Second brain & PARA

Sverre

Hi, I use Notes inspired by Second brain & Para. Stumble over your Youtube video and find it really interesting.

My system today is heavily dependent on a folder structure.

Today I have one folder in Notes for projects. One note for each project and sometimes one subfolder for a project where I need several notes linked to the same project. In the latter I pin the main project note to get that note to the top. In addition I have a foldet for each area and subfolder for all reference notes linked to that area. And finally one folder with subfolders for archive.

I find many of your tips very interesting but I'm reluctant to skip my folder structure completly because I feel that structure is very good and logical. Only using tags feels like missing control.

How can I implement your system without loosing the folder structure? In which folder are you typical implementing the different elements in Forever * Notes?

Matthias

Sverre Sounds like you’ve got a solid system already! I always say—stick with what’s working for you. If you’re curious to expand, though, you could try adding a ✱ Home note as a central hub or experiment with ✱ Hubs and ✱ Journal notes to see if they enhance your setup. No need to overhaul—just use what adds value for you.

ritsch_master

Sverre I agree with Matthias on this. If something then stick to it.

I came across Forever ✱ Notes after running with PARA in Apple Notes for about 4 months. And it was a complete mess. I had the 4 folders setup correctly (ie no mixing of projects and areas) but I kept searching for stuff all the time. I often had the feeling that I can forget something as it is not visible/findable easily for me. As I am in like 10 projects at a time professionally and in multiple roles privately (husband, das, member of society) I had no real idea on how to label stuff correctly. I kept going forward and backwards between organizational style and procedural style.

I actively searched for possibilities to solve this. And as a result I came across Forever ✱ Notes.

So I immediately switched completely from my folder structure to this as soon as I have discovered it. Especially as you can tag projects as project, areas as area, … So in my opinion Forever ✱ Notes is an extension to PARA. Or a specific way to implement PARA on substructure level using the features of Apple Notes.

Sverre

Thank you Matthias.
In which folder do your shortcut for journal notes creating these notes?

Matthias

Sverre You're welcome! The default folder, in most cases the Notes folder.

neilg3

The great thing about this system is it moves outside the "folder" structure.
I would recommend making a * Home note with the following:

HOME

Projects:

Areas:

Resources:

Archive:

patriq

I'm a bit hesitant on completely skipping the folders as well, even though I enjoy the idea of mostly using tags and collections rather than folders. So in my case I keep some folders for things that I KNOW will fit into one place only.
At the moment those folders are: JOURNAL (which contains all the 300+ journal notes), PEOPLE (which contains only 3 notes at the moment, but it will grow over time as I write in my journal), and RECIPES (to get all my recipes neatly into one place).

Keeping exactly everything within the default Notes folder is a bit too messy for me.
Good thing is you can move your notes and folders around however much you want, and it won't affect your internal links.

Do whatever feels right for you.

Matthias

patriq I couldn’t agree more. One thing to consider though is, that when creating new notes via the >> command, the new note will be created in the same folder as the original note. So when you place your Journal notes in a separate folder, notes created from a daily note for example, will be created in your Journal folder. This was one of the reasons I decided to let all notes live in the default folder.

patriq

Matthias Yeah I noticed that today 🙂 It could be a reason to stick to one folder only.
Otherwise you need to be thorough with moving those notes to the PEOPLE folder.

I'll give the one folder only method a fair try, and see if I can get used to it.

BeckyBarnes

I'd like to jump in and say that my Apple Notes was heavily dependent on folders too. When I first came across Forever✱Notes I didn't want to leave that behind because I had invested so much time in creating the structure so I implemented F✱N with my folders. Things have been going so well with this framework that two weeks ago I jumped all in and moved them all to the "Notes" folder. I made sure every note in a folder had that tag before moving it.(for example, everything in my "Health" folder got the tag #health, and everything in my "Christmas" folder got a #Christmas and #holiday tag, etc.) The beauty of this system is the tags and Smart folders. Now, I don't have to decide if "Christmas" should go in the Projects folder or in the Holiday folder. I just add those tags and I can find it in whichever context I'm thinking/working on at the moment. I love it.

James-Ashby

BeckyBarnes

I’m going through the same process. If you convert a normal folder to a Smart Folder all the notes in the folder will automatically have the folder name added as a tag so the conversion can be fairly painless

tr4jan

ritsch_master Good point. Well, Matthias also drew inspiration from Para. In fact, F✱N allows for a different layer thickness of information that is easier for many to handle.

Whereat F✱N knowingly also has a limited scope of application depending on the use case. What it definitely is, is a huge playground for crafting one’s own optimal solution.