Rather than talking about tools, let’s talk about organizing information in a brain-like structure. Because your brain doesn’t use folders.

All of today’s major problems are connected to many subjects.

You always meet people twice or three times, but in different contexts.

Information comes from a wide range of sources.

Yet we still treat information in a folder structure. Literally, by sticking a piece of information into a single digital folder. More gravely, by mentally categorizing information without second thoughts: This person is associated with that company. This subject is only relevant to that investment. To solve this problem, I need technologies A, B, and C.

Wrong. Everything is connected. But maybe you don’t know yet, or you simply don’t see the connections yet. In the flood of information, I can’t blame you for not seeing all the connections. Nobody can. But some freely available software technology can help you.

There are many tools for connecting the dots in your personal notes out there, such as Roam Research, Bear, or Obsidian — I am using Obsidian.

But rather than talking about the tool, let’s talk about how I organized information in a brain-like structure.

1. Follow the Anatomy of Your Brain

Information management should be about mimicking the processes taking place in your brain, not following the flow of a software tool that you will replace with yet another tool shortly.

Let’s use a very simple example to illustrate this point: learning vocabulary in a foreign language. In the good old days, people wrote flashcards, queried each other, and wrote the hard-to-remember words down seven times in order not to forget them. Nowadays, there are many tools around to assist you with learning vocabulary. But even with all these tools, there is still no way around getting those difficult words in a foreign language into your short-term memory and then transferring them into your long-term memory.

If no tool can help you, you need to set up a process to assist your learning. Here is my process (yes, I am a very structured person):

• Whenever I read interesting articles, I flag the ones I like in all my newsfeeds. At regular intervals, I transfer the key points into my notes tool (Obsidian). If possible, I do this first thing in the morning. In this way, I can decide with a fresh mind if each piece of information is relevant to my activities or not. If it is, I am getting another touchpoint with it, thereby assisting the transfer into my short-term memory.
• Once a week, I take some time to refactor my notes. In software engineering, “refactoring” describes a process to rewrite existing functions, making them more scalable or using new technologies. I do the same thing with my notes. I rearrange them, I add links, I merge notes, I divide notes. In this way, the pieces of information get their place in my brain, assisting the transfer into long-term memory. Because my brain develops, I keep refactoring my notes over and over again. Just like in software engineering.

2. The Macrostructure

The anatomy of my brain needs a macrostructure to organize information and thought. It’s important to keep this structure very flat, otherwise, you will very soon start losing yourself in folder-like structures.

I defined the following macrostructure to which I link every piece of information:

• Input — whenever I have a meeting or read an article relevant to me, I write down the relevant information for later use.
• Subject — what topic is the piece of information about?
• Source — where does the piece of information come from?
• People — who gave me that piece of information, with whom did I discuss it, and whom did I recommend it to?
• Product — what product will I use the information for?
• Action — do I need to investigate the topic further, discuss it with somebody, or read it in a quiet minute?

After some years of using Obsidian, below are some examples of what my information graph for different macro structure items looks like:

The screenshots show that I condense all my notes and thoughts on very few subjects, but I interact with many people and process many inputs.

It’s important to understand that this is my brain’s anatomy; your information graph will look completely different.

3. Feed The Digital Brain

Such a system only works when you develop the discipline to log all your inputs consistently in your Obsidian database. That’s often the hardest part.

Using templates for inputs eases the pain of keeping up with logging inputs. I set up a very generic template covering all inputs. Remember, in most cases, at the time of recording, you will not know what you will use a piece of information for in the end.

Obsidian has a “daily notes” plugin that allows you to organize inputs along the timeline. Every input goes into the corresponding daily note, using the generic template I described above.

Color-coding the daily notes in my graph view as red dots, you can see all the daily notes in my information graph:

Some daily notes contain multiple inputs, while others contain little input. That’s a typical neurological pattern — sometimes your brain is more active than at other times.

4. Synthesize

Now comes the fun part. Everyone who knows me has experienced how I love jumping from one discussion topic to the next, making connections that seemingly don’t make any sense.

Your digital brain is filled with seemingly unconnected yet connected information about subjects, people, and products. The graph view gives you unlimited possibilities to uncover connections between subjects, people, and products in real time.

Because Obsidian is my digital brain, it maps my thinking. And because my thinking develops over time and by connecting new inputs to existing inputs, my digital brain is in constant evolution. Topics may come up and disappear in the depths of the dots, only to resurface later. Just like in a real brain.