1c5 - Building relationships with proximity

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

Here is perhaps our sneakiest relationship-building mechanism: Proximity.

Everyone tends to overlook how proximity makes relationships between notes. 

• Proximity can be random » Airplane flight sitting next to total strangers
• Proximity can be intentional » Airplane flight sitting next to your family

There are 3 types of proximity.

1. Alphabetical
2. Chronological
3. Topical

Let’s explore each.

In any folder, notes live next to other notes. They “physically” inhabit parts of the screen that are near each other. Sometimes this is random. Sometimes this is intentional.

• Random alphabetical proximity: 
  • The notes “Apple” and “Bandit” might start next to each other on Day 1. But their proximity in your folder is random, because over time it is subject to change. Years later the list might look like “Apple”, “aqua”, “aqualung”, “arabesque”, “arachne”, “arbiter”, “arc”, “arena”, “aries”, “arise”, “Arkansas”, and then finally “Bandit”. 
  • So relationships that start out strong can weaken over time.
• Intentional alphabetical proximity: 
  • You prepend all of your notes about this workshop with “LYT”. So a note named “LYT - Unit 1” will remain next to a note called “LYT - Unit 2”.
  • (Yes, this is also an example of Topical proximity.)

Can you see how alphabetical proximity can be both unreliable and reliable?

Besides the alphabet, the next most common way to sort notes is by time. Time is often an effective way to leverage proximity because we often lean on our ability to recall things through our temporal context, i.e., we’ll think, “It happened around the same time as…”

• Using created by dates for proximity
  • When you sort by creation date, the proximities between your notes won’t change (in theory, but in practice they can change, so we can’t completely trust what our file systems tell us.)
• Using modified by dates for proximity
  • One of the best uses of this is looking at “recently modified”. This is good for an active working session as well as for recalling work you’ve done in the short-term and mid-term past.

Topical proximity is the most intentional. It is how we can walk in the shoes of the Ancients and use spatial context to construct meaning. The Ancients used “mind palaces” but we can use MOC notes. Well, MOCs are the best way, but we actually can use three types of topical proximity:

• Filenames

• Folders

• MOCs

• Using prepended filenames for topical proximity

  • When you have multiple notes that you know you always want grouped together you can “bake” topical proximity into the filename by prepending. When might you want to use it? Maybe for a book or a workshop/course like this one:
    • LYT - Unit 1
    • LYT - Unit 2
    • LYT - Unit 3

• Using folders for topical proximity

  • Notes in the same folder will have a closer relationship since they are grouped in the same vicinity. 

• Using MOCs for topical proximity

  • Notes in the same MOC are very likely to be closely related, especially after you manually sort them into some form of relational positioning. 
  • This is the ==best way to apply the power of proximity.==

Using just a single note—an MOC—you can identify and build relationships between notes.