Some experiments start out as an accident.
This one was deliberate.
For the past month, I removed every tag from my notes system. No #writing, no #ideas, no #books. Just notes, plain and bare.
I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped reaching for tags as my safety net.
Would my system collapse into a mess? Or would it breathe a little easier?
Main note
The decision came from noticing a subtle heaviness.
Every time I wrote a new note, the question of tagging slowed me down.
What’s the right tag?
Should it be #PKM or #writing?
Do I create a new tag or force it into an old one?
Instead of clarity, I felt hesitation. Notes weren’t flowing; they were queuing up, waiting for categorization.
So I stripped the whole system.
At first it felt reckless like cutting the labels off a filing cabinet. But then something unexpected happened: my notes didn’t get lost. They started finding each other in new ways.
Without tags, I leaned on links, titles, and search. I noticed patterns I had overlooked before. Notes connected through ideas instead of labels.
I realized: tags had become a ritual of control, not a tool of discovery.
Lab log
Here’s how the experiment unfolded:
Week 1: Hesitation. I kept hovering over the empty tag field, tempted to put something there. The silence felt wrong. I worried about future-me, scrolling through a pile of untagged notes, cursing past-me for being careless.
Week 2: Relief. I was writing faster. Notes landed in the system without ceremony. I didn’t feel the small drag of having to classify everything. It was like switching from formal shoes to barefoot.
Week 3: Adjustment. Without tags, I had to rely on linking. At first it felt clumsy, but soon it clicked. Linking wasn’t an extra step; it was an act of thinking. Each time I asked, “What does this note connect to?” I was sharpening the idea instead of shelving it.
Week 4: Discovery. I had my first surprise: finding a forgotten note not through a tag, but through a chain of links. One idea led to another, then to another, and suddenly I was staring at a connection I’d never noticed. Tags had never given me that.
By the end, I didn’t miss tags. I missed the illusion of order they gave me.
Everyday scenarios
This change showed up in small but telling ways.
One morning I was drafting a PKM tip for Threads. Normally I’d have gone searching through my #PKM or #writing tags. Instead, I just typed “constraint” into search. Up came a note on Stoic journaling, another on creative limitations, and a half-finished draft about rules in chess. That trio of notes shaped the post better than a tag list ever could.
Another day I was preparing a newsletter section on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Old habit would have pushed me to check #psychology or #flow. Instead, I searched his name and found everything instantly. But what stood out was a link I had added months ago, connecting Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow with Cal Newport’s idea of deep work. That link wouldn’t have surfaced through tags.
Even in product work, I felt the difference. While sketching the design for a Notion template, I searched “friction.” That simple word pulled together scattered notes on onboarding, journal prompts, and even a note on marathon training. Out of that cluster came a small design tweak I wouldn’t have thought of if I’d relied on #design or #workflow tags.
A step back
Looking back, I see why tags felt so indispensable. PKM culture has put them on a pedestal. Guides and courses promise “the perfect tag structure” as if the right taxonomy will unlock clarity. I bought into that story too.
But here’s the thing: tags are tidy in theory, messy in practice. They multiply. They overlap. They trick you into thinking organization equals understanding.
In my own system, I realized tags were more about control than creativity. They gave me the comfort of neatness but rarely helped me rediscover an idea when it mattered. Search and linking did that job better.
So I asked myself: what’s the job of my notes? To be stored? Or to be alive?
When I framed it that way, tags started to look like a filing cabinet trick. Links felt more like oxygen.
Reflection
The lesson? Tags weren’t helping me as much as I thought.
Removing them didn’t reduce connection; it deepened it. It reminded me that a note system is not a filing cabinet. It’s a living lab. And labs don’t need tidy labels as much as they need active experiments.
That’s where I am this week. I’m not declaring the death of tags forever. But I’ve learned they’re optional, not essential.
Sometimes subtraction reveals the real structure underneath.
Creator Block
This week’s Deep Dive takes us into a very different territory: The Intellectual Life by A.D. Sertillanges.
It’s a book about the habits of deep study and the disciplined life of the mind.
Sertillanges wrote it nearly a century ago, but his guidance for thinkers and writers feels strikingly current.
I’ll be exploring how his vision of a deliberate intellectual life translates into today’s context of noisy feeds and fractured attention. Follow me on Threads @gavin.create for the upcoming deep dive.
How do you keep your notes connected? Do you still rely on tags, or have you found other ways?
Hit reply and let me know.
Until next time,
Gav
