#y2025

MentisCell – Structuring Notes Across Lifelong Learning

Title

MentisCell – Structuring Notes Across Lifelong Learning

Content

Note-taking evolves as we move through different phases of education and professional development. This MentisCell presents a structured approach to capturing class-related information, aligned with folders, metadata, and purpose-driven formatting.

There are three primary contexts that influence how we take notes:

  1. School to graduation — focused on retention of content delivered by authority figures.
  2. Postgraduate learning — emphasizes integration of ideas, critical thinking, and potential research.
  3. Corporate or short-term training — demands selective absorption and immediate applicability.

School to Graduation

During early education and undergraduate studies, instructors are typically seen as authorities, and students are expected to retain presented content. The priority is organizing course material clearly:

In each note, include metadata for:

Attachments and materials should be embedded within the note or added as linked files. Keep formatting readable and scannable.

Complementary methods such as spaced repetition or flashcards can be helpful, but decide whether these interact with class notes directly or via separate notes. At this stage, applying techniques like Zettelkästen may be premature, though separate permanent notes linked to class sources could be beneficial.

Postgraduate Learning

Building upon the structure above ([[#School to Graduation]]), postgraduate study includes expectation for original insight, critique, and sometimes publishing. Notes should account for:

Suggested top-level folder layout:

Research can reside under Studies or be top-level depending on workflow. File movements within Obsidian are supported and links update automatically.

At this level, adopting Zettelkästen is highly appropriate. Individual ideas can be fragmented into permanent notes that interconnect and synthesize broader themes.

Corporate and Short-Term Training

This format resembles postgraduate note-taking ([[#Postgraduate Learning]]), but ends after training concludes. Metadata and folder hierarchy can be simplified.

Instead of a Research folder, use Knowledge to capture refined summaries of useful concepts applied in daily tasks. Notes serve as quick reference and conceptual anchors during meetings or operational tasks.

Though not often used for content discovery, Zettelkästen may still help clarify application paths. Value lies less in theory retention and more in demonstrating understanding on demand.

Conclusion

Each phase of learning suggests distinct strategies for note creation, metadata inclusion, and conceptual reuse. Aligning note structure with context and purpose promotes retention and adaptability.

Be intentional. Define goals: graduation, insight generation, or practical deployment. Let note-taking evolve with life stage — and experiment until your system serves your growth.

Tags

#mentiscell #lifelong-learning #note-structure #metadata #educational-flow

Contributors

Created with the support of Microsoft Copilot on 2025-07-13.