How many tags?

< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >

Posted by jaslar
Oct 28, 2020 at 10:12 PM

Mostly, I write in outlines. But I do dump a lot of random thoughts into SimpleNote. I just realized that I have been arbitrarily limiting, trying not to proliferate, my tags. It’s a carryover from thinking hierarchically, and tending to broader convergence. But frankly, that sometimes makes it hard to retrieve those random thoughts. I haven’t categorized them right.

Those of you who use tags more extensively, how many tags are enough? Are there problem with too few or too many?

Posted by MadaboutDana
Oct 29, 2020 at 09:24 AM

Heh, good question. Before starting to test NotePlan 3.0 (beta), I was using tags as “folders” (NotePlan 2.0 supports nested tags).

A simple list of tags (cf. SimpleNote – multiplatform) very swiftly becomes unmanageable. You do better relying on a good search function (cf. Apple Notes – macOS/iOS).

A nested tags system is more useful (cf. Bear, NotePlan – both macOS/iOS); it can act as a folder system with the added advantage that it’s easy to add notes to multiple tag hierarchies (rather than having to create note aliases etc.). It still needs discipline, just as a folder hierarchy does, but has greater flexibility.

However, nothing really beats a powerful search function (by which I mean, a search function that uses Boolean operators, extracts and highlighting to zero in on specific information. My preferred solution is FoxTrot Pro – macOS/iOS – but Windows has a number of useful equivalents such as X1, dtSearch, as well as freebies such as Agent Ransack, DocFetcher et al.).

Cheers,
Bill

Posted by Mirce
Oct 29, 2020 at 01:24 PM

Indeed a very good question, and one which cannot be answered by anyone but yourself.

I am facing a similar dilemma with my tagging in Dynalist - too few tags and they are not very useful when searching / filtering. Too many, and you have even more problems: too deluted, hard to be consistent in everyday usage, some tags seem to be assigned in half of the instances…

A major thing to consider is the application / tool you are using and its handling of tags: if you can narrow your search / filtering by selecting more tags, you can afford and even profit from having more tags assigned.

I really don’t get it why most note-takers (both offline applications and online services) offer the possibility to assign multiple tags to a document / note, but but lack the possibility to search / filter by more than one tag. A prime example for this would by my “work-horse” app - MyInfo. You assign tags very easily, but when filtering, you can select only one tag. If you want to drill down, you have to remember and write the additional tag(s) as a condition, for every filtering you do. That’s the reason I hardly use tags there, it’s just cumbersome.

On the other side, the tags in Dynalist are great. If I select a tag, it filters all the instances where I assigned it, allong with the other tags the document / note / paragraph has. When clicking an additional tag, Dynalist automatically treats it as an AND condition and shows alle the documents containing both tags, and so on.

I am not familiar with SimpleNote and its treatment of tags. If it doesn’t allow filtering by more than one tag, you should restrain yourself from assigning too many tags.

I hope this helps you with your problem.

jaslar wrote:
Mostly, I write in outlines. But I do dump a lot of random thoughts into
>SimpleNote. I just realized that I have been arbitrarily limiting,
>trying not to proliferate, my tags. It’s a carryover from thinking
>hierarchically, and tending to broader convergence. But frankly, that
>sometimes makes it hard to retrieve those random thoughts. I haven’t
>categorized them right.
> >Those of you who use tags more extensively, how many tags are enough?
>Are there problem with too few or too many?

Posted by SmallDog
Oct 29, 2020 at 07:17 PM

For me a good rule is, whenever I feel like creating a tag, do a thought experiment: imagine at some future point I want to locate what I’m writing right now, and imagine I know I haven’t assigned any tags to it (so that the problem isn’t one of recalling the tag used), what search words would I use? Not only does doing that experiment help me pick a name that can actually help me locate it, but it often talks me out of creating a tag in the first place, because I’m confident I would be able to locate it simply by doing full text search (for, say “Bismarck” because this is the only note in which I used that name). It’s the ones I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to locate this way that needs a tag.

Sometimes it convinces me to add a word to my “idiolect” instead, something in large CamelCase like “TheXArgumentForY” and add it to my android personal dictionary.

For me the overarching consideration is to be pragmatic. Let locability be the guiding consideration, and above all prevent myself from going down the path of obsessing over the aesthetics of the system of tags, by trying to name them the perfect way or using this or that prefix, because I know from experience nothing lies down that path than frustration …

Back to topic list