The Academic Problem: mega-thread to come up with a solution

10-19 Concepts 14 Build your system
13

I’m a mathematics graduate student in the US. I’m in the process of implementing JD to organize my files but have found that Obsidian.md is the best way to organize my notes. I tend to fall for the subfolder trap when it comes to organizing my vaults. I believe JD is a good way to mitigate that, but .

An issue that arises is that there are many types of mathematical objects and many more ways for them to interact with each other. This is where Obsidian.md is really able to shine. As far as tags and links go, files are tagged with names like definition, theorem, or a more utilitarian hidden. I use plugins that run Javascript to determine what kind of note I’m creating.

Another issue is figuring out how to effectively context switch between day-to-day file organization and the open-ended nature of Obsdian.md. I plan to use a “canonical” version of JD to organize my computer.

There are two ways that I’ve thought about doing it.

One vault using JD to organize it

00 Meta
   01 JD Manual
   02 Etc.
10 Admin
   11 Home
   12 Auto
   13 School
   14 Etc.
20 Work
   21 Etc.
30 School
   31 Notes # Obsidian vault; JD
      310 Info
         3101 Subfolder containing scripts, meta data, tags, etc.
      311 Atomica # Definitions, theorems, etc.
      312 Etc.
   32 Assignments
   33 Financial Aid
   34 Etc.
Etc.

Or, multiple vaults using JD to organize them

00 Meta
   01 Etc.
...
30 School
   31 Subject 1 # Obsidian vault; JD
      310 Info
         3101 Subfolder containing scripts, meta data, tags, etc.
      311 Atomica # Definitions, theorems, etc.
      312 Etc.
   32 Subject 2 # Obsidian vault; JD
      310 Info
         3101 Subfolder containing scripts, meta data, tags, etc.
      311 Atomica # Definitions, theorems, etc.
      312 Etc.
   33 Assignments
      331 Course 1
      332 Course 2
      333 Etc.
   34 Financial Aid
   35 Etc.

I would prefer to keep all of my notes in a single vault. Assuming consistency, it wouldn’t be too difficult to compose a singular vault from multiple, but I’d like to avoid that if possible.

My current Obsidian vault looks like this:

info
   references
   templater
      bodies
      scripts
      templates
    tags
atomica
   abelian
   addition
   alternating group on n letters
   ...
sources
   texts
      book 1
      book 2
      ...
   links
...

Note: this is for a single subject.

This is what my first vault looks like:

Files
   Images and GIFS
   LaTeX
   ...
Information
   Institutions
   Dataview # a plugin
   Organization # organizational scheme for the vault; a joke
   Tags
   To Do
Templates
   Bodies
   Templates
Zettelkasten
   Atomica
   Courses
      School 1
         Course 1
            Assignments
            Text
         Course 2
      School 2
   People
   Public # this is linked to my GitHub for sharing; currently not in use
   References
      Source 1
      Source 2
   Research
   Subjects
Planner # contains Dataview (a plugin) tables with assignment information and a calendar

As you can see, this is a mess… and not fun to manage using Javascript.

Excited to figure this out!

David

1 Like