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Think playlists, not filing cabinets. A simple way to organise your notes so they actually spark new ideas & insights ⚡️

Why Topics Are A Terrible Way To Organise Your Notes (& What To Do Instead)

Ev Chapman
7 min readDec 23, 2024

Let’s be honest — we’ve all been guilty of creating those perfectly labeled topic folders that turn into digital graveyards for our notes.

The problem with topics is that they are inherently passive. They don’t actually mean anything to us unless we are actively pursuing something specific. And let’s be real — how often do you wake up thinking “I must explore my productivity folder today!”

Photo by Calum MacAulay on Unsplash

Instead of topics, I organise my knowledge into what I call collections.

Think of collections like Spotify playlists (or if you’re old enough to remember curating mix tapes/cd’s for your friends/crush).

I am one of those people who takes great joy in lovingly curating a perfect playlist for different events. Just last week I created one for Christmas dinner with friends. But I also curate playlists for any type of mood or moment:

  • Songs for sitting in a dark room with a glass of red wine 🍷
  • Songs for the 3pm pick-me-up ⚡️
  • Songs for lazy Sunday mornings

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Ev Chapman
Ev Chapman

Written by Ev Chapman

Personal Knowledge Coach | I help professionals package their expertise into content & products that generate independent income 💸

Responses (10)

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Thank you, Ev! Can I ask what platform you use for these collections? Always searching for the best note-taking systems.

Excellent, Ev! I create two types of collections. One is a MOC collection that is mostly topical, but it’s the easiest way to sort my atomic notes and keep track of the other collections: what I call my MDs. That’s short for MOC discussions, which…

Excellent thinking, thanks for sharing. I am actually using subjects in two of my approaches. I label and file idea threads in Perplexity. In addition, I use subject notebooks in notebooklm (typically focused on solving a specific problem)