Obsidian (obsidian.md) is an excellent note-taking and "second brain" application, and I use it extensively. I'm open sourcing some of my commonly-used (and non-proprietary) templates for others to consume and remix.
You might be wondering why the Templates folder is called 70 - Templates. This is because I use a simple numbering system to keep everything in order (rather than alphabetically).
If you want to copy my simple personal "Zettelkasten" structure:
- 10 - Intake
- 20 - Reference Notes
- 30 - Files
- 70 - Templates
- 80 - Archives
And here's a more complex taxonomy I use for work:
- 0 - Intake: Default location for new files; as they mature they usually end up in Knowledgebase or Archives.
- 1 - Working Documents: Similar to Intake, but it's focused around longer-form content I'm writing that I want to keep separate from other random intake items.
- 2 - Goals: I have a doc for weekly, quarterly, and annual goals.
- 3 - Teams: This is like a rolodex for team bios. I don't use it much but it was helpful when I was getting started.
- 4 - People: This has two subfolders: one with 1-1 notes and the other with bios (which is basically my rolodex).
- 5 - Operational Excellence: Documents specific to Operations / Operational Excellence.
- 6 - Projects: Documents specific to projects, each in its own subfolder. I don't use this much because most project work goes into collaborative wikis.
- 60 - Knowledgebase: This is synonymous "Reference Notes" in my personal system (from Zettelkasten), and contains the majority of my notes that I refer back to often.
- 70 - Templates: Obsidian has an excellent templating system, and I have Obsidian configured to look in this folder for my templates (which I've shared in this repo). To enable templates: Settings --> Core plugins --> Templates, then Settings --> Templates --> Template folder location.
- 80 - Archives: This is where I put things like post-processed meeting notes. By "post-processed", I mean: I create a new note for meeting notes which goes into my Intake folder. Then, ideally soon after, I briefly post-process those notes, pull out any important facts into new or existing reference notes, store those in Knowledgebase, and then I move and preserve the raw meeting notes in the Archives which are searchable.
- 90 - Non-Indexed: I use this for interviews, files, and other things I don't want to be indexed and clog up my search. You can configure this in Settings --> Files & Links --> Excluded files.
I think this is a great intro to Obsidian and Zettelkasten-style note-taking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ySG7xYgjY