suppressing links

[Maak]

I just stumbled upon a good description of the value of links in a database. Much of the following also applies to Devon Think:

Ideally, an application would allow for all the different ways of looking at the notes one has collected. Starting out from what might be called the “shoebox metaphor,” that is, the idea that you have one large container into which you drop all your stuff so that you have it all in one place and thus have created the necessary condition for being able to find your “stuff” again, capabilities are introduced that allow you to impose order on that stuff that makes it still easier to find this stuff. Such capabilities also make it easier for you to get clearer on what you have collected, to see patterns and structures that you might have (would have) overlooked, if you had not put in the effort to order your stuff by putting it into a hierarchy or categorizing it in a variety of ways.

If we call this ordering of prima facie unrelated notes or ideas “external structuring” (in analogy with “external outliners”), we can distinguish this activity from what might be called the “internal structuring” of the particular notes that we have taken. Most note-taking applications are very good at external structuring, but they are not very good at internal structuring. They don’t help you in getting clearer about the ideas contained in or represented by any one of the particular notes one has taken.
…

Ideas have connections and getting clear on what connections they have, or creating a new connection, is also getting clearer about what that idea is itself. It develops the idea. The starting point is different. It starts with the idea and its internal structure, not with the “stuff” and what it might mean.

(from a blog on taking notes)