📥💻 Separating work in your notes

You might feel the urge to separate your notes for different jobs or projects. Or maybe you just want to separate your personal life from your work.

This sounds nice in theory. In reality it just introduces friction to your note-taking. Your brain is more powerful if it has all the context.

This email will show you how to separate different projects in your notes while also keeping them all in one place. We’ll also show you how to chat with your work notes using AI.

1. Create a dedicated note for each project

Let’s say I’m working for Reflect as a Head of Growth, and also run a content marketing agency called Startup Cookie. If I create a dedicated note for each, I can then backlink to it wherever I want.

In the note itself, put legacy info (quarterly goals, info about the role, active clients, etc.). But it really doesn’t matter what goes in the note itself. It can remain blank if you want.

The important thing is that you can now backlink to it from other notes.

2. Create parent bullets with backlinks in your notes

When you take notes around a project (todo lists, meeting notes, brainstorms, etc.), put them under a nested parent bullet with the backlink.

3. Reference your incoming backlinks

If I backlink to Reflect from my daily note, it creates a connection between the two notes. You can see all of the incoming backlinks for a note at the bottom.

This allows you to view any associations directly related to that project.

4. Use the “Linked to” filter to search and chat with your work

When searching through your notes on a project, apply the “Linked to” filter, and select the work or project note. This will make sure every note appearing in your search results is linking to that work project.

You can then chat with your work notes related to that project! It will use those notes as context for the chat.