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Paul's Knowledge Garden Structure

Part of Knowledge Garden Posts Series

In the document below I, Paul Mullins, will show you how I structured my Knowledge Garden, otherwise known as Knowledge Schema

I hope you find value comparing my Knowledge Schema against yours, you may even find some things you may want to adopt in your Knowledge Schema.

I am excited to see other knowledge gardeners like yourself documenting their Knowledge Schema so that we can all learn from one another.

Tool Choice Obsidian

My Knowledge Garden Software of choice is Obsidian. Obsidian does not have all the same software features as other Knowledge Garden Software. The easiest way to think of Knowledge Garden Software is that it us your own personal Wikipedia that only you can read and edit.

Obsidian's key features are,

  • File Hierarchy
  • Backlinking
  • Daily Notes
  • Tags
  • Plugins for extensibility
  • Search

You can see what Plugins I use in Paul's Favorite Obsidian Plugins

For backing up and syncing my notes across computers, I use Fossil but I would recommend Google Drive/iCloud/Dropbox/Mega.io if you are getting started, and Git with Github if you are more adventurous and know how to use a Command Line Interface.

For publishing my notes to mememaps.net and paul.mememaps.net I wrote my own publisher, obsidian-publisher, that uses MKDocs as the Static Site Generator.

Must Have Parts

The Must Have parts of my Knowledge Garden are what I use every day.

  • Questlog.md File - (Private)
    • My Questlog.md is functionally a TODO list. It's a file contains a list of things I am working on. Each item, quest, is a link to a note in the Quests/list folder.
    • I create distinct headings for different types of quests in my Questlog.md file.
  • Quests Folder - (Private)
    • Whenever I come up with a task I want to do I create a new note in the Quests/List folder with the title of the note being the description of the task I want to do
    • After the Quest note is created it is linked into that days daily note, daily notes are described below.
    • After that the Quest is linked in Questlog.md or one of the Backlogs in the Quests/Backlog folder
    • All document titles in the Quests/Backlog folder follow the following format Backlog - {{Description of Backlog}}
    • Examples of Quest Backlogs I have include. Projects such as CGFS. Media Consumption, which includes a prioritized list of Shows and books I am consuming or plan to consume. And Writing which contains a series of Posts I am in the process of writing, plan to write, all with the hope of publishing for other people to read one day
    • In a traditional project management sense quests can be considered a ticket.
  • Daily Notes - (Private)
    • A "Daily Note" is a note for that specific day. It's up to you how you use it. Personally I use it for that day's TODO list, tracking my timestamped thoughts and activities throughout the day via OODA loops, keep reading to learn about OODA loops, and write a reflection at the end of the day on that day's event
    • Obsidian, the knowledge management tool I use, has a "Daily notes" feature which generates a unique note for each day. The "Daily notes" feature can be clicked on from the right side of Obsidian or activated by pressing (CTRL+P) and typing in "Daily notes" and pressing enter
      • In Obsidian's settings for "Daily notes" there is a setting to create daily notes with a template, Here is my daily note template.
      • I use a custom hotkey (CTRL+SHIFT+A) to open my daily note for the current day. (Daily notes: Open today's daily note in Obsidian's hotkey settings), You can also create your own custom hotkey that is not (CTRL+SHIFT+A).
      • To make navigating to previous daily notes easier I use the Obsidian Plugin jump-to-date. This plugin adds a button on the left sidebar ribbon of Obsidian where when selected creates a calendar from which you can select a day or navigate easily into the past.
      • To make navigating to previous daily notes easier, and seeing which daily notes are longer, I also use Obsidian Plugin obsidian-calendar-plugin. This plug creates a button in the top Right sidebar of Obsidian.displaying a calendar you can navigate via Month view that also includes dots for each day to show how much you you wrote that day.
    • I use my Daily notes for OODA(Observe Orient Decide Act) loops. OODA loops are deep work sessions, where you state what you are going to work on, and then document what happened what you worked on said task.
      • I perform OODA loops under a title with the current timestamp.
        • To create a timestamped title I create a h4 title using #### then input the current timestamp the obsidian-timestamper plugin mapped to (CTRL+SHIFT+R) (TimeStamper: Insert customer time/date stamp in the Obsidian hotkey settings), I get timestamps that look like the following 2025-12-29T00:39:58-05:00
      • Under the timestamped title I start typing. First I "Observe", articulate what I am trying to do as a stream of conscious. Second I "Orient", refine what I am trying to do, I do this by actually reading what I just typed, interrogating it to see if I actually know what I am doing, I continue the typed stream of consciousness with a heightened level of awareness. Third I "Decide", after the task and initial thoughts are typed out I start performing the task, "Act". I revisit the OODA text block whenever I get stuck and use it as a sound board to type out my thinking process. I will do small refinements of the task within a single OODA block, if a large refinement is required I start a new OODA block underneath the previous one.
    • At the end of the day I try and do a summery under the ## Summary title, I previously tried to answer a specific set of questions using a template but couldn't maintain the routine, now I just product a stream of consciousness that describes a minimum of three things that happened that day.
  • assets
    • I place images in the assets/images folder
    • I place files like PDF's in the assets/attachments folder
    • I also create Diagrams via the Obsidian Plugin Diagrams drawio-obsidian plugin, I store all diagrams in the assets/diagrams folder.

Core

The core scaffolding of my Knowledge Garden exists to link ideas so they can be contextualized.

I contextualize everything using links. Using "Search" is not consistent. For example The same letters can represent different things, there is Obsidian the software and Obsidian or Fossil the preserved remains of biology or Fossil the Version Control Software. If the concept is directly linked as a note to there is no ambiguity.

It is interesting to see how the same note was used in different places, by going to the Obsidian(Software) note you can scroll to the bottom and see every note that links to Obsidian(Software) including this one.

  • Acronyms (Public)
    • I have a requirement that whenever an Acronym is used in a document, at least one of the instances of that acronym in that note MUST link to the note with the title of said acronym. For example you can check out PKMS, it means almost the same thing as Knowledge Garden.
  • Questions/List (Mostly Private)
    • Nearly all questions I have ever typed out in Obsidian have a note matching its title. It is interesting when I find myself asking the same question months if not years apart. Understanding what questions one finds "valuable" is the key to Question Engine.
  • Concepts/List (Public)
    • Anytime I would link out of my Knowledge Garden to something like Wikipedia I create a document with the same title.
    • This allows me to add my own personal notes to the concept itself.
    • This also allows me to see other places a concept is mentioned via backlinks.
  • Media/List (Selectively Public)
    • Any time I reference a form of media such as book, movie, video game, academic paper, franchise, or even a individual blog post or tweet I create a unique note in the Media/List folder. This note is required to contain a link to that media be it the blog post itself or a link to Goodreads, IMDB, MyAnimeList or Wikipedia.
    • Check out Paul's Favorite Media to see examples of this use case in action
  • Media/Type (Selectively Public)
    • For each note about media in my Media/List folder I like to track and categorize what type of media the note about the media is.
    • For each type of media that exists I create a note in the Media/Type folder describing it such as "Movie", "Video Game", Anime, and "Book" among others.
    • I link the note in Media/Type into the note in Media/List to track what type of media the note in Media/List is.
    • Check out Paul's Favorite Media to see examples of this use case in action
  • Software/List (Public)
    • Anything that would count as a Platform, Protocol, or Application goes in this folder. Within my Knowledge Garden Instagram(Platform), ActivityPub(Protocol), and Apple Notes (App) are all software that go in this folder.
    • Similar software is linked to one another, for example sshfs has a link to ssh because they are dependent on one another.
    • Check out Paul's Favorite Software to see examples of this use case in action
  • Software/Categories (Public)
    • Software comes in many types of categories such as Frontend, SQL Database, Scraping, and Annotation.
    • To track what kind of software a note about said software is I just link to the note matching the software's category in Software/Catagories
    • Check out Paul's Favorite Software to see examples of this use case in action
  • Locations (Private)
    • I have find myself mentioning places in my OODA loops and Daily Summaries. I describe these places the same way I express them in conversation for example, My Apartment, My Parents House, and Hacklab etc. etc.
  • Products (Private)
    • Here I put anything I can purchase or subscribe to. I usually link to these Products in my Daily Notes or when doing Research for Projects.
    • I place various types of supplements I can take in this folder.
    • I place fast food franchises such as A&W and Harveys in this folder.
    • I got a lot of Homelab Fruitboards in there such as M5 Stack, Zimaboard, and Raspberry Pi Pico.

Writing

Writing is a tool I use to clean up my thoughts. The goal here is to capture the chaos, Thoughts, distill them into Writings, that are eventually edited and published in Posts.

  • Thoughts (Mostly Private)
    • Whenever I come up with something interesting that I want to remember, I just create a fresh note and throw it in the Thoughts folder.
    • Thoughts without context are not valuable therefore after I create the note for that thought I add a link to it to my Daily Note.
  • Writings (Private)
    • This is where I work on posts before making them public in Posts
  • Posts (Public)
  • Posts/Tutorials (Mostly Public)
    • I often find myself having to relearn the same thing over and over again. In Tutorials I write down how I did something so it is repeatable not only for me but other people.

People Focus

Greatness is Other People, here I take notes on people, how they are connected, and my relationship to them.

  • Relationships/People (Private)
    • Here I create distinct notes for each person I know of significance. The title of the note is just their Name.
    • It's nice to see how a person is mentioned over years in my Daily Notes.
    • I link the person's Socials, X, Instagram, Whatsapp in their note.
    • If I know the person's birthday I articulate it in the note I have about them.
    • If people know one another, for example they work together or are genetically related. I describe their relationship in natural language in one another note making sure to link to the person they are connected and or related to note.
    • I also place fictional characters, celebrities, intellectuals, and politicians in this folder and treat them the same way as Actual People
  • Community/List (Private)
    • I treat any group of people as a community, it can be a conference, meetup, Discord guild, Hackerspace, or even a Subreddit. Wherever I can imagine a group of people with an identity and a name I throw it in Community.

Self Knowledge

Here I put anything that focuses on Me, Myself and I. Possessions, Dreams, Health, Therapy Notes, Wants, they all go in here. I am interested to know what types of self knowledge you are interested in putting in your Memex.

  • Self Authoring/Therapy (Private)
    • When I explore different therapy frameworks such as CBT, DBT, ACT, Self Authoring Program, and IFS I place those notes in the Self Authoring/Therapy Folder
    • I also place any notes from actual Therapy sessions I attend in here, I also make sure to link the notes about that session into my Daily Note.
  • Self Authoring/Dreams (Private)
    • When we sleep we sometimes tend to dream. When I have a dream I create a note in this folder and describe it. I then link it into that day's Daily Note.
    • When it come to Dreams, as defined as Aspirations in ones life, I use Self Authoring/Wants
  • Self Authoring/Wants (Private)
    • Anything I want, I create a distinct note for it.
  • Self Authoring/Behaviors (Private)
  • Self Authoring/Behaviors/Events (Private)
  • Self Authoring/Health (Private)
    • Here I track my weight and workouts. I also put Dental, Doctor, Medication, and Supplement notes in here.
  • Self Authoring/Possessions (Private)
    • Here I track my Digital and Physical goods. I don't track everything just stuff relevant to my Projects or I find valuable enough to mention in my Daily Notes. For example I track my DNS names, Accounts, Servers, and VMs in this folder.
    • Many Possessions I have are Commodity Products therefore I link to the note in the Products folder from the note about the Possession.
  • Self Authoring/Maxims (Private)
  • Skills (Semi Public)

Project Management

To learn more about my projects please checkout my root page -> Paul Mullins and read the Paul's Projects section.

  • MyProjects (Semi Public)
    • For each project I am working on I create a folder in the MyProjects folder.
    • I selectively choose files within the MyProjects folder to share publically on mememaps.net
  • Quests (Private)
    • Please refer to section above.
  • Backlog (Private)
  • Research (Private)
    • Here I put my research in specific topics. I already have a good amount of research done in my Concepts folder, the Research folder is for more private research or research that lacks context to be published.
  • Queries and Prompts (Private)
    • I found when doing research that the most valuable context was what I typed into a search engine or a LLM. So now I just create a title with the search query/prompt and link it where it needs to be linked.
  • Courses (Private)

Other

  • Code Snippets (Selectively Public)
    • Here I store code snippets, mostly for Unix commands and React
  • Presentations (Selectively Public)
  • Templates (Selectively Public)
    • Here I store template notes I can inject into other notes.
  • Quotes (Selectively Public)
    • Any quote I find, be it from a friend, a book, or a phrase I personally said, I treat the entire quote as a title for a note and put it in this folder.
  • Heuristics (Public)
    • There are plenty of "Rules", "Laws", "Theory's", "Effects", and "Self Help Concepts" out there. I place all those in this folder.
  • Chaos (Private)
    • Anything I write a note about but I don't know where to place it I throw in here.
  • Dents (Private)
    • Any social media post I posted that I want to link in my PKMS, I first create a Note in the Dents folder and link to it from other notes