3 things to keep note-taking systems simple over time

Three things that keep Note-Taking simple over time

Lessons from rebuilding my system until it finally stopped fighting me.

My journey started as it probably does for most note-taking or PKMS-Enthusiasts. I watched a few YouTube videos, read a few blog articles, read my first books, and fell in love with the idea of building my own personal knowledge system – following my thinking by visualizing it and making sense of the world around me. Having all the information and knowledge I could imagine in one place. It felt like something magical – a workspace of my own creation.

I took a deep dive into books and articles. But in all those books, it was never mentioned as clearly as I experienced it – building a knowledge management system fucking takes time and effort. I had no idea how time-consuming and hard it is to build something that felt valuable and supported my thinking in a good way. But still, I was hyped, the start was easy and enthusiastic, but at some point all my “clear” thoughts became first misty clouds, and then at some point they just fell into the ocean as raindrops – my system felt like it outgrew my mind.

This tipping point was the time when I could have either lost interest or started rebuilding my system. For me, it was the second; rebuilding my system became my main focus. I just rebuild and rebuild, and my original intention of building my personal knowledge and learning base became cloudy. The critical shift in my mindset was when I tried building a container, or rather a scaffold, for my ocean of thoughts. The way this worked for me was being confident and clear that the raindrops that had fallen into the ocean were still there. They just needed to be resurfaced, reshaped, and connected. This was a very time-consuming process. Anyway, the results were connected raindrops, which became clouds again. But with one major difference, I looked at them from a different angle, I was no longer under the clouds but above them – I was able to see the sunny blue sky again. My system clicked!

When somebody would ask me about what is the single most important thing is in system building and note-taking, my answer would be simplicity. Never compromise on simplicity. Simplicity is what makes your system work in the beginning, easy and fun to use on a daily basis, stick over time, purpose-driven, and resilient in low-energy times. It is a simple structure that makes your system a winner. And this simplicity will always win over complex networks that focus on connection. Here are four stabilizing elements for everyone who is about to start their note-taking journey or for people who hit the wall with their system. This is a more thinking on your feet approach and less of a I’m building an Eiffel Tower-System approach. Because simplicity wins!

Purpose

Systems that try to hold everything will inevitably start to collapse at some point, because the system outgrows your capacity to revisit, engage, connect, and make sense of your notes. The first thing was becoming clear about my intentions. Building a system around something that is vague and unclear creates friction right from the beginning. A clear purpose helps you to design your ideas and concepts without losing focus. You don’t only create a vision for thinking, but you also set a clear boundary for your system. Your path for the system to grow narrows down, which makes it easier to navigate and handle. A beautiful side effect of this is that your topics will gain more clarity (more on that in a future post).

A clear purpose acts like a filter for your system. One simple method to find your purpose is to set up 3-5 questions that mirror your interests. Treat these questions as a temporary focal point, as they will eventually evolve over time.


What makes ... feel ... without ... over time?
    - Fill in  
	- subject
	- how it feels like
	- challenges
What helps to turn ... into something that ...? 
    - Fill in 
	- subject
	- goal 
How do I ... and which approaches fit my skills and situation?
    - Fill in
	- subject

These questions will help you to not build a second Wikipedia page, but rather create a map of your thinking for a very specific topic. Your system will automatically develop around that topic. Once the system hits its boundaries, you can easily create new questions and interlink them.

System Design

After defining your purpose, it is the next logical step to ask how purpose evolves into content. Your system design and structure actually have the ability to define and guide that process. Purpose becomes visible, information connected, content gets created, and action follows. By this logic, your system mirrors how your mind actually processes information – you put your thinking first instead of a project. That is something wont achieve over night. Your system needs time and space for development. Our brains are all wired differently, and we need subtle differences in our system design. To achieve a system like that, we need to answer basic questions about our information structure and system design. As this topic is way too complex for a blog post like that, I will start with a really simplistic structure, which I started with to evolve my system. The purpose of that framework is to have something that works right form the beginning, but is adaptable over time, when your knowledge about your needs and note-taking itself develop.

This is what my first stage of system design looked like:

For the start, my main question notes work as hub notes. Every new note I take that is related to my topic goes in this note. When starting on a blank page, I just start writing inside that note. This makes capture easier. I usually write in bullet points. Later on, when my thinking starts to form and topics evolve, I create a separate note for each of my thoughts and place a link inside my hub-note. In this way, my hub-note doesn’t become overloaded with unfinished and sketchy writing or thoughts. It becomes my thinking-hub – a place where I have an overview over that specific topic. Once it gets too I start to add some more structure, but for the start, this really simplifies things. Each note is structured by experiences, research, and references. Experiences can be thoughts, ideas, conversations, questions, or anything else that is based on my internal thought process. Research is my place to store notes from external sources (podcasts, books, articles, videos, film). In References, I link any note that is related to the note. What then often happens is that new topics start to emerge as a combination of my research notes and own thoughts. When this happens, I usually create a new note and directly link it in references.


Hub
    - Note
Question/topic #1
    - Note
	Experiences
	Research
	References		
	...
Question/topic #2 
    - Note
	Experiences
	Research
	References
	... 
Question/topic #3 
    - Note
	Experiences
	Research
	References
	...
Archive

The focus of this structure is to get your thoughts “on paper”. It is simple, but at the same time, it can evolve with your thinking. You will not have to restructure over and over again. There is still room for development without breaking the system. If you are missing a stronger hierarchy, you can create a first layer with broad areas that commonly don’t overlap strongly, e.g.:


Hub
Peronal
Work
People
Admin
Archive

Normally, you should be able to fit any of your questions or topics into one of these main categories. If you like to think in categories and like a tidy hierarchy, that would be a really simple way to start.

Work with this system until you have a good amount of information for your questions and have a feeling of how everything works. You will feel where you hesitate or where you miss something in your system. It is important to keep in mind that you only create a new structure when you actually need it and not when the tool is implying it. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make. They install loads of plugins they actually don’t need. In my opinion, a basic setup always wins against complex systems with too many plugins. For now, this is enough about structure. What follows now is getting the system to work.

Understanding the processes

What most people overlook is being clear about their processes. But this is a very crucial part, because this is where your system becomes alive. Purpose defines what matters; processes define what actually happens. And I’ve actually never really thought about it until recently. But once you are aware of it, you will immediately feel the difference – a mediocre structure with clear processes beats a brilliant structure with vague workflows. Permanently varying processes automatically create friction and reduce overall clarity and the understanding of your notes.


[CREATION]
Trigger:
  A new thought appears.
Action:
  Write down your thoughts inside a new note.
Placement:
  Assign to a topic, question, or hub if unclear.
Important: 
  Do not decide structure or hierarchy during capture.

[NAMING]
Condition:
  Content exists inside the note.
Action:
  Assign a clear name that reflects the core idea.

[CONNECTING]
Condition:
  Related notes exist.
Action:
  Create links to relevant notes or questions.

[EXTRACTING INSIGHTS]
Condition:
  A new idea emerges from combining thoughts or research.
Action:
  Extract the idea into a separate note and link it.

[REVIEWING]
Trigger:
  Scheduled review.
Action:
  Revisit notes to decide whether to keep, move, or archive.

[KEEPING THE SYSTEM LEAN]
Condition:
  Notes no longer support active thinking.
Action:
  Refine, Remove or archive them.

Remember: notes stay alive through use. They are less stable than we often assume and evolve alongside our thinking. Once your system is alive, these dynamics become visible.

Closing Thoughts

The truth is that regardless of your approach, there is always a learning curve. Whether you create your own system, build upon a concept of someone else, or use a template. My aim is to reduce the effort at the start of taking notes to a minimum, so one can actually focus on the content.

The steps provided above are the absolute minimum. By using this structure, you will learn about your own note-taking and get a feeling for which parts work for you and what is actually missing in this setup. For everyone who is deeply interested in note-taking, it is important to always be aware of your system and be able to name these moments that create friction. This is how you will take responsibility over your system and don’t give it into the hands of someone else or tools. It is about staying in control of your system and understanding your personal inclinations.

The role of friction in Note-Taking – When Note-Taking becomes heavy

Note that there are no good or bad systems, and there are no perfect systems either. There are only systems that either work for you or don’t. I will never say that my proposed way is the way to go; I only offer some insights that helped me in the process. They are no more than a mirror of my own note-taking. The proposed system doesn’t focus on collecting more information, but on setting clear boundaries and keeping your thinking clean and usable over time. What I realized is that once a system starts to work, your ideas will almost form automatically – led by your system design.

Why did I start to write about system design and note-taking? The short answer is that everyone is trying to solve the challenges of note-taking with new tools, but they overlook the power of designing your system – a structure that prioritizes your thinking. Your thinking is messy by default. That’s okay, and neither tools nor systems should try to change that. They should give you a scaffold that makes your thinking visible. For me, the truth lies in building a system that truly supports your thinking.

Thank you for reading!