Notes and Maps

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.

-- Alan Watts

This quote reminds me that when some problems seem tough to solve, we need to examine our assumptions and questions. Step back from the details and consider another perspective or alternate options that might open doors to a solution.

Notes

As I focus my thinking on my notes about the Reader app and associated Read Workflow with Arc Browser and Obsidian, it's important to explore the types of notes that I'm creating and how they are linked to related notes.

Maps

Although I have notes about apps, it's also extremely valuable to have mapping notes, or maps of content (MOC). I prefer to call these simply maps, since I use them to map what I want to do with a group of notes on a topic.

They provide a workbench for me to collect, cluster, organize, and refactor related notes, and also provide a framework for sparks, thoughts, questions, actions, and freewriting about the topic. Like notes, there are several types of maps.

App Note

Obviously, I have an app note for Reader that represent the application Readwise Reader, which is my main topic that has associated efforts and related outputs. This note includes all the content I want to publish about Reader.

However, that's too much information to be contained in a single note so it will actually consist of a cluster of linked notes on this topic. The app note will provide a landing page for that app with relevant structure and links to all my notes about Reader.

Other notes might include a link to this Reader app note when mentioning or discussing Reader, such as using a workflow with [[Reader]] in a Read space of [[Arc Browser]]. It makes sense to title app notes with just the app name to simplify such references without having to provide an alias every time I mention an app.

App Map

I want to separate the content that I'm writing on a certain topic such as Reader from all my thinking and linking about the "what, why, and how" about the topic. So I have an associated map for a cluster of notes on a specific topic. So this would be Reader Map as an app map that's related to the corresponding Reader app note.

Templates

To ensure consistency with the scaffolding for these relationships in my linked notes, I use templates to create a new topic such as the Reader app. With simple prompts, it generates appropriate properties, navigation, title, headings, structure, and related linked notes. For example, every topic has an associated topic map like Reader Map.

Actions

I prefer to use the term action rather than task or to-do to describe something that I want to get done in some area. Often these are combined as action groups for a group of related actions, and I use nested lists to outline these with tags and fields as associated metadata that I can use for views with Dataview queries.

Effort Note

Likewise, I prefer to use the term effort as an umbrella container for a set of related actions in a certain area. Some of these might be considered a project in the traditional sense, if they have a definite outcome with a completion date. However, efforts can be less defined and others might be even broader than projects.

Sometimes, it can be useful to create a specific effort note that's similar to an app note for an application, with everything about that specific effort. For example, currently, I have started efforts about the Reader app and associated Read Workflow that will publish multiple outputs over time.

Effort Map

It's common to have one or more efforts for a topic that focus associated actions for what I want to do in that area. For example, I might have a Reader Effort that would be an effort map that would be my compass to guide my activities about my Reader content that I create, think, link, and share in outputs as notes, posts, pages, newsletter, or social media messages.

Output Note

It helps to identify the outputs for each effort, so an output note provides a way to think and link about what I want to share. These will evolve as notes in Obsidian, and eventually be distributed as pages, posts, or newsletters on my Ghost website. For example, a recent post included an output about Publishing WarrenWeb Notes.

Output Map

To help me plan, outline, and organize my content for these output notes, it also helps to have corresponding output maps. For example, I have an output map about the Reader pages that I'm creating for my Ghost website.

This helps me write my content using the consistent writing process that I learned in the Writing Original Works workshop (and course).

Hub Map

When linking my notes for a cluster of related notes on a specific topic like Reader, it helps to have intermediate maps that help to group sections of related pages together and simplify navigation on a website with linked pages.

So I find it helpful to have hub maps between main maps and topic maps and all the related topic notes. It's desirable to create pages in bite-size reusable "chunks" to allow content reuse in various contexts. The combination addresses both needs quite nicely.

Workspace

As I develop my linked notes and maps in efforts about apps that share specific outputs on my Obsidian Publish and Ghost sites, I find it helpful to use Obsidian workspaces with multiple split-view panes where I can pin the map while nurturing the notes and publish my outputs.

WarrenWeb Notes

Currently, I'm working on these notes in my main Ideaverse vault, but I have started moving content to my WarrenWeb vault that is available to Plus subscribers. Eventually, these notes in my digital garden will evolve into pages and posts for my Ghost website and newsletter. Please subscribe to see what I'm thinking, linking, and sharing now.