Introduction

I am pretty sure that some org-directories out there follow a highly customized or tailored approach to deliver the highest value to their users.

Therefore, take a look in my personal folder management and it’s structures and get some ideas how I implemented my system. Maybe there is something in for you.

The overall principle for my style is: Flat, but flexible.

  • attachments
  • blog
  • private
  • references

The attachment folder

A global location for images, PDFs, or other supporting files that I link from my notes. This keeps binary data out of the way and prevents clutter in the main note area. This section is a “stupid” file storage space. I’ll file more information about the various files in the references section.

The blog folder

I like to keep my Hugo blog as nodes inside the org-roam structure. All my blog posts (such as this one) are nodes inside the org-roam system. These are usually more polished and closer to “output” than to “thinking material,” so they live apart from my working notes. As I keep them in org-mode I can do everything that I want with them - like linking to other nodes, too. This creates a full research and publication system for me.

The private folder

The private folder contains gpg encrypted nodes for things that I want to be safe. So if my org-roam store get’s comprimised someone just gets a well maintained knowledge base. However, as I use GPG encryption for my private nodes they should be safe. Therefore I am also not worried to backup this folder.

The references folder

The reference folder stores nodes which link the files from the attachments folder to the org-roam system. A reference node always points to one file or url. This way I can keep things lean but also link them to other nodes inside my org-roam system.

Why Still Keep It Flat?

Even though I have these subfolders, I prefer to keep the rest of my notes flat, directly inside the root of the org-roam-directory.

There are two reasons:

  • Simplicity
  • Capture templates know where to store things already

Semantic Over Physical Organization

The real power of Org-roam is in how notes connect through links, tags, and properties. Instead of asking “which folder does this belong in?”, I let the network of connections decide how notes relate to each other.

In practice, this means:

Special cases -> dedicated folders (attachments, blog, private, references). Everything else -> flat structure at the root.