ACE Organization

My main Obsidian vault (Ideaverse) uses the ACE organization framework from Nick Milo and Linking Your Thinking (LYT). I'm also adapting that for a new digital garden vault that I publish as WarrenWeb Notes using Obsidian Publish.

The ACE framework organizes a PKM system into these major folder spaces. Although the Ideaverse vault includes all Maps and Views within the Atlas space, I have chosen to distribute maps and views in each ACE space to support workflows and practices to process that space.

+ (Add inbox)

I add new notes and information to my vault in the + (Add inbox) folder.

This includes Draft texts, new Notes, and temporary Focus folders. It includes Maps and Views subfolders for processing the Add inbox to manage incoming notes and support periodic practices like day and week reviews.

Atlas (knowledge)

Notes with my ideas, information, and knowledge belong in the Atlas folder.

My idea notes are located under Atlas/Idea (Nick calls them ideaverse "dots"). I also have a separate Atlas/App folder for my app notes since I have a major focus on application integration.

Source notes from Readwise highlights and notes, books, videos, websites, courses, or Proximity AI prompts are located in Atlas/Sources. I considered having these source notes under my Add folder, but decided that it made more sense to have them reside in my Atlas folder with my other knowledge (which also simplifies the Add folder).

I keep my creative works under Atlas/Works (as Outputs & Resources).

I have maps in Atlas/Maps and views in Atlas/Views that help me manage my knowledge and related ARC ideation workflows.

Calendar (time)

Notes that are time-based such as periodic notes, journals, and logs belong under the Calendar folder.

These are organized in a date-based hierarchy (year/month/day).

I have maps in Calendar/Maps and views in Calendar/Views that help me manage my time-based workflows and periodic practices.

Efforts (action)

Notes that are action-oriented such as efforts, projects, areas, and interests belong in the Efforts folder.

I have maps in Effort/Maps and views in Efforts/Views that help me manage my action-oriented workflows and periodic practices.

x (Extra)

Extra support resources are contained within the x (Extra) folder.

This includes templates, fileClass types, scripts, CSS snippets, visuals (canvas & drawings), images, PDF documents, etc.

Summary

I'm reviewing each major space to assess how I want to use my PKM folders. I like this approach to organization for the linked notes in the Obsidian vaults of my PKM system.

I know where notes belong based on inbox, knowledge, time, action, and extra. This approach uses folders to provide sufficient structure without imposing artificial constraints from earlier nested hierarchies. I also use ACE for consistent organization in other apps like Arc Browser, OmniFocus, DEVONthink, Finder, and Shortcuts.

Focusing on folders is just the beginning of a general vault remodel effort. I still need to address notes, templates, maps, views, metadata, tags, workflow, and practices.

LYT ARC framework for ideation workflow.