ever since I started using supernotes, I somewhat struggled to find a workflow that would allow me to consistently use the features provided by supernotes and in doing so create a graph of data that is easy to handle.
There are tags, there are parents, and we can link a card to another one. While this is great, it comes with the obigation to decide whether some association should be represented as a tag, a parent or a linked card.
Other approaches, such as roamresearch, have only one thing, which does all of the above at once. That to has its charme, and it seems simpler as we do not need to make a decision as above. However, with a paradigm that - once initially defined - automatically answers that question everytime you add content, supernotes can become just as simple, but provides the benefit that you actually do have a hierarchy, something that roamresearch is lacking.
I though quite a lot about this and stored my thoughts in a card. Maybe its interesting for some of you, so I would like to share it with you
We wanted to build Supernotes in a way that it lets any user have their notes how they want - and make it personal to them (but still shared!). Whether it’s mostly a flat hierarchy and organisation is dependent on tags; or a very deeply nested hierarchy where organisation is dependent on nesting cards; or just having a combination of both.
I’m really happy to see you have made use of all the different features of Supernotes and have built what seems like a very powerful workflow!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic - I found your notecards to be both thought provoking and inspiring!
I was wondering if you’ve had any additional insights (since this post) on your preferred structure in Supernotes, or your use of tags, links, and parents?
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot, especially as my notecard collection has grown. Recently, I’ve been playing with “notecard type tags” (#collection, #study note, #definition, #insight, #quote, #book, etc.), and creating some rules for the structure of the relationships between the various notecard types. So far, it seems like a promising avenue of inquiry, but I’d love to understand how other people are managing their notecards.
If you’d be interested to exchange ideas on this topic, then perhaps we could book a 1:1 video call to share insights and brainstorm together?
I’m glad you read my cards on how I use supernotes, and I’m happy you considered it worth thinking about.
It’s so important to have a functional system, more so than having a shiny tool, I’d say. And it’s great you are invested in this matter!
Well, I actually do have experimented with a system to organize information recently, parts of which I realize in supernotes. And I would love to share it with the world. I made some exhaustive notes regarding my approach, but currently its all German, so potentially of little use for most people. I have a someday-task to translate all that, well, someday.
In the meantime, we could definitely have a little chat and exchange our experiences. I’ll contact you so we can decide on a way to communicate.
Robin and I met yesterday, and shared our current Supernotes systems with each other. It was fascinating to get a guided tour of someone else’s thinking, process, and hierarchy, and I can highly recommend other people in the community pairing or grouping up to do something similar!
It’s probably obvious that video and screen sharing is a high-bandwidth channel for sharing insights, but I was still surprised at how delightful it was to share ideas with someone who is passionate about the same topic.
My key take aways
Robin’s goal with his note system is different than mine, which leads to a different structure and process
I’m focussed on insight discovery and turning insights into output, which has led me to a topic-based hierarchy and notecard types managed with tags
Robin is focussed on information and insight recall, which has led him to a type-based hierarchy and topics managed with tags
Supernotes supports both approaches beautifully, which shows its power and flexibility!
I was inspired by Robin’s sharing of his thinking as notecards, so if anyone is interested in reading my (very rough) opinionated insights about optimising your PKM structure for discovering new insights and generating content, then you’re welcome to start here: PKMs should be structured.
If anyone has any feedback (reinforcing or redirecting) about these insights, then I’d be very grateful to receive it.
James, thanks for sharing. As with Robin’s cards, it was an interesting read.
I commented on your card “links should connect non-sibling notes”. Thought I would mention it here seeing as in-app notifications are yet to arrive.
@daniela1 Thanks for your comment! (And you’re right that I would have missed it if you didn’t post here too).
One of my insights is that “#insight note title’s should make strong claims”, which is why I use the strong “should” formulation for most of my insights.
My idea is that if I have to make a strong claim in each insight then it 1) forces me to think more about the clarity of the wording, 2) makes it easier for other people to challenge the claim, and 3) makes it easier for me to notice two contradictory claims. The big downside is that it can over-represent my confidence in the claim/insight.
I’m quite confident that “Links should connect non-sibling notes”, but I’m much less confident in the corollary that “Siblings should not be connected by links”, for some of the reasons that you suggest in your comment. My plan is to see how I feel about that as my note collection continues to grow, but I can myself revisiting this insight.
Hello, I tried to join the card to find out about your approach, but the link no longer works, would it be possible to update with a current link please? Thanks!
Hi! I opened the link but I only display up to the word contents, and then there are bulleted lists, but nothing else, I think there is something wrong with it I don’t understand if it’s up to me.
Whoops sorry forgot to reply to this. Yes this is a known “bug” – auto-links don’t have access to card names (because when accessing a share page a user does not have access to the relevant cards in order to fetch their names).
We have a solution in the works for this that caches names for exactly this purpose, which will be arriving in Supernotes 3.1.6 (not 3.1.5 which should be released this week).
I don’t understand if it’s up to me.