The Three Principles

The primitives describe what NetworkNotes is made of. Three principles describe how to keep it healthy.

Connect, don’t just file

Folders, tags, an “events” bucket are all fine. They give a note a location. What NetworkNotes adds is the Link, which gives a note its relationships, the one thing no folder can do, because a note relevant to three projects can live in only one folder but can link to all three.

So this isn’t links instead of folders; it’s links on top of whatever grouping you already use. Organise however you like; just don’t stop there. The Network is the layer the links add.

Create, don’t curate

The quickest way to wreck a notetaking system is to spend your time perfecting it. Fixed note types, ID schemes, elaborate tag trees. Every extra rule is one more thing to maintain instead of think. NetworkNotes keeps the rules near zero on purpose (it’s half the point): write a note, link it, move on. Time spent curating the system is time not spent creating with it.

Concentrate, don’t accumulate

A small, densely linked Network beats a huge pile of orphan Notes. The value lives in the Links, so invest there: capture less, connect more. How to see whether you are succeeding is the subject of Network Measures.

Hold to these and your notes stop being a graveyard of things you once wrote, and start being a network that thinks alongside you.

Ready to apply them? See Putting It Into Practice.