Maps of Content (MOC) are widely used in the PKM world, and yet I choose not to implement them as they're usually presented. MOCs are a way of linking related ideas in a single note that brings all the ideas together. The recommended way of using this is to create a series of stand-alone documents which provide a hierarchy of linked ideas.
Experts also recommend annotating each link with an explanation of the importance of the link to the overall topic of the MOC.
For example, a line from a MOC in marketing might read:
The [[Four Ps of Marketing]] are also used extensively.
where the [[…]] indicates a linked document.
The major benefit of such a network of documents is to act like a map through one's ideas. Jumping from the map to linked ideas allows for real-time exploration of a web of concepts. The benefits of such exploration range from increasing one's retention of the material to unexpected insight from loosely connected ideas.
While there are over 70 such documents in my repository as of this writing, I find such stand-alone documents usually relate to a particular topic or project. I rarely revisit these documents, but when I do, I find them irrelevant past reference unfitted for what I'm searching for in the present.
Another problem I notice is that while I regularly access atomic notes for the idea they contain, I rarely find myself in my MOC documents. Since I have a personal rule to update a note every time I touch it, my notes are continuously improving. But the MOCs remain frozen, outdated time capsules from the past instead of the dynamic tables of content guiding me through the network of my ever-expanding thoughts.
What I do instead is use a thinking framework inside each atomic note I create. Using that framework, I create mini MOCs related directly to the idea of the note.
The framework I use is
- Proposition
- Concepts
- Evidence
- Context
- QuestionsThe linked notes commonly fit into one of these categories. Where they fall outside of the categorization, however, I quickly use a different category to help provide contextualization.
Like usual MOCs, I write some connecting text to provide context for the link. Here, for example, are two links from the note I turned into this position paper.
- Concepts
- Description
[[PKM Maps of Content - 2022-05-09]]
- There are two kinds of links - near and far - that mirror the processes that happen in our brain
[[Course PKM Obsidian Note Taking Crash Course - 2024-09-22#Clumping v Linking]]
This framework benefits from the way it contains the elements required to turn a proposition into a thesis or even an argument. The links become supporting elements for turning ideas (i.e. atomic notes) into shareable products, ready to meet the world.
An improvement on this basic idea, which I have only experimented with slightly, is to use a computer science idea from entity relationship diagrams which connect ideas with verbs.
A customer entity, for example, 'places' order order which 'contains' line-item entities.
The relationships between these elements provides useful context for understanding how things work together.
The graph below shows using standard tools like Mermaid to graph such a relationship.
Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash