How to Organize Your Notes in Obsidian the LATCH Method

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When you're deciding where to put notes,what it really boils down to is,how do you want to find this note again?There are a few methods for that,first is folders.Folders are probably the one
that we're most familiar withbecause regardless of
your operating system,this is how your computer lets you choosewhere to store files.Folders are like directories
that you can put files into.The problem with folders
is that you can't putone file in two different folders.

It's one or the other.So it forces you to make a decisionas to where that note belongs.Most note-taking tools also try to get youto organize things in this way,but I think that folders
are best for situationswhere one note really only
belongs in a single folder,or if you're trying to maintain
the uniqueness of a note.For example, I have all
of my literature notesgoing into Obsidian,so for example,if I read a book that's calledHow to Take Smart Notes, let's say,

that's going to come in,into the Readwise folder.I do that because I usually like to createa different notealso called How to Take Smart Notes,but this time it's in the Book folder.I like to do that because
I like to distinguishbetween notes that I've writtenand notes that have come
from other peoples' work.So, everything that goes intothe Readwise folder for example,I know is written by somebody elseand they are just my
highlights of those works.Everything that's in the Book
folder is what I've written,

it's my interpretation
of other people's stuff.So, if I had two versions
of the same note,How to Take Smart Notes,I wouldn't actually be able to save thembecause they're exactly the same,but if I put one in Readwiseand one in Books,then I can.So, that's how I use folders.Links in Obsidian can be created by usingthe two left square bracketsand then typing out the
name or file name of a note.

I think that links are best
for connecting two notesthat have similar meanings,a more of a semantic connection.In folders, it's really more aboutkind of categorizing notes,but with links,especially when the
connection isn't obvious,you can connect two different notes.For example, I have a note based
on Application Performance,which is very much in
the field of technology,and then I also have another
note called Productivity,which is a kind of performance,

these are not things that you would putin the same category.But you can create a
connection between themjust to be able to trigger your memory,so when you go to one,maybe you can think about
using it in a different contextand that's when I would
put a link to the other.The next one is tags,in Obsidian you can
create tags on the fly,just by typing a #and then the word.I use tags for system-related things,like when two notes don't necessarily haveany connection semantically,

but I still want to process
them in a certain way.For example, I have a TVZ tagthat I use to mark all of the notesthat I still need to process.Metadata is pretty vague,but in this case,I'm referring specifically
to Dataview parameters.Whether that's parameters that I've setin the YAML front matter
of an Obsidian noteor in line within the note itself.Metadata are good for combinations
of the previous three,folders, linksand tags, or when you're
trying to visualize

your body of knowledge
that's in your vault.It's also great for creating databases.So, those are the methods
that Obsidian offersfor organizing your notes,but what exactly about a noteshould you be keeping track
of in the first place?Well, I have a friend Zsolt Viczián,who happens to be the developer
of the awesome pluginsExcaliBrain and Excalidraw for Obsidianand he talks a lot about this systemcalled The LATCH System.

LATCH is sort of like an approachfor how you can find your dataand the kind of things that you should putin your note to begin with,so that you can find them later.I think Zsolt said that he
took this LATCH approachfrom an author named Richard Saul Wurman,from a book called Information Anxiety.LATCH stands for five things,Location, Alphabet,Time, Categoryand Hierarchy.Now, let's head over into Obsidianand I'm gonna show you
which of the four methodsI use for these five items
in the LATCH approach.

Location refers to the physical placewhere a note was created.Now admittedly, I don't really
have much of a need for that.Sometimes I do,but it's in very rare situations.What I do use it for is
my role-playing gamesand for that,I usually use a combination of linksand metadata to set them apart.This is an example of a
place in a fantasy worldand one of my games called Otari.If I were looking for a note

and all I know is that
it happened in Otarior that it is in Otari,then what I could do is use these places.I have Dataview queries for
things that are in Otari.So, right now this is
saying that it is lookingfor other notes with the type place.So, let's click on one of them,if we go to Menhemes Manor for example,I am using Otari as metadata
in the YAML front matter

and that's what's
enabling me to link to itfrom this Dataview query
within the Otari page.You can see that I am also using linksto accomplish the same thing.So, I have the metadata up here,but also a link to Otariand that's just so that I havea backup if I forget one or the other.Now, going back to the Otari page,if I were looking for a notewhere I just forgot to
put Otari in the location,I can open up the back
links here in Obsidian,

all of the unlinkedand linked mentions are saved.So, right now I'm seeing the oneswhere I've linked to this Otari page,so like this is not a place anymore,this is an NPC.And then I can also open
up the unlinked mentions,and there are gonna be quite
a few of those as well.So, these are ones where
I didn't even use a link,but Obsidian is still finding them.So, in this way,as long as I know where
something has taken place,

I'm probably going to be able to find it,just by going through the back linksand by going through the
results of the Dataview query.The A in LATCH stands for Alphabetand this just means that
you can also find a noteby knowing its file nameor by knowing the first
parts of its file name.And for that I would fall back on folders.This is an example of the
folder structure that I have nowwhich is cobbled together,just like anybody else,I started to do some thingsand then abandoned them,

and I haven't quite moved off of it.What I'm saying is,don't just blindly follow what I'm doing.Just experiment for yourself.So, I have one folder here
for daily notes for example,that makes sense for meand within that it is alphabetically,but also chronologically arranged.But I also have majority of my notesjust in the root directory.If I didn't know the name of
a person that I'm looking for,but I know that it starts with a D,then I could go into this Gente folder,

which is for people.That's people in Spanish.And then I could go,and scroll through them until I findthe one that sounds right.If for example,I know that I'm looking for AWS servicesand products,then I can scroll down to where AWS isand see all of them here.And that's useful if I haven't yet movedall of these into my AWS note,it actually looks like I kind of have,so that's useful.

But if I didn't,I would still be able to find themby going through how they are listedalphabetically within this folder.A much more common way
for me to find a noteif I know what it starts withis by using the Quick Switcher.Quick Switcher is a
core plugin in Obsidian,but I don't know why it's
not just enabled by default,I would always enable itand then after that,you could type the cut key for it,mine is ⌘Oand then I can start doing AWS.

And then I can go through the list,and see everything that I saw
in the file explorer as well,except this just is well, faster.T stands for Timeand in Obsidian,I keep track of the time
component of my notesusing links or metadata,with the help of some plugins.This is an example of Fantasy Calender,you can use Calender as well.But for example,if I wanted to know what
happened on Thunsheer the 2ndand I could go into this Fantasy Calender,

and this is from a
role-playing game that I ran.And I can hover over that,and I find out that we had a session,the 54th session in this campaignand I can look at what happened.So, this is one way to find that noteif I didn't know exactly
what it was called,I mean, how would I have knownthat it was the 54th note, right?But in this way,because it's time-based,I was able to find it.You could do the same thingwith like non roleplaying things.For example, this is my calender,

this is just the calender
community plugin,not Fantasy Calenderand each one corresponds to a daily note.So, I'm going to open up today's note,just because I know I
haven't written anythingin that one yet,so it's safe to show you.So, if I click on that,then I can see what I've
done or anything elsethat I linked to that day.When I create a note,I usually do have this metadata in there,so I put a date parameterand then I add in the date
that I created that note

or worked on it,so I would add more to here for...So, then as things go on,I add moreand more dates to this one,this is something that I've
changed a lot by the way.Let's take for example,this note on the Warlock RPGthat I just worked on this morning.If I didn't know how to find this note,but I knew that I'd worked
on something this morning,well I could go to the
daily note for todayand then go into the back links here,and look at all the places whereI've linked to this date from.

So, I can see that I also worked
on the Coyote & Crow page,I see that there was a
Readwise sync that happened,this is another page that I worked onand then if I scroll down,I'll see,"Oh yes, it was Warlock RPG."But then I can click on it from thereand I've found this note.C stands for Category,so this could mean many things.I use linksand metadata for semantic connectionsor similarities in meaningand then I use tags for
system-related things.

For semantic categories,I mostly create maps of content or MOC's,this is my MOC for
tabletop role-playing gamesand I mostly use just
a page that summarizesother pages that are related to it.So, in this case,these are all the notes that are relatedto tabletop roleplaying games.So, I have a games index for
the games that I've played,but also different systems,so this is manually created,but I actually prefer that
because then I can add

some nuance to these links.So, in some of these,like this one doesn't exist
because I've never played itand I haven't read the book yet.If I just had a bunch of links,that wouldn't really add much value,but in this way,because I'm creating these links manually,I'm also adding like a short
description of what they are.Sometimes I also use metadata for this,like if there is something that
I want to link this page to,that isn't already mentioned in the text,then I might add it within
a comment like this.

And then I can create a link
like maybe Knave House Rulesand that'll also be clickable.That's another way to add category,but one that I don't use as much.And the other way that
I mentioned is tags,if I go to tags here,you'll see that I have a bunch of tagsand let's look at my TVZ tag,which is the tag that I use for thingsthat come into my vault that
I haven't yet processed.So, if I click on this
Four Thousand Weeks,this is a book that I've
synced through Readwise

that I've started to create highlights on,but I haven't actually finished it yet.Having this tag here in
the metadata as well,helps me kind of jump toall of the notes that have this tag.And the last part of LATCH is H,which is Hierarchy.That means that if you're
looking for a note,but you don't know what it's called,then you could try to
go further up the chainand look to see what
it's parents' notes are.I've actually done a video on ExcaliBrain,

so check that out if you want more detailson how I do this,but I'm just gonna give
you a quick look right now.Let's say I have a note called Jmeter.JMeter is a load testing tool,but let's say I've
forgotten what it's calledand I don't really know
what it starts with,so none of the other items
in the LATCH approachare going to help me.For hierarchy, I mainly use metadatain conjunction with
the ExcaliBrain plugin.In this note you'll see
that within this comment,I've listed a bunch of parents,

including Load Testing Tool.But let's say I don't know what JMeter isand I'm just going to
go to Load Testing Toolbecause I know that I'm lookingfor a load testing tool in particular.Now, I can already see
I actually linked to it,that is another way to find
hierarchy is through links,but if I'd forgotten to
link it through here,there's still another
way that I could do it.So, let me hit Ctrl P here to
open up the command paletteand then I want to open up ExcaliBrainin a pop-out window.

I apparently have a lot of things linkedto this load testing tool node,let me just zoom in a little bit here.So, this is a little bit of a messbecause it is inferring a lot of thingsfrom the links that I have going toand from this page.You can see that I have written
a lot around this subject.But in this case,I've actually specified that
as a child in the front matter.So, if I hide inferred nodes,then I should be able to
see what I'm looking for.

And there it is,now there's only one node hereand would you know it?It's JMeter, that's the
thing that I was looking for.Many people get stuck on organizing notesand sometimes that means
they don't even get startedin taking the notes at all.There's just so much to doand none of us has the time to do it all,especially not perfectly.So, I think it's a more realistic solutionto just pick whatever method worksor makes sense at the timeand then accept that
you're going to have to dosome upkeep later when you find something

that's incorrectly organized.You can always use Quick
Switcher or Obsidian Search,those core plugins are super
useful for finding thingsthat you maybe didn't put
the right metadata on.If you'd like to hear more abouthow real people process notes,check out this video on
Why Inbox Zero is A Myth.And thank you for watching.благодаря.