# One home per note One note can be associated with many categories (e.g., through tags), but a note has ONE type, and thus has ONE (physical) home: the folder of its type. A permanent note lives with the permanent notes, a person with the people, a task with the tasks. What the note is about or which project it serves plays no role in where it lives. The categories (topics, projects, areas) come from metadata, and there can be as many as needed. A note belongs to a project through a link or the `related_projects` property, to a topic through a tag or the `topics` property, and to an area through the `areas` property (on goals, projects and activities). Queries and views ([[Obsidian Bases]], Dataview, [[Map of Content (MoC)|Maps of Content]]) bring those notes together when I need them. I never copy a note into a second folder, and I never move it to "put it" in a project. That's how I avoid the trap described in [[Categories are limiting]]: the type fixes the physical home, while the idea stays connected to every domain it touches. ## Why it matters - **You always know where to look**: the type tells you the folder. It's the old rule [[A place for everything and everything in its place]] (cfr the quote [[One place for everything and everything in its place]]), applied to notes. It's also what makes a system feel safe to use: you trust it (cfr [[Key principles of a good Personal Organization System]]) - No copies means no versions drifting apart. That's the [[Single Source of Truth (SSOT)]] idea, and I explain how it applies to a PKM system in [[Single Source of Truth in a PKM system]]. This note covers the filing side: one note, one location. At the scale of tools, the same idea is [[Why knowledge centralization matters|knowledge centralization]]: one knowledge base instead of [[Personal Information Silos]] (cfr [[Single vs multiple knowledge bases]]) - A note can serve several projects and topics at once, without forcing you to choose one. Tags already let an item exist in more than one place without duplication (cfr [[Pros and cons of tags]]); links, properties and queries do the same - Scripts, templates and AI agents find notes by convention (type, then folder) instead of searching the whole vault (cfr [[AI-Ready Second Brain]]) ## By purpose or by type The [[IPCRA Method]] and the [[PARA method]] also give each note one home, but they pick it by purpose: the project or the cap (area) the note serves. When the project ends, the note moves to the Archives. When it serves a second project, you have to choose. With a home based on the type, those questions disappear: a literature note stays where it is, whatever projects it feeds over the years (cfr [[Organize information by type, not by topic]]). Two cases do move a note in the [[Obsidian Starter Kit]], and both follow the type. If a note's type changes, its home changes with it (that's what retyping does). And action notes (goals, plans, projects, tasks, ...) move once, to their archive folder, seven days after they reach a done status. The kit does both automatically (cfr [[Obsidian Starter Kit - System - Automatic Note Filing System]]). ## References - [[Obsidian Starter Kit - Foundation - Design Principles]] (Single Source of Truth) ## Related - [[Organize information by type, not by topic]] - [[Ontology]] - [[Single Source of Truth (SSOT)]] - [[Single Source of Truth in a PKM system]] - [[A place for everything and everything in its place]] - [[One place for everything and everything in its place]] - [[Why you need a single source of truth for your PKM]] - [[How to break down the walls isolating our knowledge and ideas]] - [[Categories are limiting]] - [[Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle]] - [[Why knowledge centralization matters]] - [[Personal Information Silos]] - [[Single vs multiple knowledge bases]] - [[Key principles of a good Personal Organization System]] - [[Pros and cons of tags]] - [[Ways to locate notes]] - [[IPCRA Method]] - [[PARA method]] - [[Getting Things Done (GTD)]] - [[Obsidian Starter Kit - System - Automatic Note Filing System]] - [[Obsidian Starter Kit - Reference - Folder structure]] - [[Obsidian Starter Kit - Theory]]