Why note systems keep needing reorganising
If you have rebuilt your folder structure more than twice, the problem is not that you picked the wrong folders. It is that you are asking a hierarchy to answer a question it cannot.
A folder demands each note have exactly one home. But a note about the interview process for a role you want belongs to the job search, to the specific company, and to the thing you are anxious about. Choosing one is a loss of information, and you feel it every time you fail to find something six weeks later.
Tags loosen this and introduce a second problem: you must remember which tags you used, and past-you was less consistent than you think.
The fix is to stop organising notes at all
Organise the work. Let notes attach to it.
If you have already mapped a project or a goal into its parts, that structure encodes everything a filing system was trying to capture — what this relates to, what it sits under, what it depends on. A note attached to a branch inherits all of it. There is no second hierarchy because the first one is doing the job.
This inverts the usual approach. Instead of "where does this note go?", the question becomes "what is this note about?" — and that has an obvious answer, because you were doing something when you wrote it.
Three layers worth keeping distinct
Most note chaos is actually three different things sharing one container. Separating them removes most of the mess:
Reference — things that are true and you may need again. A number, a decision, a link, a quote, the reason you rejected an option. Rarely urgent, valuable when retrieved. Belongs on a branch as a note.
Thinking — working out. Drafts, comparisons, arguments with yourself. High value while active, mostly disposable after. Belongs on the branch too, and can usually be deleted once the decision it produced is recorded.
Action — something you are going to do. Belongs as a Todo, not a note.
The single most common mistake is action hiding inside a note. Buried in a paragraph, it is invisible in every list you actually check, and you have effectively made a commitment you cannot see.
Where each thing goes
- A next action you understand → Todo on the branch
- Something arriving before you know where it goes → Inbox, connect later
- Context you will want again → note on the branch
- A time-bound commitment → Reminder, or a Deadline if it is genuinely fixed
- Evidence something happened → Proof
- A number or credential you would rather not leave in plain text → Private Details, encrypted in your browser
Minty Path uses one ownership rule across all of these: everything can be standalone, attached to a Growth Path, or attached to a specific branch. That is why a reminder about a job application can live on the branch about that application, and still appear in the cross-map Reminders view when you want to see everything at once.
Handling the pile you already have
Do not migrate it. Migration projects fail because they are boring and there is no point at which you are finished.
Instead:
- Leave the existing pile where it is. It stays searchable. Nothing is lost.
- Map the two or three things you are currently working on.
- When you need an old note, find it and attach it to the relevant branch as you go.
After a few weeks the notes you actually use are attached to structure and the rest is archive — which is the correct fate for most of it. You did the migration by working, and only for the material that earned it.
The retrieval test
The point of any organisation system is answering "what did I know about this?" when you return after a gap.
With notes filed by folder or tag, that requires remembering what you called it. With notes attached to branches, you open the branch you are working on and its context is already there — what you read, what you decided, what you were worried about.
All Notes in Minty Path gives you the flat cross-map list when you want it, and every entry links back to its branch. Quick notes on the branch itself and longer titled notes both appear there.
Where this does not apply
Not everything is project-shaped. A journal, a commonplace book, recipes, general reading notes — these have no goal to attach to, and forcing them onto a map creates structure nobody needed.
Keep a notes app for that material. What this replaces is the organisation of notes that belong to something you are trying to accomplish, which for most people is the part that keeps needing reorganising.
Try it without an account on a project you already have notes scattered across.