Effective note taking<br>| isgin01's blog

I usually take a substantial amount of digital notes in my daily life. I've been doing it for a while now, and my note folder includes daily notes, task boards, project notes, plans, ideas, checklists, references, lists, templates, and a few others.

You can see a lot of people online discussing how to set up their note taking systems for maximal productivity. It often involves installing a bunch of plugins inside Obsidian, creating a template system, a folder system, a tag system, bookmarks, workspaces, more than one vault, zettelkasten, etc. I see it as overkill for most cases, not to mention that, in my opinion, it will only lead to chaos and wasted time.

In my case, my folders and files are organized naturally, as I think makes sense for every specific case. Also, I find it most comfortable to simply sort files by their creation time. Additionally, my notes don't follow any kind of outline. Though I do usually put a lot of headings and checklists.

One of the core principles in managing my note folder is to ensure that I have maximal control over it. It means that I generally don't use any automation, AI, or analytics. Instead, I manually make every key stroke and manage every file in my note folder.

Why do I think it is so important? Because this way I can ensure that I have a precise mental model of what is written in my notes and where. They don't bother me, and I don't think about them. I just use them. Notes should be a tool, not the final product.

2026-06-13