In this post, I’ll share my recent experiences updating and modifying my file structure in Obsidian.
I decided to update my file structure in Obsidian after reading a blog post called You’re Not Lacking Creativity, You’re Overwhelmed by Jorge Medina, in which he argues that it is important to curate the content you consume.
I thought it would be a good idea to replicate my Reader process in Obsidian to help me prioritise the order in which highlighted notes would be processed and added to my Zettelkasten.
How I updated my Obsidian structure
I think the most difficult part of keeping a Zettelkasten is managing the flow of information into the system. I need to process what goes in, as the whole reason for keeping a Zettelkasten is to help me learn by linking ideas, concepts, and thoughts contained within it.
This is a three-step process.
- Highlight the key section of the notes imported from Readwise
- Create a literature note with a bulleted list of key points and takeaways taken from the highlighted sections
- Create permanent notes based on the literature notes
You might think that this process is slow, and you are right. It is slow, and I like to have some gap between the three operations to give me time for reflection, which helps both the learning and creative process. Sometimes, you need friction.
Of course, this can lead to a buildup of notes, and the more important notes can get lost in the sea of notes waiting to be processed.
After reading Jorge Medina’s article, I decided that the time was right to start curating my notes within Obsidian. I then realised that I needed to make some changes to the folder structure in Obsidian to streamline my vault and help manage the process.
I should also mention that I have added weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual planning to my vault, and I needed to manage that folder structure as well.
File structure before changes
The folders I had created in the Obsidian vault had no real structure, as there had been little reason for having one. The only slight exception to this was the Readwise folders, which are where new notes generated by the Readwise Obsidian sync are created and live until I move them.
In my old structure, I had four files for managing the processing of highlighted and commented notes that had been synced into my Obsidian vault from Readwise. First, I have two for highlighting my notes: one for urgent notes and a second for non-urgent notes.
I highlight my notes because it helps me condense the original notes to their key highlights and ideas. Once a note has been highlighted in my vault, I put it in a literature note source folder. Again, I had two folders, one for important notes and another for unimportant notes.
File structure after changes
The first thing I did was rename my top-level folders and didn’t make any further changes to them, especially to my Zettelkasten, which still only has two folders: one for the Literature notes and a second for my permanent notes called slip-box. This won’t change, as a Zettelkasten should have no organisation other than the way notes link with each other. You can learn more about Zettelkasten in our introductory guide.
I added folders for the weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual to store the relevant planning and review notes. If you would like me to explore this further, please leave a comment below.
I removed the processing from the Readwise folder and created their own parent folder called 5_NoteProcessing. Inside that folder, I have three sub-folders: one for the processing of Literature notes, a second for notes to be processed, and the final folder is the notes to be processed backlog.
Processing of Literature notes
In this folder, I store any literature notes that I have already created but haven’t reviewed to see what permanent notes can be created or updated from them. I like to have a bit of a gap between writing the literature note and creating any permanent notes, as it gives my subconscious a chance to reflect on it.
Once processed, they will be moved to my Zettelkasten literature folder.
Processing backlog and currently processing folders
I currently use the shortlist and latter function to determine the priority of what I read next. You can find out more about why I set up my Readwise library in that way in the linked blog post.
I used the same concept with the notes awaiting processing in my vault.
When a note comes into my vault from Readwise, I ask myself what I can get out of it and how important it is. Some notes will never create permanent notes, and they go straight into the Z_Source Material folder. And will never be processed unless it comes to light at some point in the future when it is reconsidered.
Those that I decide to keep for processing are considered on how important they are. Those that are considered important are placed in the 5.2_currentlyProcessing folder. The rest go into the 5.3_Processing backlog folder.
What went wrong
I experienced a few issues after making the changes. The most significant impact was on my Readwise synchronisation with the feed, which tried to download every note I had highlighted. This was due to me not changing the folders it was synced to. I think the attempt to download all highlighted notes was due to me trying to reconnect the sync.
I resolved the Readwise issue by only syncing the updates within the last seven days. I doubt that this will cause an issue as I open my Obsidian vault daily, meaning that Obsidian and Readwise are syncing at least once a day.
The second issue revolved around Smart Connections. As I hadn’t changed the folders containing the notes it can ignore, Smart Connections went to a screaming halt as it tried to suddenly transcribe thousands of notes into an AI-readable form.
I don’t want Smart Connections to have access to everything. I only want it to have access to the content I have already written, all my Zettelkasten notes, my journal, and notes that I’m currently processing for my Zettelkasten.
I updated the Smart Connections plugin to reflect this.
Lessons learnt
From this experience, I learned to consider the impact on any plugins that you are using and update the folders defined in those plugin settings as soon as you have created the new file structure.
Further reading and videos
- You’re Not Lacking Creativity, You’re Overwhelmed by Jorge Medina
- Introductory guide to Zettelkasten
- How I use Readwise Reader to funnel Information & Knowledge
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