A large number of popular note-taking applications such as Logseq, Tana and Roam are what is known as an Outliner. In this article, I’ll go through the basics of what an Outliner is and what the benefits of using an Outliner are.
What is an Outliner application?
An outliner application is built on the concept of outlining, which is a way of structuring your thoughts and ideas in a structured way using a hierarchical structure.
A Hierarchy is also known as a parent and child relationship. If you were to draw a diagram of any Hierarchy, including your family, the resulting document would look like a family tree.
Outlining can be helpful in the following tasks. This list has become an example of what an outline will look like.
- Planning
- Research
- Project management
- Brainstorming
- Processing thoughts and ideas
- Such as when taking notes
- From books
- Lectures
- Meetings
- Such as when taking notes
While it is possible to use the outlining technique inside non-Outliner note-taking applications such as Obsidian, you do miss some of the supported functionality an Outliner application provides, which we shall look at next.
How does an Outliner application work?
In the previous section, I compared a hierarchy to a family and that an outlined document will look like a family tree. The diagram of family relationships is called a family tree, as it looks something like a tree, with your earliest known ancestors forming the trunks and each preceding generation branching out.
Each distinct idea or thought you create in an Outliner forms a node in the structure.
The highest level node is called the root node, and sub-nodes can be created of this root node to indicate a related idea or thought. Known as a child node.
A child node, as well as having a parent, can also have siblings or other related ideas of the same parent node. Where the idea, thought, or concept has related ideas, you create a subnode for those ideas. This means a child node can also be a parent node.
An Outliner application will allow you to collapse and expand notes, enabling you to explore the structure and concentrate on the most important things.
The better Outliner application will also allow you to link, tag and search for specific nodes.
Conclusion
One of the main differences between note-taking and personal knowledge management applications is whether they are an outliner applications or not.
You can learn more about the Outliner applications we have tried so far. First thoughts on Logseq, first thoughts on TANA.