Mem Tutorial Best Practice Part 2: Organizing Your Notes

A simple “hierarchy of importance” can tame Mem’s otherwise self-organizing chaos: organize knowledge using note titles, bi-directional links, and tags. The payoff is practical—better recall, faster retrieval, and compounding value as new notes connect to what’s already in the system—without forcing users into folder-style, linear organization.

The framework starts with titles. A strong title should clearly communicate the note’s content and be usable as a sentence fragment that matches how the thought would naturally be titled in the user’s own mind. Titles become the top of the hierarchy because they make everything else easier: they’re more linkable, easier to remember, and they allow notes to be found later even when the note is empty or unfinished. The tutorial demonstrates this by referencing notes that contain little or nothing yet still matter because the title preserves the context of why the note existed in the first place.

From there, bi-directional links turn isolated captures into a network. When a new idea appears—like a realization that “Mem lets you focus on content instead of structure”—linking it back to the originating note captures not just the idea, but its source. Even if the note is blank, the user can retrieve it later because the title and links preserve the trail of how the thought emerged. As more notes get connected, the system compounds: each new capture becomes easier to develop because it’s already attached to related knowledge. The tutorial compares this compounding effect to PageRank-style organization, where connections help determine what becomes discoverable.

Links also support “doing work” from a single place. For example, a project page can gather resources by linking notes that share a theme—such as landing page copy, webinar recordings, or swipe-page lists—so the project becomes a hub rather than a folder. The same approach extends to building a new offering (an “AI second brain” project), where existing notes about earlier versions, related conversations, and other AI materials can be pulled together quickly. Titles make this feasible because they provide the key for grouping and selecting which notes belong in the project hub.

Tags handle the scale problem that links can’t. Links are ideal for specific groupings—like assembling a handful of notes to draft a blog post—but tags are better for broad categories that contain many items. Instead of linking hundreds of “book” notes into a single page, the system relies on tags (e.g., “books”) to create category views without manual linking. The tutorial frames this as a merge of capture and organization: Mem’s structure makes organizing largely automatic once titles, links, and tags are used consistently.

Overall, the method treats organization as a network process rather than a folder tree. Titles anchor memory, bi-directional links connect ideas to their origins and to each other, and tags provide scalable category navigation—together enabling retrieval and creation without constant restructuring.