Notes System Design
Designs a notes system around retrieval, since capture is the easy half and is never the reason a system fails.
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Running it, start to finish
- List the moments you actually search, and design backwards from them.
- Adopt the minimum structure that serves those moments.
- Start from today and leave the archive searchable.
What you get back
The output this produces, every time.
- Designs from the moments you actually go looking, not from how things get captured.
- Names what does not deserve a note, which is the bulk of most systems and why search degrades.
- Recommends against migrating your existing volume, which is where the energy usually goes.
Getting better results
Where this usually goes wrong, and how to avoid it.
- Write notes in your own words. A verbatim copy has not been understood and will not be recognised when you need it. The rewriting is the value.
- Keep the structure minimal. Maintenance is paid daily and the benefit is occasional. Most people build an elaborate system and abandon it.
- Do not migrate the old notes. Section 6 exists because migration projects consume exactly the energy the new practice needs, and usually end there.
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Written for The AI University. Every prompt in this library is original work — authored, tested and revised here, not collected from elsewhere. 365 of them, free with an account.