Using tags as tags, not as folders

Up: § My note taking system

With the switch from Bear to Obsidian, I've realized that Bear fundamentally mixes folders and tags. I believe this is done in the name of simplicity, and Bear certainly is a beautiful and very intuitive product. The side effect of the simplicity of a tags-only structure, is that Bear did not have folders at all. Whereas Obsidian does have folders.

With my goal to follow the Zettelkasten approach and keep flexibility, I don't want to have an elaborate folder structure. That said, it does make sense to have some minimal level of folder structure where there is clear delineation of files and where files fall into purely one category of note.

There's also the enhanced power of frontmatter in Obsidian that is worth incorporating into my new approach for note taking.

Interestingly, within Bear over time I found myself adoption a system of having tags that literally started with #tag/ to mean true tags. All other tags were essentially to create the folder structure.

With the move to Obsidian, I can gradually remove all the folder structure tags from my notes, and eventually I can remove the #tag prefix and allow those tags to be true tags.

Additionally, with the migration to Obsidian I have also revamped how my notes are exported for § My digital garden. They are now exported more directly and with less manipulation, and as a result the structure tags are left at the bottom of the note. They now appear in my digital garden on my personal website, however this isn't really desired. Rather than hide them on the digital garden end, it makes more sense to remove these tags where I can. And real tags can go in frontmatter which I now want to adopt for true metadata: ■ Using frontmatter for metadata.