How to organize your notes in Obsidian // The LATCH method

- The most important thing about taking notes is that you do it.

However, the more notes that you have, the more it becomes apparent that some organizational structure probably wouldn't go astray.

So, what do you do?

Hi, I'm Nicole van der Hoeven and on this channel, I like to talk about tech, travel and taking notes, especially using digital tools like Obsidian.

And in this particular video, I'm gonna show you how I organize my notes, just in the hopes of helping you figure out how you might wanna do it.

When you're deciding where to put notes, what it really boils down to is, how do you want to find this note again?

There are a few methods for that, first is folders.

Folders are probably the one that we're most familiar with because regardless of your operating system, this is how your computer lets you choose where to store files.

Folders are like directories that you can put files into.

The problem with folders is that you can't put one file in two different folders.

It's one or the other.

So it forces you to make a decision as to where that note belongs.

Most note-taking tools also try to get you to organize things in this way, but I think that folders are best for situations where one note really only belongs in a single folder, or if you're trying to maintain the uniqueness of a note.

For example, I have all of my literature notes going into Obsidian, so for example, if I read a book that's called How to Take Smart Notes, let's say, that's going to come in, into the Readwise folder.

I do that because I usually like to create a different note also called How to Take Smart Notes, but this time it's in the Book folder.

I like to do that because I like to distinguish between notes that I've written and notes that have come from other peoples' work.

So, everything that goes into the Readwise folder for example, I know is written by somebody else and they are just my highlights of those works.

Everything that's in the Book folder is what I've written, it's my interpretation of other people's stuff.

So, if I had two versions of the same note, How to Take Smart Notes, I wouldn't actually be able to save them because they're exactly the same, but if I put one in Readwise and one in Books, then I can.

So, that's how I use folders.

Links in Obsidian can be created by using the two left square brackets and then typing out the name or file name of a note.

I think that links are best for connecting two notes that have similar meanings, a more of a semantic connection.

In folders, it's really more about kind of categorizing notes, but with links, especially when the connection isn't obvious, you can connect two different notes.

For example, I have a note based on Application Performance, which is very much in the field of technology, and then I also have another note called Productivity, which is a kind of performance, these are not things that you would put in the same category.

But you can create a connection between them just to be able to trigger your memory, so when you go to one, maybe you can think about using it in a different context and that's when I would put a link to the other.

The next one is tags, in Obsidian you can create tags on the fly, just by typing a # and then the word.

I use tags for system-related things, like when two notes don't necessarily have any connection semantically, but I still want to process them in a certain way.

For example, I have a TVZ tag that I use to mark all of the notes that I still need to process.

Metadata is pretty vague, but in this case, I'm referring specifically to Dataview parameters.

Whether that's parameters that I've set in the YAML front matter of an Obsidian note or in line within the note itself.

Metadata are good for combinations of the previous three, folders links and tags, or when you're trying to visualize your body of knowledge that's in your vault.

It's also great for creating databases.

So, those are the methods that Obsidian offers for organizing your notes, but what exactly about a note should you be keeping track of in the first place?

Well, I have a friend Zsolt Viczián, who happens to be the developer of the awesome plugins ExcaliBrain and Excalidraw for Obsidian and he talks a lot about this system called The LATCH System.

LATCH is sort of like an approach for how you can find your data and the kind of things that you should put in your note to begin with, so that you can find them later.

I think Zsolt said that he took this LATCH approach from an author named Richard Saul Wurman, from a book called Information Anxiety.

LATCH stands for five things, Location Alphabet Time Category and Hierarchy.

Now, let's head over into Obsidian and I'm gonna show you which of the four methods I use for these five items in the LATCH approach.

Location refers to the physical place where a note was created.

Now admittedly, I don't really have much of a need for that.

Sometimes I do, but it's in very rare situations.

What I do use it for is my role-playing games and for that, I usually use a combination of links and metadata to set them apart.

This is an example of a place in a fantasy world and one of my games called Otari.

If I were looking for a note and all I know is that it happened in Otari or that it is in Otari, then what I could do is use these places.

I have Dataview queries for things that are in Otari.

So, right now this is saying that it is looking for other notes with the type place.

So, let's click on one of them, if we go to Menhemes Manor for example, I am using Otari as metadata in the YAML front matter and that's what's enabling me to link to it from this Dataview query within the Otari page.

You can see that I am also using links to accomplish the same thing.

So, I have the metadata up here, but also a link to Otari and that's just so that I have a backup if I forget one or the other.

Now, going back to the Otari page, if I were looking for a note where I just forgot to put Otari in the location, I can open up the back links here in Obsidian, all of the unlinked and linked mentions are saved.

So, right now I'm seeing the ones where I've linked to this Otari page, so like this is not a place anymore, this is an NPC.

And then I can also open up the unlinked mentions, and there are gonna be quite a few of those as well.

So, these are ones where I didn't even use a link, but Obsidian is still finding them.

So, in this way, as long as I know where something has taken place, I'm probably going to be able to find it, just by going through the back links and by going through the results of the Dataview query.

The A in LATCH stands for Alphabet and this just means that you can also find a note by knowing its file name or by knowing the first parts of its file name.

And for that I would fall back on folders.

This is an example of the folder structure that I have now which is cobbled together, just like anybody else, I started to do some things and then abandoned them, and I haven't quite moved off of it.

What I'm saying is, don't just blindly follow what I'm doing.

Just experiment for yourself.

So, I have one folder here for daily notes for example, that makes sense for me and within that it is alphabetically, but also chronologically arranged.

But I also have majority of my notes just in the root directory.

If I didn't know the name of a person that I'm looking for, but I know that it starts with a D, then I could go into this Gente folder, which is for people.

That's people in Spanish.

And then I could go, and scroll through them until I find the one that sounds right.

If for example, I know that I'm looking for AWS services and products, then I can scroll down to where AWS is and see all of them here.

And that's useful if I haven't yet moved all of these into my AWS note, it actually looks like I kind of have, so that's useful.

But if I didn't, I would still be able to find them by going through how they are listed alphabetically within this folder.

A much more common way for me to find a note if I know what it starts with is by using the Quick Switcher.

Quick Switcher is a core plugin in Obsidian, but I don't know why it's not just enabled by default, I would always enable it and then after that, you could type the cut key for it, mine is ⌘O and then I can start doing AWS.

And then I can go through the list, and see everything that I saw in the file explorer as well, except this just is well, faster.

T stands for Time and in Obsidian, I keep track of the time component of my notes using links or metadata, with the help of some plugins.

This is an example of Fantasy Calender, you can use Calender as well.

But for example, if I wanted to know what happened on Thunsheer the 2nd and I could go into this Fantasy Calender, and this is from a role-playing game that I ran.

And I can hover over that, and I find out that we had a session, the 54th session in this campaign and I can look at what happened.

So, this is one way to find that note if I didn't know exactly what it was called, I mean, how would I have known that it was the 54th note, right?

But in this way, because it's time-based, I was able to find it.

You could do the same thing with like non roleplaying things.

For example, this is my calender, this is just the calender community plugin, not Fantasy Calender and each one corresponds to a daily note.

So, I'm going to open up today's note, just because I know I haven't written anything in that one yet, so it's safe to show you.

So, if I click on that, then I can see what I've done or anything else that I linked to that day.

When I create a note, I usually do have this metadata in there, so I put a date parameter and then I add in the date that I created that note or worked on it, so I would add more to here for...

So, then as things go on, I add more and more dates to this one, this is something that I've changed a lot by the way.

Let's take for example, this note on the Warlock RPG that I just worked on this morning.

If I didn't know how to find this note, but I knew that I'd worked on something this morning, well I could go to the daily note for today and then go into the back links here, and look at all the places where I've linked to this date from.

So, I can see that I also worked on the Coyote & Crow page, I see that there was a Readwise sync that happened, this is another page that I worked on and then if I scroll down, I'll see, "Oh yes, it was Warlock RPG."

But then I can click on it from there and I've found this note.

C stands for Category, so this could mean many things.

I use links and metadata for semantic connections or similarities in meaning and then I use tags for system-related things.

For semantic categories, I mostly create maps of content or MOC's, this is my MOC for tabletop role-playing games and I mostly use just a page that summarizes other pages that are related to it.

So, in this case, these are all the notes that are related to tabletop roleplaying games.

So, I have a games index for the games that I've played, but also different systems, so this is manually created, but I actually prefer that because then I can add some nuance to these links.

So, in some of these, like this one doesn't exist because I've never played it and I haven't read the book yet.

If I just had a bunch of links, that wouldn't really add much value, but in this way, because I'm creating these links manually, I'm also adding like a short description of what they are.

Sometimes I also use metadata for this, like if there is something that I want to link this page to, that isn't already mentioned in the text, then I might add it within a comment like this.

And then I can create a link like maybe Knave House Rules and that'll also be clickable.

That's another way to add category, but one that I don't use as much.

And the other way that I mentioned is tags, if I go to tags here, you'll see that I have a bunch of tags and let's look at my TVZ tag, which is the tag that I use for things that come into my vault that I haven't yet processed.

So, if I click on this Four Thousand Weeks, this is a book that I've synced through Readwise that I've started to create highlights on, but I haven't actually finished it yet.

Having this tag here in the metadata as well, helps me kind of jump to all of the notes that have this tag.

And the last part of LATCH is H, which is Hierarchy.

That means that if you're looking for a note, but you don't know what it's called, then you could try to go further up the chain and look to see what it's parents' notes are.

I've actually done a video on ExcaliBrain, so check that out if you want more details on how I do this, but I'm just gonna give you a quick look right now.

Let's say I have a note called Jmeter.

JMeter is a load testing tool, but let's say I've forgotten what it's called and I don't really know what it starts with, so none of the other items in the LATCH approach are going to help me.

For hierarchy, I mainly use metadata in conjunction with the ExcaliBrain plugin.

In this note you'll see that within this comment, I've listed a bunch of parents, including Load Testing Tool.

But let's say I don't know what JMeter is and I'm just going to go to Load Testing Tool because I know that I'm looking for a load testing tool in particular.

Now, I can already see I actually linked to it, that is another way to find hierarchy is through links, but if I'd forgotten to link it through here, there's still another way that I could do it.

So, let me hit Ctrl P here to open up the command palette and then I want to open up ExcaliBrain in a pop-out window.

I apparently have a lot of things linked to this load testing tool node, let me just zoom in a little bit here.

So, this is a little bit of a mess because it is inferring a lot of things from the links that I have going to and from this page.

You can see that I have written a lot around this subject.

But in this case, I've actually specified that as a child in the front matter.

So, if I hide inferred nodes, then I should be able to see what I'm looking for.

And there it is, now there's only one node here and would you know it?

It's JMeter, that's the thing that I was looking for.

Many people get stuck on organizing notes and sometimes that means they don't even get started in taking the notes at all.

There's just so much to do and none of us has the time to do it all, especially not perfectly.

So, I think it's a more realistic solution to just pick whatever method works or makes sense at the time and then accept that you're going to have to do some upkeep later when you find something that's incorrectly organized.

You can always use Quick Switcher or Obsidian Search, those core plugins are super useful for finding things that you maybe didn't put the right metadata on.

If you'd like to hear more about how real people process notes, check out this video on Why Inbox Zero is A Myth.

And thank you for watching.

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