Tana is the best tool I've used for bottom-up note-taking. With most objects being nodes, I don't have to worry about whether I should convert a note into a document or folder. This allows for a significantly more flexible structure that's great for supporting my thinking. This flexible structure doesn't stop at the inter-node level, as the ability to add not just reference backlinks, but supertag backlinks as well, allows sentences to function like structural frameworks. Further, because of Tana's supertags, I don't have to manually maintain node metadata properties the way I'd have to maintain frontmatter in a document.
For anyone who's thinking about giving Tana a shot, but isn't quite sure where to start, I have three main recommendations:
1. Focus on the home node that's created for you automatically. One of the challenges I encountered when I first started using Tana was knowing where my nodes lived, so having some kind of hub to serve as a common starting point helped ground me.
2. Consider favoring supertags that declare types of nodes over ones that declare types of notes. This approach allows me to get away with only using a few tags to categorize my nodes. If you're not sure which node types to declare, a few of my favorites are #pro, #con, #update, #uncertainty, and #material. The first two make it easy to do some casual sentiment analysis of notes (like a note vibe check). The #update tag is great for little ad-hoc progress reports. #uncertainty is for questions or information I'm not sure is correct. This tag extends my #task tag, which allows me to check off information that I have become certain of; however, I like leaving the uncertainty tags to maintain a record of gaps in my knowledge that have since been filled. #material is a generic "object" tag for practically everything from concepts to video games. This tag is useful for declaring which node is the true representation of something. For instance, if you have five nodes that all say "The Office", but only one that has the material tag, you'll know which one to link to if you're trying to reference that show. As an aside, I tend to not assign more than one tag to a node, except for when the second tag is a #task tag. I don't actually manage my tasks in Tana, but use the task tag for nodes that contain information related to tasks in my todo list.
3. Beware of unnecessarily linking to a high-level topical node just because you typed its name (e.g., "#update I've been working on my [[productivity]] systems as of late."). I often backlinked this way while using Obsidian and it resulted in a rat's nest of references that didn't give me a better sense of my understanding of a topic. In many cases, I can just create a search node that searches for all mentions of a topic (e.g., "productivity") if I need this kind of information.
Bonus Tip: I've enjoyed using Tana to create outline representations of things I'm trying to make sense of, such as a character's move set in Tekken 8 or the homework questions in a programming assignment. I can reference components of these outlines to indicate which specific part of the reference material I'm referring to. A common note-taking tip I've heard over the years is to take notes in your own words, but I've found that starting with this advice just results in me becoming a thesaurus without actually gaining a better understanding of whatever it is that I'm studying. However, refactoring source material actually tends to help me better understand what I'm studying by giving me a greater sense of ownership over it, as one typically feels after building anything themself.
Obscure, Miscellaneous Usage Tips
- Shift Click: Get an in-line card displaying information contained within node referenced
- Command Option Down: Expand Node without exposing any preexisting children (especially useful for nodes with a lot of children)
- Command C (with cursor in a field header) -> Command V within a new field: To copy a preexisting field to a different supertag (for avoiding field redundancy)
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