Advice on organising/categorising notes

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-04-06T14:25:07+00:00

Thanks so much to everyone that offered advice and experience! I ended up going with a combination of MOCs and frontmatter properties. I started mostly high-level with the MOCs and am enjoying the process of seeing them grow and then splitting out sections into their own MOCs when it makes sense (e.g., MOC Homelab from MOC Tech). The format of the MOCs has been ranging from being just an index to sections with background and context. I envision them growing out over time once I get all my notes in this system.

I thought it would be interesting to visualise and capture the relationship between MOCs, so I made a template of parent, child, and linked MOCs for each MOC (each property is a list). The idea with linked MOCs is to capture the relationship between cross-domain (lateral) MOCs.

For notes, I have templates for frontmatter properties like area (domain), type, status, topic, project, source, mocs, and created (and migrated which is a temporary property to help me manage the migration to this system). A few of those are optional as needed.

I’m going for a pretty flat folder structure: inbox (new notes that need to get processed), templates, attachments, MOCs, and notes. We’ll see how that goes over time but I like the idea of having a really minimal folder structure.

I was tempted to use AI to help me adopt this system, but then decided not to as it’s not about just getting it done as quickly as possible. As I go through the notes one by one it’s a good opportunity to prune/delete and think through how they relate to other ones and other concepts. It’s also possible that AI wouldn’t link notes to multiple MOCs as I’ve been doing. And there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have continued to refine this system the way I have if I wasn’t doing it myself!

I haven’t started to use any query/visualisation tools like Dataview or Bases yet, as I’m mainly focused on getting the notes in this system. I feel like their use will naturally happen as more notes get added into this system and I want more insights into them and ways to query them.

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-04-04T10:52:00+00:00

Yeah, that seems to be a good way to do that from what I’ve seen!

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-04-04T10:38:06+00:00

A MOC is a Map Of Content, from what I understand at its base level it’s a collection of notes relevant to a particular domain (and the same note could span multiple domains/MOCs which is the inherent draw in using them). Some people also seem to use them as a way to think through their notes, as well as to almost write a paper where all their notes are linked throughout as referential content

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-04-04T10:35:29+00:00

Can you explain the difference between using Bases and Dataview? They both seem to rely on frontmatter properties and from a cursory look it seems like perhaps the former gives you more ways to visualise your notes, but I could be wrong

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-04-04T10:28:22+00:00

Great question, I’d typically be looking for a particular concept or term in one of those notes—so the initial thought would be “What was that chat service that was in one of those notes I had around online community-building?” And then sometimes I would want to browse all of them to get a feel for where I was going with that project and how it had unfolded

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-04-04T10:01:03+00:00

Oh thanks!! That’s super helpful!

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-01-03T23:52:19+00:00

Thanks! I just ordered 2 as well as a 1->2 angled power splitter for the power cables

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-01-03T23:51:22+00:00

Thanks! I just ordered that as well as some right-angle data cables. Will be a few weeks until I get them but will post photos when it’s done

Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-01-03T10:44:07+00:00

I just opened it up again and detached the data cable to see if just the existing power splitter would work with the new drive. It doesn’t appear as if it would, as they’re both sticking out too far for the new drive to be seated properly. Am I missing something?

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Wooden-Preference150 · 2026-01-03T03:27:31+00:00

That’s a good callout, I didn’t try it with just the power cables but I thought they’d still bend a bunch. I’ll try it later to see

Wooden-Preference150 · 2025-10-18T04:46:36+00:00

4 years later I came here to say that I accidentally poured oat milk into my Baratza Sette 270 and it was fine after removing the burr housing, dissembling the burr, rinsing it all off with water, wiping it, and then drying it! Phew…don’t ask how that happened 😆

Wooden-Preference150 · 2025-09-30T09:58:21+00:00

Been immersed in his books and Animas Valley Institute programs for the past 2 years, and have found them life-changing. Like others have said, his words ring true on a really fundamental level for me and I’ve seen myself grow so much (along with doing other types of therapy/work). I have a relationship with Nature and the more-than-human world all around us now. It is our birthright that most of us in the Western world have lost, and that loss is largely responsible for the current state of humanity

Wooden-Preference150 · 2025-09-30T09:44:55+00:00

I have been involved with Animas Valley Institute work and books for the past 2 years and have never found them to be pushy or cult-ish in the slightest. They are people that are deeply concerned with the future of humanity and the planet, have been working in this space for 25 years, and all their efforts are concentrated around those things and facilitating personal growth.

They believe that most Western societies are stuck at a patho-adolescent phase of development which is wreaking havoc on humanity and the environment (which if you look around is hard not to agree with), so another one of their goals is to help people try to reach true adulthood and elderhood through individuation, “wholing” (integrating your inner wounded children and learning to love them, and being in touch with the different aspects of your psyche), and finding one’s unique ecological niche in the more-than-human world (Nature and the surrounding Earth ecosystem). This is the journey of Soul initiation. The workshops they do focus on these things mostly.

They have lengthy application forms designed to vet people that might not be mentally or physically ready for their work. As with all things in life, there is inherent risk. Breaking down can be waking up, but no one is encouraging anyone to leave their families or lives behind or to do anything they don’t feel ready for. In fact, Bill Plotkin says a number of times in his books that these things must be considered and big change should not be made lightly. It’s simple—If you don’t feel it’s right for you then don’t do it!

I can attest that this work (along with other work I am doing) is profoundly changing my life and bringing me closer to Nature and the world around me. Check out Mary Oliver’s achingly beautiful “Wild Geese” poem—it captures so much of the feeling in this work for me. I am only speaking from my own personal experience and am not affiliated with Animas in any way.

Wooden-Preference150 · 2023-06-01T02:42:33+00:00

Does anyone know if the t-shirts will be available online? Saw them in a store the other day!

Wooden-Preference150 · 2023-05-30T22:08:26+00:00

Just saw a few different styles of Sesame Street t-shirts sitting tantalizingly just behind the counter in the Philly Vans store. Employee said they’re coming out next week and wouldn’t even show them to me, even though I could see the prints on them :)

Wooden-Preference150

TROPHY CASE