Some usage notes, setup explanation and documentation on how to use Anytype
I have been using anytype for the last 15 days, although it took me a while to get used to it, the learning curve has been relatively short compared to other apps. I have migrated all my notes and plan to make it my note app par excellence. Here are my notes about it 😃
How did I do my setup? ⚙️
- Remove all the content that came preloaded, except tracker, all my objects, my notes, ideas and journal. ❌
- Import all my notion notes (about 200 notes) this was a relatively simple job because they are very few notes, but it took me about two days between work and other activities. Here the annoying thing is that you can't import all the notes at once, they go one by one. 😫
- Once I had all my notes, I created object types depending on the topic, mine were: Pets, Quotes, Story, Thesaurus, Cinema, Mythology, Philosophy, Notetaking, Literature, Modus Operandi, Zettel, Language, Bussines, Marginalia, Courses and Resources. 📚
- For relationships create different tags: Developer, Marginalia, Bussines, Courses, Modus Operandi, Literature, Philosophy, Zettel, Mythology, Notetaking, Marginalia, Language, this are in general mode. For a specific set I created English and www, but that was on the fly. This is because the relationships allow me to filter the objects and link them to collections regardless of their type, I did this thinking about the future. 🔖
- Once these were created, the next was to classify all the types of objects according to the theme of the note. I also created the specific Set for each type of object. The reason for this is that it is the easiest way to create links. Once you have the Set with all the notes of that theme, you convert it to collection and the linking is automatic, otherwise you would have to do it object by object. 🔗
- Once the sets are transformed into collections, you can see the graph and see all the links of your notes. And this way you can later link various objects to a specific collection. 🍇
- I implemented two types of structures, which so far, have worked very well for me, the first one is PARA, to have a control over my daily life and the development of personal projects. The second one is Zettelkasten, or at least a very simplified version adapted to my needs. ⚖️
- To implement PARA I made 3 collections: Projects, Areas and Resources. For projects I made a dedicated object with the same name. In areas I linked the areas of my life, that so far I am documenting, which are my car contract, my journal and pets. In Resources I have linked ideas and my notes, plus some zettels that I use. 📚️
- For Archive I create a set, with a relation of last modified date and in filter, the relation of Tag with "has any of" #archive. This so that when I tag an object with "archive" it will be displayed directly in this set and I can find it easily. 🗄️
- For the Zettelkasten I only created a set with relation "last modified date" and from there I created views with specific filters for literature, mythology, philosophy, notetaking, etc. Thus I can visualize them in a single "database" and I can also see their connections from the graph. 🧮
- The missing objects, with generic type like page or document that were not linked to any set or collection, I linked them manually from the graph. 🧶
- As it is a PKM I really only have two humans, the main one: Me. That serves both as a home page and as a place to have some topics that I like to visualize at the beginning of my day. The other one is some kind of dashboard for my main occupation at the moment which is programming.
Some considerations to keep in mind when creating your space.
- Objects can only be linked to collections or other objects, but not to sets (this to see them in the graph or flow).
- With sets you can create an object anywhere and by choosing the type, it is automatically displayed in the set to which it corresponds.
- Sets are used to create database views that have the same type of object regardless of their relationships or attributes. But you can also create sets by relationship and choose a specific tag.
- Collections are like folders where you organize all the objects regardless of their type but that are of the same subject.
- With the collections, you have to enter the collection and there create it so that it takes it into account, this automatically links it with the collection.
- That is a bit annoying if you are used to create notes without much categorization and then sort them.
- I don't see any difference between a document object type and a pag object type, I'll stick with page which is the default and can't be deleted.
- One option is to make sets of objects like page and notes and put a tag and filter them, but to make collections, and that they can be linked I would have to do it manually which gives me a little laziness and also seems time consuming.
What I like about AnyType
- Offline, Offline, Offline
- Opensource, I still wouldn't mind if there was some kind of payment or membership.
- I find it less complicated than Notion, to which I dedicated many months over many years, it was a love hate relationship. With anytype everything seems to fall into place, although it has a learning curve and comparisons with notion abound, I think it has a logic that more closely resembles my kind of thinking.
Things I don't like/can improve:
- I feel that when writing notes, it has some lag. Although the app is in beta and is expected to have these types of bugs, I hope it gets fixed.
- The cursor also moves and I end up writing somewhere else.
- When putting titles sometimes it deletes them automatically.
- I would like you to review craft, I really like the feeling it gives when typing. Using the commands in craft seems easier or more intuitive than in anytype (in fact, I took these notes in craft).
- It would be great if you could choose a template to start the application, so I could use a daily plan like logseq or noteplan.
- Calendar view.
- Pluggin for omnivore.