very nice to use, speeds up the whole process. I also have my video library stored in only one folder, as I name each video using multiple prefixes specifying categories and sub categories of a surtain area. PM me if you want to know more.
It's functioning very well, my computer RAM is less busy this way when collecting media from my drive, works flawlessly!
That’s why Evernote has been my go to app for over a decade unless I am writing a paper, presentation or a formal document. Even the planning for these is done in Evernote.
Apps like this are interesting, and awesome, and .. not fulfilling the same purpose as folders. In fact, is there any reason why we can’t write a GPT agent to create our metadata tags for us from our raw files in folders and build the relationship graph and use this to generate summaries for us, without even dragging sections around?
.. folders just collect a default sort of our topics. People have been talking about databases replacing file systems for a long time, but that didn’t happen because the speed of a simple default sort, not the whole relationship graph, is important.. not just for humans consuming files , but even for machines
What I never get is how processing the captured material (like highlights) is not enjoyable. To me, it is most of the fun since I get to actually take a deep dive into each individual capture and bring it to my personal knowledge ecosystem. It is similar to crossfit or similar types of training. The effort is the very thing that makes fun happen.
Also that is actually when the learning happens in my experience because you actually process the information as you capture it, and you automatically compare it to your entire body of research. It seems like this is good for people with unreasonable deadlines and demands for constant output that they do not necessarily have to learn. As in if you already know the subject matter by heart but want to pump out essays or blogs or articles.
I got you, but sometimes there is too much material to process and probably you got deadlines or some output in mind.
@@ramiboy_y2049 Doesn't make it less fun. :)
I've been stuck for a week now wondering how to progress to the next step. Even posted this question in the community earlier this morning. And then saw this. Perfect! I'm unstuck now. Still don't know exactly what to do but at least have a direction to play with. Thank you!!! Need to tweak it for Obsidian. They seem to be similar. Still stuck on folder thinking hoping working on letting it go. Working on 50+ years using them.
Young people don’t even know history before 9/11.
Doom to repeat history if they don’t learn…
Folders are dead…
Long live folders…especially the ones marked Top Secret…😂
The use of tags and databases to organize things is very useful, but it is important to understand a simple folder tree organization method too. Different situations call for different organization methods. Kids entering college and not knowing what a folder on a computer is? That's not a sign of folders being dead, but a sign of a lack of computer education.
So I started using Obsidian, which, like other note taking apps, allows all kinds of associations between notes. Links, back links, tags, etc. But notes are still kept in files, and files in directories (or folders). And I believe there is great semantic benefit to be harvested in establishing meaningful hierarchies. So I have to ask, what's wrong with using the best of both worlds?
Now as a computer programmer, I've often wondered why we should care about files. Using an object oriented language, items are naturally organized by class, subclass, containment, etc. And it's often arbitrary what appears in a particular file. So I'd love an IDE that treats that code like a database of items without regard to what file or folder those items might be in.
as a Gen z kid, we havent forgotten how to use folders, were just not used to using them because we have such efficient search systems that make it extremely easy to find stuff from the laptop, so insted of putting stuff in folders, one can just name it exactly at face value and look for it in search.
hey tiago, if ur reading this, can u like my comment?
search ok. but you not need to organize anything in sets? by folders
"An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements." - James Webb Young -
There is nothing new under the sun
You can’t hack a folder if it’s on paper in someone’s office like note apps.
Security and controlled access will always be a thing.
This is more a promotion of a product.
Folders are dead was a catchy title but actually the piece is about note taking and so the folders are dead was only relevant in the case of folders for notes... which have been dead a long time.
Clickbait.
Thank you for these series, Tiago! Are you planning to do a similar review of Evernote? I know you are a heavy user and maybe you can invite another expert for a discussion too?
Coming this year for sure
He interviewing himself would be great
I totally see where she is coming from! Alas, as a developer, organizing my files for a project is essential. I think what she's doing is incredible! But for me, for the foreseeable future, it's folders all the way down.
The best strategy is probably both. Well organized folders with some advanced tags and a dedicated information/ productivity system. It would only take a little bit longer than a well organized folder hierarchy.
One beauty of tags is the ability to link to information all over the place, rather than only hierarchically. And I think using tags as the primary organization scheme facilitates multiple contributors working together, or combining their work more smoothly. Tags allow multiple contributors to mark salient characteristics of a shared corpus, whereas if folders is the only marking paradigm, different contributors might conflict about what the "correct" folder hierarchy should be. Good tooling definitely helps, such as Roam's ability to automatically create a page containing all the material tagged with a particular tag.
Lol obviously none of these people have ever gone on github.
Hi Anne, is your roam chrome extension available on the Store to download and install?
I love how Tiago shows us, other people's Second brains and how they use them, but I would love to see him show us his workflow and what apps he uses on regular bases.
I use the decimal system with folders. Only two folders and then the note or documents I’m looking for. Pretty simple. My wife can access it and know if 50-59 they’re a personal documents. Oh she’s 51 all of her specific documents are in there.
Very interesting and helpful video 👌 thanks to both of you 💙💙
The shaking leg is a distracting.
How does her system replace folders on MacOS? This seems more complex. Where do we put our Photoshop files? PDFs? Screenshots? The reason we have folders is because they mimic real-life folders and it's easy to just drag and drop files into them. I'm all for a new system, but I don't think this will work for me. I'll stick with folders for now.
It strikes me as false to say that just because things are organized in folders, you HAVE to go down layer by layer in the folders to find a particular note. I may find it grounding to group documents related to a project into a single folder, but I can still use search to find a particular note, as well as related notes that are not inside that folder.
maybe maybe not. As I have many many many maaaaaany images named Aerial In for example, just searching for that will give me all those images. But I only need one related to a certain property and it's not named as such. It's far easier in that case to go to that property folder and find any subsequent folders that I have hidden things in for visual organizational peace. Just an example of how some of us use things differently in different settings.
@@shannonbenzing9361 I think you and I agree.
@@DawnPeacock I think the point was that no one was making the folders at all and that in itself was astonishing. As for its sustainability, it works for students as they go through different courses and devices without looking back.
@@Justgoodvids If people are comfortable without folders, that's fine with me. I'm happy for them 👍👍 But in the video they said that if something is in a folder, you HAVE TO SEARCH FOR IT by descending through the levels of folders, and that is simply not true. You can still use search, even if your stuff is organized into folders.
@@DawnPeacock Yep, the best search engines I have index the drive, sure at first it's slow but once indexed you can find anything you want.
I have a very similar writing system.
Outline in Obsidian - Draft in Gdocs - Publish
Collect and outline in O I assume, or are the notes elsewhere? And publish with what?
@@timbushell8640 When I'm on the go I use GKeep for quick capture.
Basically O is my second brain where I journal and distill information. When on PC I even quick capture in Daily notes page of O.
For content creation I use my distilled notes from O and create a draft in Docs as shown in video.
Is it possible to create this backlink summary page, mentioned around 4:00, in Obsidian? I know there is a menu option to see them, but to have a stable, reviewable, standalone page like Anne-Laure is describing, seems pretty useful.
If you go into Core Plugin Settings > Backlinks you can toggle ‘Backlink in document’. This will display it in the written document similarly to Roam
The program she says she uses is unavailable, and even if it were available the data storage for it is obligate-remote so to use it I MUST be connected to some remote server or I'm screwed. This absolute dependence upon and faith in remote data amazes me.
im curious how much are they worried about security, if it is it on your computer people cannot get it off your site also are they worried about the company such as roam would delete or freeze there account?
Everything is encrypted and I do regular exports of my Roam database!
@@neuranne thanks
Roam definitely not safe. Obsidian is.
Fatal flaw with Apple iCloud. If you move all your data out of the Documents, Downloads and Desktop, to another iCloud Archive for the PARA Archive folder system, the files disappear. In my case files moved to the wrong folder but some files are now missing and Apple technicians have to go back and see if my files exist anywhere. This is a major warning to your viewers! I’m having to go back to other backups to find and rebuild my files. My advices is to copy a few folders at a time our then manually delete. Remember, whatever you do to those key Apple iCloud folders you do across ALL of your devices. Never delete off iCloud unless you absolutely don’t need the files.
I can't live without the folder system. In fact I'm looking for an all-in-one productivity app that I can operate easily from android phone other than Evernote, one note & notion... Any suggestions?
So basically... take notes like you're making instagram posts, and dont misspell your tags?? I'm not sure if this would break my brain or not. There's a lot of memory required here.
I need both. I need folders to put generally related things into because it would be really complicated to make a tag for every type of thing I want to store. Not everything fits into a cut and dried category. I can go through a folder and then sort out what I want to do with it.
Fascinating that Google haven't developed a top note taking system... P.s. I am a folder lover...😜
Beginning to Obsidian here. I love the idea at @5:16. How can I implement what happens in Roam in Obsidian where it will create a page automatically based on search results?
"Don't create combine." ok so then humanity is stagnant with out creativity or your letting weird AI generated stuff take over your life.
I only use top level folders. Inbox, review, archive. Everything is tagged, folders are process bins. Nothing more.
I'd really like to hear Tiago once explain how to use Google keep as a librarian architype, as he mentioned it in videos before, but noone seem to talk about keep from this perspective
Lovely folks with great ideas. I am grateful for this information.
I wonder how many people clicked away when she started highlighting and dog-earing books.
This is insane, exactly what i was looking for!
I’m curious about the custom script! Can you share it? 😮
heyyyyy hold upp, i highlight AND fold the edge of the page as well!
Why do all these productivity gurus just look like they don't sleep every other day
I remember when folders were called directories.
chatGpt and what else I can use to take efficient notes
The android uses folders the user cant access
As someone currently in my junior year of college I'm considered pretty damn young. It's interesting that people don't know what a "folder" is on computers because most certainly they ARE using them every day. Otherwise kids with laptops are just cluttering their desktops and can't access any files that aren't in their immediate visual vicinity. That seems ridiculous. I'm usually w you but this one is a strange point.
An interesting conversation. I don't use folders because it requires you to know where things are. Google's machine learning algorithms make folders unnecessary if used correctly.
I disagree that Google keep is not capable of managing information in fact I think it's by far the best for managing short-term information. Evernote is not good for managing ideas because it takes too many steps to record them. We use Evernote for long-term information storage.
If you use keywords and labels in Google Keep it is by far the best tool for effortlessly capturing information in various forms then archiving and retrieving it at will.
I teach people how to efficiently manage communications and data, which is everything you do and Google Keep is the primary tool we use to do it.
I wonder if LaMDA could write articles like chatGPT? 500 would be easy for an AI to write and no one would be the wiser except for insiders.
Friction as a friend. Love it.
So basically she is rewriter.
For me folders certainly can look like doom boxes or messy desktops but you know it’s there somewhere and tags I can only use for things that have a very clear very conclusive place already so they’re not really helpful for the beginnings of creative work.
I have trouble envisioning how this system works.
I actually prefer to use naming conventions to sort rather than folders (out of sight is out of mind), so that suits me. Interesting comment about folders disappearing. The only reason I'd use them is because too many files causes slow loading, such as with photos and video.
This explains why my zoomer daughter seems to have difficulty grasping the concept
Great video, spot on Tiago, thanks for sharing lots of your insight, and hosting suvch great and inspiring guests.
YOOOO can you imagine that read list, connecting to chat gpt, having give a break down a summery of each one so you can see which ones are worth investigating further.
I use folders dozens of times each day - this doesn't make any sense to me...
It's not supposed to, it does however, show we are in big trouble as a society. Everyone's looking at their smart devices and not where we are going. Not ro mention there is a cohort of young people who now have induced learning difficulties over the last two years and they want use to continue in this vein. It's either incompetence or it's pure evil.
Does this system nkt require remembering what all the tags are? If I need to find a project item several years later, I need to remember what the tags are I used for it?
Generations of people who take notes for a living.. and we wonder why kids today don't know how to open a tin can with a can opener.
Now all you have are drawers. And if you say drawers are dead, too, all you'll have left is a steel cabinet.
Obsidian forever!!!
I'm enamored with this concept!! Brilliant!
How did Google know I was cleaning up my folders? 😂
i remember the time when I use it to store my top secret research deep into layers of folder.
Absolute nonsense.
How do you not end up with too long lists if you use a system with no Folders?
The entire world wide web is a nest of folders...
what about github?
It’s pretty much the concept of luhmann Zettlekasten
Obsidian. Thanks, bye 🏃🏾♂️
I'd honestly be really interested to see an entry in this video series on the Apple Ecosystem for notetaking. Primarily on Apple Notes, since it's the dedicated notetaking app in the suite, but maybe also a look at Freeform and how it can factor into notetaking.
Coming 2023
This is WONDERFUL!!
True collaboration is impossible with folders. We deny insight to our coworkers when we silo our intellectual contributions within barriers, restricting file sharing to individual buckets. Your love letters can give key insight to your code development methodology, even if your fellow developers include several of your simultaneous personfriends.
Never put different things in different folders, it's not the modern way, and remember corporate management is better informed if your resumes to competitors aren't selfishly hidden in different folders from what you share with your chain of command.
The sickness of folders carries over into the physical world, too. You have a bird bath. "Tag" it with "kitchen sink" by installing water faucets on it, and when you recognize other needs in your home, enhance the "tagging" by adding a flushing system. Tag the front yard with "kitchen" and "bathroom" - voila, you've freed your home from fossilized categorization. For barely more than the construction cost of a birdbath, you've got a sink to wash your dishes, a toilet, and freedom from hidebound compartments!
Or, maybe not knowing what folders are can be cured with a short tutorial.
On a serious note, I appreciate insights into the methods of thinking and developing knowledge sets.
Here's a positive contribution and an example of how folders can be healthy.
Our minds work in contexts. You get up because you want a glass of water. By the time you get to the kitchen you've forgotten why you're there.
That's because you have a highly organized mind - seriously. It's called the doorway effect. When you walked into the kitchen your brain switched from home office context to kitchen context. You protected your home office thoughts from the kitchen by shifting mental contexts. That's why focussing or hoisting an outline can be effective. It truly encourages focus.
Compartmentalization can work wonders. If I want to be sure to remember trash bags at the store, I imagine walking into Walmart with a box of trash bags in my hands. I then cheerfully forget the whole idea. Like magic, when I walk in through Walmart's door, the image of a box of trash bags will pop into my head.
My guess, folders aren't completely dead, at least not until coworkers evolve jealously into an egalitarian appreciation for mutually conflicting love letters.
Let's all work on that. 😉
The video didn't address it specifically, but she doesn't organise the documents in Google Docs in folders either?
I'm just wondering, how does she find the articles again?
Does she find them by name, or content, or date?
Or is it irrelevant to find them since they are on the website and in Roam anyway?
I keep the outline in Roam and I look them up on my website if I need to refer to the full text!
This was great and stimulating. Thx
I always have a chuckle to myself when ever a "computer expert" refers to a directory as a folder.
Because they are.
Uma das melhores entrevistas que assisti.❤
Thanks for creating this.
Surely this is the same as using tags?
Too complicated. I will stick with Standard Notes app.
If you have not tried it.... you are truly missing out.
“Friction as a friend”
Love your channel!!!
How did she get that to compile with the [[EEG]] example?
It's a feature of Roam, when you tag you create a "tag name" page which shows a list of every block in which that tag was referenced. She uses the "EEG" tag and opens the EEG page for the overview of what has been tagged.
I assume she removes the EEG tag after processing thar block into the article she's working on
Thank you Tiago!
So...tags