Most notes systems fail in the first week, before any note-taking starts: no single inbox, folders invented on the fly, and a review step that never got scheduled. This page is the fix as a printable checklist. Sixteen checkboxes in four passes (capture, structure, review loop, archive) plus the three weekly review questions. Run it once during setup, roughly thirty minutes, and the system holds together after that. The steps name mechanics, so the checklist works in any notes app that has notes, folders, and search. If you want the same skeleton already built out as linked markdown files, that is the vault at the bottom.
How to use this page: print it, open your notes app next to it, and work top to bottom in one sitting. A checkbox only gets ticked when the "done means" line on that row is true, not when you intend it to be. Expect thirty minutes, most of it spent deleting the third folder you almost created.
Pass 1 - Capture: where new notes enter
| ☐ | One inbox note exists, and everything lands there first, before any folder. Done means: a new thought has exactly one entry point. |
| ☐ | Phone capture reaches the same inbox. Done means: a test note saved on the phone is sitting in the inbox on the computer. |
| ☐ | A daily note exists for today, and loose thoughts get dumped there by default. Done means: mid-task thoughts have a home that is not a sticky note. |
| ☐ | Every new note starts with a date and a source line. Done means: rereading a note in a year tells you when it arrived and where it came from. |
Pass 2 - Structure: where notes live after the inbox
| ☐ | Four folders exist: projects (has an end date), areas (ongoing upkeep), resources (reference you keep), archive (retired). Done means: a new note sorts into one of the four in under ten seconds. |
| ☐ | One home note links to all four folders and to the inbox. Done means: opening the app starts at the home note, not at a folder list. |
| ☐ | Naming is decided once: date-first or topic-first, pick one. Done means: the last ten notes you made follow the same pattern without thinking. |
| ☐ | A move rule exists for the inbox: when notes leave, and who decides. Done means: the inbox has a scheduled empty-out time written somewhere real. |
Pass 3 - Review loop: what keeps it alive
| ☐ | A weekly block is booked, same day and time each week, thirty minutes. Done means: it would survive a calendar check by someone else. |
| ☐ | Inbox reaches zero during the block: file it, or delete it. Done means: no note has sat in the inbox for more than seven days. |
| ☐ | Every live project holds a written next action. Done means: opening a project folder shows what to do first, on the project's own note. |
| ☐ | Dead projects get moved to archive during the block, same day they are declared dead. Done means: the projects folder only contains things you would resume. |
Pass 4 - Archive: what happens to finished things
| ☐ | The archive folder exists and is allowed to be messy. Done means: you stopped reorganizing it, and search does the finding. |
| ☐ | A finished project moves to archive within a week of finishing. Done means: no completed project still sits in the active folder. |
| ☐ | Daily notes older than a month get archived in one batch. Done means: the daily folder shows roughly a month of days, nothing older. |
| ☐ | Search, not scrolling, is the archive's retrieval method. Done means: you found an archived note by searching one word from it. |
The passes run in that order on purpose: capture first, because a system with no entry point collects nothing; structure second, because folders only make sense once notes arrive; review third, because structure decays without it; archive last, because you cannot archive what never got filed. The "done means" lines exist because half of setup checklists get ticked on intention. Yours get ticked on evidence.
Once the system runs, the weekly block asks three questions. Answer them on paper or in a review note; the point is writing the answer, not thinking it:
App-agnostic, on purpose: this checklist names mechanics (one inbox, four folders, a booked review), so it works in Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes, Google Keep, or plain text files. Nothing here is affiliated with or endorsed by any of those tools. This site does sell one built for Obsidian, and the box below says exactly what is in it.
What the Second Brain Vault adds: the checklist above is the skeleton; the vault is the same structure already built. It ships as 22 markdown files in one folder: 00-Home (a dashboard note that links everything, plus conventions and an FAQ), 10-Projects, 20-Areas, and 30-Resources with templates and filled worked examples, 40-Archive, and 90-Templates holding Daily Note, Weekly Review, Monthly Review, Project Kickoff, and Meeting Note templates with real checkboxes. Every one of its 94 [[wikilinks]] resolves, checked by script, and setup takes about 30 minutes using only Obsidian's core Templates plugin (no community plugins, no dataview). The setup walkthrough in its README follows the same four passes as this page. See the free folder map and daily note template first if you would rather build it yourself, and the free paper daily planner if part of your system stays on paper.
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