Clarification and advice on use of M&M?

[szfkamil]

I have been struggling to decide how to use Management & Meta.

You cannot have an M&M for an ID, since decimals end there. However, I can see cases where I would want to have a brief note for an ID.

A folder note plugin for Obsidian allows me to create an abstraction which provides a convenience, by having a note about a folder with the same name that is hidden from view.

If I implement this in my note-taking app, then the way M&M for categories and areas are handled will be inconsistent thorough the system. I will also rely on advanced functionality (that is not future-proof).

I cannot bring myself to an either-or kind of choice. My thinking goes, that at least for IDs I should use the folder note functionality.

In this folder note, I would have information about that ID for other places of the system also (if applicable). I guess this would be a sort of ‘index’ for an ID… but isn’t all this really just overthinking it? Should I not give up on using notes for IDs?

Perhaps the way I have my system set up is the culprit. See, I have many notes about the system, the way I do things, how I organise my projects… the way I review and manage certain things: all defined in notes, as if programmatically.

I have realised before that what I use the folder for, is not quite what it is intended to be (I think), but thought it would be fine. But perhaps, I should create a distinct category, say 03 Organisation for this purpose.

This would also not quite solve the solution and is something else entirely, since IDs stay the same. Perhaps I would need to find a way to store information about IDs in the indexes instead? I am yet to dive into the concept of an index and have not set up one yet, so I don’t know.

Please let me know what you think about the dilemma. Any input is valuable.

[meson3902]

I am overthinking my approach because that is just who I am. My system, which I am currently rebuilding, relies on folder notes and dataview. I have an entire section devoted to Standard Operating Procedures related to your Toolbox ID. Still, I am giving it an entire area to split the different focuses. The way I interpret it is that my SOPs are part of the system and thus independent of the target, such as ReadWise notes in my example.

For every ID, I have a folder note with the following template. The storage location is an array of different places where I would have content, such as Obsidian, OmniFocus, Outlook (for work), etc.

---
class: JD.ID
banner: "![[home.jpeg]]"
banner_icon: 📇
banner_x: 0.5
banner_y: 0.44
id: 
storageLocations:
---

# <% tp.file.title %>

I have a Folder Note for categories with the following template to list all of the IDs and their storage location.

---
class: JD.Category
id:
banner: "![[home.jpeg]]"
banner_icon: 📇
banner_x: 0.5
banner_y: 0.44
---

# <% tp.file.title %>

```dataviewjs
dv.table(["File", "Storage Location"],
  dv.pages('"' + dv.current().file.folder + '"')
   .where(c => c.class == "JD.ID")
   .map(c => [c.file.link, c.storageLocations]))
```

[szfkamil]

@meson3902

I have an entire section devoted to Standard Operating Procedures related to your Toolbox ID. Still, I am giving it an entire area to split the different focuses.

I think you meant category? Anyway, I think we’re in the same boat.

The concept of SOPs speaks to me. Could you share some of them and tell a little more about how you use them? I’m particularly interested in File Hierarchy, Obsidian, and Readwise.

I recently read the page on the index and decided to go with the folder note method. It didn’t occur to me to put the locations in metadata, but planned to put them in the note.

From what I can see, you programmatically query your files based on the class? Do you have queries that display any given class type?

What I’m interested in the most, though, is how in practice the dataview queries work for you, and perhaps, how you work with the storageLocations attribute in general.

I think that the way you do things is similar to mine, and you’ve already set it all up properly, unlike me!

[colelandolt]

Nice, I have a very similar implementation myself. What plugin do you use to adjust the appearance of the sidebar?

[meson3902]

Yes, I meant are in general and not the specific Johnny Decimal context.

I’ve pulled the SOPs from Address Book SOP - Leah Ferguson, and you can go to the source. I haven’t modified them much, but I hope to revisit and expand them as part of my system refresh.

I haven’t done anything with the storage location except for showing it in an index attached to the category page. Right now its just used to allow me to see where that ID might be used.

dv.table(["File", "Storage Location"],
  dv.pages('"' + dv.current().file.folder + '"')
   .where(c => c.class == "JD.ID")
   .map(c => [c.file.link, c.storageLocations]))

[meson3902]

I use the AnuPpuccin theme with some settings configured in the “Style Settings” plugin.

[szfkamil]

Have you had any changes to the system since posting? I decided to copy what you’re doing with dataview. I also wonder what the id attribute is used for?

[meson3902]

I’m always changing the system. Even today, I made an adjustment based on some content on this forum. As a result, I decided to copy the structure of my system minus most of the content into a repository so that I could take a more holistic look at it. I figured I would also make the repository public in case anyone wanted to use it to give them ideas. You can see it for yourself at GitHub - PowerSchill/obsidian-system-scaffold: The scaffolding of my personal Obsidian PKM system.

I think I might have started out using the ID field to provide structure for the content before I was able to adjust my Dataview queries to handle everything via the folder structure. It’s a little cumbersome to add the ID to every document that I create and since I don’t plan on keeping documents for a particular id outside of that folder I will probably decide to deprecate that requirement.

[szfkamil]

Thanks for sharing. I watched the repo and decided to add it to my Read/Review list.

In case you care, I do want to implement 05 Templates and 06 Scripts (they just happen to get the same ID in my system as in yours, I haven’t gone that far): I’d love to know how you use them.

[meson3902]

What you see in the vault are just the templates and a single script related to the Obsidian Vault. I envision these IDs expanding in scope to other systems. For example, I am a Site Reliability Engineer, so I will have deployment templates and code templates and I want to keep them in the same general area.

[szfkamil]

I see it the way you do.

Yesterday, I realised that I have been trying to rigidly put all life stuff into system area. For instance, you are saying something related to your job. This sort of makes sense, but sometimes it might not.

As you define it:

This area contains information about the system and is used by the system to maintain its functionality.

That’s about the system, which is meant to help manage life, but not to manage one’s life per se. That’s a bit nuanced, but I find that — at least in my system, some things need to be moved outside the System area and perhaps instead to an M&M for an area.

For instance, my Obsidian notes about all its stuff — these might find a better place in the PKM area and its M&M rather than a single ID under M&M of system…

And this is a tandem, but I am yet to use the power of category and area specific M&M.

For instance, in the Zettelkasten and PKM areas (yes, these are distinct — Zettelkasten is a creative/academic and not a personal knowledge base) I need to define that JD.IDs end at category.

I personally find that when deviating from well-established methodologies, you need a good reason and argument for doing so. It’s the smart people that think they can change things because they are smart.

Maybe that’s the case, but if a guy spent his life on a system you have barely established, he may know better.

There is a lot of nuance. This requires thought. We’re not overthinking, I think.

[rxlecky]

I would be curious to see how you separate and structure your PKM and Zettelkasten areas. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I also came to the conclusion that I will need to keep my PKM and Zettelkasten separate for organisation purposes. But I don’t think of them as completely separate entities, more like separate steps of the same process. I think of my Zettelkasten area as the entry point of ideas and thoughts into my system, where the ideas can simmer, connect and compound and the PKM area is where the “final” output is placed after enough Zettelkasten notes come together and are used to produce a new insight.

Mind you, I’m still researching how to properly use Zettelkasten and I haven’t yet implemented it so I may be misinterpreting or misunderstanding it.

[szfkamil]

It really depends on the individual use case whether they should be separate or together. I think putting Zettelkasten as a category inside PKM would not be a bad idea, actually.

Since Zettelkasten by its nature should not have a folder hierarchy.

Whatever hierarchy you want to establish is easily done with indexes, frontmatter and querying: this is my experience after creating about 2000 zettels.

I want them those two to be separate, but they intermingle too much, and it causes a lot of friction when deciding whether a note should go here or there that’s not worth the effort.

I think that, for this, you just have to make good use of Management & Meta. If they are very similar and procedures you approach them with overlap, it might be best to just mark what the differences are intelligently.

It’s nice to define your terms, like I did here:

PKM stands for personal knowledge management. It’s used to manage information of my life, which is mostly notes. I don’t extend this to PDFs and other formats, but I can. It also uses indexes, areas and categories. The indexes are maps of content and in order to differentiate between them, let’s call a PKM index a map of content - MOC.

That’s all true for Zettelkasten as well.

[szfkamil]

You might find something from my recent write-up useful: https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/organising-m-m-system-and-id-dilemmna-for-zettelkasten/1588?u=szfkamil