Ah, tags, so much to say about tags! Tags and categories!
I agree with all of the above; tags and categories are both useful tools which need to be used with skill and precision. In the case of tools like this, that means putting thought and effort into designing before you use.
maybe tags should be metadata
Personally, I’ve gravitated to the metadata approach to tags. I try to use tags exclusively for features of files/notes/things which are important for my workflow, but cannot be derived from the contents. In my case, that’s mainly actionability.
I think of tags as brightly coloured sticky notes I would put on something to remind me of action that needs to be taken, as in this sketch of my kitchen:
“tea is low!” “cleaning soda is low!” “time to clean out the odour trap”!
To this end, I’m doing an experiment in which I limit myself to ten tags. I’ll write more about that elsewhere.
Thoughts on tags from another community: zettelkasten.de
I won’t get into a long exposition on tags. These two link make for interesting reading.[1]
- Why Categories for Your Note Archive are a Bad Idea Obviously argues that categories don’t work for a Zettelkasten-style body of research notes where the ‘emergent connections’ are the whole point. But in setting up the argument, also describes well how categories are perfect for other types of bodies of knowledge (like what a JD system is trying to achieve).
- A forum thread discussing the above article.. The idea of tags as metadata comes up. So does the example of recipes; that part illustrates well, I think, how unclear the idea of tags is for that kind of purpose. ‘Object’ tags versus ‘topic’ tags … I kinda get what they’re saying, but still not quite. Some good insights lower down the thread.
Photos – would albums be enough?
Just to return to the original topic, of organising your tags with a JD hierarchy. I’m planning on doing my photos without tags, mostly. I’ve been so impressed with how I always discover one place where everything belongs best, that I’m going on a hunch it will work for photos too.
So take this photo of the rose against the East wall of my house:
You could tag this in all sorts of ways, trying to anticipate all the ways you might want to find this photo in the future: exterior, plant, rose, cloudy, summer, house, building, my_house … at this point, I think why not just give the photo a title East end of our house with rose bush in bloom and voila, a full-text index (or just ripgrep) does the trick.
So I think I’m going to put thought into creating a hierarchy of photo albums just like everything else in my system. The ‘rearranging sticky notes’ step. Then this photo will probably end up in an album (and ID) Mari Kita Exterior. (Yes, my house has a name). Other albums might be Mari Kita Interior and The Garden at Mari Kita (for where the garden takes up most of the field of view).
Ah, you might object: if you classify photos like this, after years and years you’ll have so many in one album that you won’t be able to find the photo of the rose bush!
True. There might be a use for tags. But I think this is the premature optimisation fallacy. And there are also other ways to slice it. For example, humans remember when things happened pretty well. Or maybe photos could be part of multiple albums. Or you could have a nested album structure to break the search down into an obvious choice tree. Oh, and don’t forget full-text search on the title!
Categories for music and recipes
Well, there are lots and lots more thoughts and nuances and such on this topic, But I’ll leave it at that for now except for one closing thought:
I wonder if this would work for recipes and music albums too?
Tags are good for a public library where lots of people might come looking who don’t know what’s in it. People who know they like ‘Hard metal’ and want to browse what’s available in that style. But for your own personal music collection: you probably know every cd in there pretty well. So organise those by name.
And similarly with recipes: maybe instead of trying to create the perfect, non-overlapping tag taxonomy for all the world’s cuisines (a pretty hard task), why not take a moment to give each recipe a title/description which captures the essence of the context in which it became meaningful to you? Thai basil pork from that YouTube FPV channel which we made for my birthday party in 2025 when Aunt Jemima found a weevil in her rice. I bet you could find this recipe a year from now, couldn’t you?
And all the other things like spicy and goes with rice – well, duh 
I was a Zettelkasten fanboy for quite a while, but eventually realized maybe it wasn’t my fault I could never find important information relating to my own thought process. The eye-opener was discovering Dendron’s hierarchical format and realized this fit notes on software development so much better. Some things just are hierarchical! And I eventually found Johnny Decimal which adds premeditated structure to the typology, which is what makes typologies useful by eliminating possible ambiguity and overlap. ↩︎