Let me start by saying this: I don’t use much folder structure in Obsidian. I’ve often found myself wondering if being more structured, efficient, and better at finding notes would help me, so I’ve investigated several options. In the end, though, I’ve kept it simple and I think my workflow is the better for it.

Photo by Torbjørn Helgesen on Unsplash

Folder structure methods

There are many ways to organize your data – I haven’t explained these in depth, as there is a wealth of information available; this is meant to inspire and get you started. We’ll take a quick look at the ACE Framework, the Johnny Decimal system, and the PARA Method.

ACE Framework

ACE comes from Nick Milo and stands for:

• Atlas – find your way, points of data
• Calendar – notes that happen at a specific point in time
• Efforts – tracking efforts, see Rethinking work: “efforts” matter more than projects for how I implemented this in my own Obsidian

I ended up with the following structure:

• Atlas
  • Maps
  • Notes
  • Utilities
• Calendar
  • Logs
  • Notes
• Efforts
  • On
  • Ongoing
  • Simmering
  • Sleeping
  • zArchive

Here’s more info: How to use the ACE framework

Nick mentions that he can also uses the structure for documents. I like the idea, but I found it too detailed for my use. I do still use Efforts.

Johnny Decimal system

The Johnny Decimal system immediately appealed as it is a decimal system for your life. Eleanor Konik talks about the power of the Johnny Decimal system in Increasingly Atomic Folders:

The primary advantage of the Johnny Decimal system for me is that there’s only ever one bucket a given file can go into. The idea is to design your folders so that that’s easy.

The instructions are straightforward:

Break everything up into, at most, ten areas.

• Break those areas up in to, at most, ten categories.
• Assign numbers to those areas and categories.
• Start creating items and assigning Johnny.Decimal IDs.
• Track your numbers somewhere.

I had far more fun coming up with my system than actually using it. I very quickly ran into the problem that notes may belong to multiple topics. However, it has stuck around for me in my meta organization:

• 00 Meta
  • 01 templates
  • 02 attachments
  • 04 logs
  • 05 index (MoCs)

PARA Method

The PARA Method is explained in Building A Second Brain by Tiago Forte.

It consists of these four areas:

• Projects – short-term efforts that you’re currently working on
• Areas – long-term responsibilities that you need to track over time
• Resources – topics or interests that may be useful in the future
• Archive – inactive topics from the other three areas

I like the simplicity but I found it fiddly because you need to move topics from different areas. It felt inflexible and I spent more time organizing my notes than actually working with them.

My current folder structure

My folder structure is a hodge-podge of the methods explained below. That’s because I started using them and lost interest, dropping my notes into the root. The structure stuck around because it hasn’t bothered me enough to change it.

The most structured section is related to my meta content. This structure is borrowed from the Johnny Decimal system.

• 00 Meta
  • 01 templates
  • 02 attachments
  • 04 logs
  • 05 index (MoCs)

While I do have the rough ACE Framework (Atlas, Calendar, Efforts), I’m currently only using the Efforts folder structure. I know a colleague played with using a board or canvas to represent these efforts, which may actually be better than relying on folders.

And otherwise, my notes live in the root folder. My current default boilerplate for each note focuses on connection. While I do use the visual fields, here’s the YAML frontmatter for easier understanding:

---
aliases: 
created: "{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time}}"
tags: 
space: 
related:
---

In the past, I used a structure similar to Nick Milo’s suggestion in Linking Your Thinking:

---
aliases: 
created: "{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time}}"
tags: 
x: 
up:
---

“X” is for cross-linking to related topics, while “up” ties the note to its parent topic. I decided that I would rather have a web rather than an exact hierarchical structure, and have switched to “related” instead.

I use a combination of daily notes and MoCs (maps of content/index pages) to tie topics together. I considered Eleanor Konik’s concept of themed logs, but settled on daily logs and cross-linking – that’s enough for my workflow.

I rely on search through the Omnisearch extension (see also: Obsidian plugins, Feb 2024). Between search and cross-linked notes, I can usually find exactly what I need. Folder structure isn’t an important part of my workflow.