A Complete Guide to Tagging for Personal Knowledge Management

What can information mapping teach us about tagging? Decades of research in this field have shown that the  best use for labels is as an  output  mechanism, not an input mechanism

the weakness of hierarchical systems is that knowledge remains siloed from other ideas that could spark interesting connections. Adding a network to our file systems can help us preserve the benefits of hierarchy, while  infusing  it with cross-connections and associations.

By collecting our knowledge in a  centralized  place outside of our own heads, we can create an engine of creative output – a “second brain” – to advance a career, build a business, or pursue a passion. By making this knowledge  digital , we can reap the benefits of searchability, backups, syncing between devices, sharing w

There is another benefit to this method: it is perfectly okay to  not  tag a note at all. So long as you’re not using tags as your primary organizational system, there is no chance that a note left untagged will completely fall through the cracks. It will always be right there in the notebook where you left it. This avoids

By adding a label to a collection of related notes, you can more easily think of them as a coherent group. They occupy a “space” in your notes (and in your mind) that makes them easier to examine, connect, share, and refer to. In this way, tags act like real spatial organization, without having to move anything from one place to another.

Despite the popularity of networks in the Information Age, the hierarchy persists as a simple, consistent way to organize knowledge.

Numerous studies (Bergman et al. 2008; Fitchett and Cockburn 2015; Teevan et al. 2004) have found that people strongly prefer to navigate their file systems manually, scanning for the file they’re looking for, as oppos

I believe that what is needed for tagging to fulfill its potential while remaining feasible is to change its function: from  labeling the “conceptual meaning”  of bits of knowledge (which is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and fragile), to  tracking its lifecycle .