Documentation
Learn how NetworkNotes turns scattered ideas into a living network of linked knowledge.
NetworkNotes is a notetaking system built on a single conviction: meaning lives in the connections between ideas, not in the boxes we put them in. Instead of filing notes into folders, you link them, and the structure of your thinking emerges on its own.
These docs walk you from first principles through day-to-day practice. Start with the introduction if NetworkNotes is new to you, or jump straight to the core concepts to learn the vocabulary that the rest of the system is built on.
The method is versioned and built in the open: the changelog tracks what is changing on the way to 1.0.0.
Getting Started
Introduction
Why NetworkNotes abandons folders for links, and what that changes about how you think.
Getting Started
How NetworkNotes Is Different
Fewer rules than Zettelkasten, and why that's the whole point.
Concepts
Concepts
The NetworkNote and the parts it's made of: Note, Link, Network, plus the NetworkMap and the three principles.
Concepts
NetworkNote
A NetworkNote is a note connected to at least one other note, the unit the NetworkNotes method is named for.
Concepts
Note
A Note is a piece of information you want to be able to retrieve later: the basic unit of NetworkNotes, any size, no fixed types.
Concepts
Link
A Link is a connection you draw between two Notes (the unit of meaning in NetworkNotes) and what turns loose notes into a network.
Concepts
Network
A Network is the whole that emerges from your Notes and the Links between them: the structure your notes self-organise into.
Concepts
NetworkMap
A NetworkMap is a visual representation of your Network (each Note a dot, each Link a line), so its structure becomes easy to see.
Concepts
The Three Principles
Connect (don't just file), create (don't curate), concentrate (don't accumulate): the practices that keep a Network healthy.
Practice
Putting It Into Practice
NetworkNotes is a method, not an app. Here's how to practise it in whatever tool you already use.
Advanced Concepts
Network Measures
A few network measures (degree, average degree, components, communities) as gentle diagnostics for tending your notes, not metrics to chase.
Advanced Concepts
Centrality
Centrality measures how important a note is to the network. Two kinds matter for notes: hubs (degree) and bridges (betweenness).
Advanced Concepts
Directionality
Every Link has a direction: a source and a target. That direction carries meaning, which is why backlinks, named links, and reasoning chains work.