Time-Context-Category-Hierarchy

TCCH: A Latch Method alternative

To decide where to put our notes in relation to each other, it is helpful to use this process of organization.

Time

Time and attention are our most scarce resources. It is also the one most useful in making or notes discoverable when we need them most. The first note should form the entry point to other notes that we can time-bound. For example, I have a note that I check daily that reaches all other time-related notes. This is useful for creating a routine of identifying and nurturing notes that are of most critical importance now.

Context

These are notes that are grouped related to a specific problem or occasion you have encountered or may encounter. They work a little bit like Time except there is no requirement schedule them in advance. You just access the information as needed when you encounter the context, enabling you to can act on the fly to any situation.

Category

These are the broad categories notes can belong to. You can think of them as genres for books or departments in a government. They largely should not overlap with each other. Although there's no need to strictly enforce this. It's just useful to know which category a thought belongs to or whether to create a new category.

Hierarchy

This is where things get interesting. In your categories you can break ideas into themes with as many layers of depth as you like. I suggest you tackle this iteratively and over time. Ditto for the broad categories. You want your broad categories to emerge as you merge and split ideas apart and group them into themes. Keep going until your ideas can't be split apart and your broad themes are mutually exclusive. This will leave you with a hierarchy of notes with different levels of detail going right down to the most fine-grained. These are the atoms which you can now reassemble into an interesting chemistry of ideas.