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Let's be honest - we've all been guilty of creating those perfectly labeled topic folders that turn into digital graveyards for our notes ⚡️
The problem with topics is that they are inherently passive. They don't actually mean anything to us unless we are actively pursuing something specific. And let's be real - how often do you wake up thinking "I must explore my productivity folder today!"
Instead of topics, I organise my knowledge into what I call collections.
Think of collections like Spotify playlists (or if you're old enough to remember curating mix tapes/cd's for your friends/crush).
I am one of those people who takes great joy in lovingly curating a perfect playlist for different events. Just last week I created one for Christmas dinner with friends. But I also curate playlists for any type of mood or moment:
Each playlist has a vibe, a purpose. And that's exactly how I think about organising my knowledge too.
Rather than a generic "Productivity" topic, I have collections like "Productivity for Human Beings Not Robots" or "The Mindsets of a 'Pro' Creator". Some are questions I'm exploring like "Is technology making us numb?"
See the difference? One is just a filing cabinet. The other primes your brain to collect & connect knowledge in service of an opinion or idea.
(It's like that scene in the movie Focus where Will Smith primes the billionaire to pick jersey number 55 by showing him the number everywhere. Your collections prime your brain to spot relevant insights everywhere).
Collections are active containers for your knowledge.
With collections, everything you capture has a purpose. It's either helping you answer a question, shape a belief, build a concept or solve a real challenge you're facing right now.
Rather than just being a place to file things away, they help you think, explore & take action.
Collections are alive & dynamic. They help you focus your attention (just like crafting the perfect playlist), and they grow & evolve with you.
Whether it's a concept you're trying to understand or one you're building - these make powerful collections.
Maybe you're trying to understand Bull & Bear Markets or the 12 principles of Permaculture. These make excellent collections while you're studying something specific.
I've built some of my biggest ideas this way including The LifeLog Method & The Spark Method.
Having a container where you can spread things out, explore and build your own knowledge of the concept is absolutely vital to understanding things deeply.
Questions keep us curious - and isn't that the best way to build knowledge? The brilliant thing about using questions as collections is that our minds are wired to close loops.
Once you open a question, your brain naturally starts hunting for answers everywhere.
Some of the current questions in my knowledge library are:
If you want to get better at exploring questions like these & thinking deeper about your ideas, you might want to check out my AI-Powered Note-Taker's Playbook that helps you supercharge your thinking and uncover angles & insights you might have regularly missed.
I strongly believe (see what I did there?) that everyone should have strongly held beliefs. But you can't have strongly held beliefs without exploring & thinking deeply about what they are.
Whenever I have a new opinion brewing, I set it up as a collection & start exploring. Some of my strongly held beliefs that have been building over the last few years are:
I never held strong beliefs or didn't know how to articulate them until I started building knowledge collections around them. Now I could confidently argue any of these positions because I have explored them in so much depth.
Sometimes all you need is a good list. But I'm not talking about your average grocery list here - these are dynamic collections that grow & evolve as you learn.
I keep collections like:
Lists become these wonderful catch-alls for patterns you notice, lessons you learn & ideas you want to remember.
Projects are one of my favourite types of collections because they're current & actionable. But here's what makes them different from your average project folder - they're not just about tasks & deadlines. These collections become the thinking space behind your projects.
I use project collections for:
The beauty of project collections is that they keep everything in context. Instead of having related notes scattered across different topic folders, everything lives where you need it, when you need it.
For example, right now I'm building a new course. The collection includes everything from student messages that inspired certain modules, to random ideas that hit me in the shower, to frameworks I've been testing.
It's messy, it's organic, but everything is where I need it to be.
Whenever I hit a challenge in life or work, I create a collection to house all my thoughts on it. They give me a dedicated space to focus on the challenge, process my thoughts & experiment.
Instead of letting these problems bounce around in my head or scattering possible solutions across random notes, I have one active space working towards a solution.
Right now, I'm exploring collections like:
And remember what I mentioned earlier about collections being a priming tool for focus?
Now you have a collection setup for your biggest challenges guess what happens - suddenly you start to see information and knowledge about that challenge EVERYWHERE. It's literally a shortcut to problem solving.
So here is the inevitable question - should you build collections first and then collect knowledge or do collections emerge as you are building knowledge? The answer is... BOTH. Some collections emerge over time. Others are things I intentionally create.
When I'm reading & consuming information, sometimes I'll notice patterns emerging around a particular idea - that's bottoms-up.
Other times, I'll have something specific I want to explore or solve, so I'll create the collection first & then go hunting - that's top-down.
Neither way is better. They're just different paths to the same destination: knowledge that's alive, active & actually useful.
And the beauty of collections is that they don't feel like a heavy lift.
It feels completely natural to build up a bank of captures over time as I'm reading or watching content. Then one day I'll sit down, look at everything together & suddenly connections start forming. They transform from filing cabinets to thinking spaces that help your knowledge grow & evolve naturally.
The worst thing we can do with our knowledge is let it sit there gathering digital dust. That's what happens with topic folders - they become these passive storage containers that we rarely return to.
But collections? They're dynamic. They grow with us. They help us think better, create better & solve real problems.
So next time you're about to create a new topic folder, pause & ask yourself:
Then create a collection that reflects that purpose. Trust me - your future self will thank you for it ⚡️
