I spent two years building an elaborate note-taking system before I realized I was solving the wrong problem.
Notion pages nested five levels deep. Obsidian graphs with hundreds of interconnected notes. Roam Research daily notes going back months. I’d read something interesting, copy the key ideas into my notes, tag them, link them to other notes, and feel productive.
Then one day I needed to reference that article about API design patterns. I remembered taking notes on it. I searched my system. Found my notes. They said things like “interesting approach to versioning” and “good examples of error handling.”
Completely useless.
What I actually needed was the original article. The specific code examples. The author’s full explanation. My notes were a poor shadow of the real thing, and now I couldn’t find the source because I’d been so focused on capturing highlights that I forgot to save the URL.
I spent twenty minutes searching Google trying to reconstruct where I’d found it. Never did locate the exact article.
That’s when it hit me: I’d been treating links as ephemeral pointers to content I needed to capture. But the links themselves were the valuable thing. The content already existed, carefully written and maintained by its authors. I didn’t need to duplicate it. I needed to remember where it lived.
This realization completely changed how I think about organizing knowledge. And eventually, it’s why I built stashed.in around links as the fundamental unit, not notes about links.
Links might be the most underrated data format in digital productivity. Here’s why.
What Makes Links Uniquely Powerful#
Before we dive into practical applications, let’s understand what makes links special compared to other ways of organizing information.
Links Are Portable Across Every Platform#
Copy a URL. That string of text works everywhere. Paste it into email, Slack, Discord, Twitter, a text file, a note, a document. It doesn’t matter what app you’re using. Links are the ultimate portable format.
Compare this to notes or highlights. Your Notion notes only work in Notion. Your Obsidian markdown only fully works in Obsidian (yes, it’s portable text, but the linking and features are app-specific). Your Roam blocks are trapped in Roam.
But a URL? A URL is universal.
This portability matters more than it seems. When you organize information as links, you’re not locked into any specific tool or ecosystem. You can switch platforms without losing access to your knowledge base.
Links Point to Living, Updated Content#
When you save a link to a documentation page, that page gets updated by its maintainers. Security patches. New features. Corrections. You benefit from these updates automatically.
When you copy content into notes, you freeze it in time. Your notes about that API become outdated. Your highlights from that article miss the author’s later revisions.
Links keep you connected to the living version of content. The authoritative, up-to-date, best version maintained by people whose job it is to keep it accurate.
Links Preserve Attribution and Context#
A URL tells you exactly where something came from. The domain shows you the source. The path often indicates what section or topic. The metadata (title, description) provides context.
Compare this to copied text in notes. Six months later, you find a quote in your system. Who said it? What was the full context? Where did you find it? Often, you can’t remember.
Links solve this automatically. The URL is both the content reference and the attribution. You always know the source.
Links Are Naturally Social#
Sharing a note requires either granting access to your note-taking system (awkward) or copying the content out (losing structure and updates).
Sharing a link? Just send the URL. Anyone can access it. No account needed. No app required. No permission management.
This natural shareability makes links perfect for collaboration. When you organize information as links, sharing your knowledge with others becomes trivial.
Links Scale Without Bloat#
A URL is roughly 50-100 characters. Your entire link collection, even thousands of URLs, weighs less than a few megabytes. The actual content lives elsewhere, maintained by its creators.
Compare this to saving full articles, PDFs, or extensive notes. Your system becomes gigabytes of duplicated content. Search slows down. Syncing becomes painful. Storage becomes a concern.
Links keep your system lean. The content lives on the web. You just maintain pointers to it. Elegantly efficient.
Links Work Across Time#
A well-maintained URL can last decades. Tim Berners-Lee’s original proposal for the web from 1991 still works today. Organizations understand that broken links frustrate users, so they maintain URL structure even as sites get redesigned.
Yes, link rot exists. But it’s less common than you’d think for important content. And even when links break, the URL often contains enough information (domain, path, title) to find cached versions or replacements.
Compare this to proprietary note formats. How many notes from 1991 are still easily accessible? How many Evernote exports from 2010 can you still easily use?
Links are remarkably durable as an information format.
Why We Undervalue Links (And Overvalue Notes)#
If links are so powerful, why do productivity communities obsess over note-taking instead?
The Ownership Illusion#
Notes feel like “yours” in a way that links don’t. You wrote them. They live in your system. You control them.
But this ownership is partly illusion. Your notes are derivative of sources you read. They’re incomplete summaries, prone to your biases and misunderstandings. They’re often less useful than the original sources.
Links acknowledge that good content already exists and you don’t need to recreate it. This feels less satisfying emotionally, but it’s more practical.
The Active Learning Myth#
We’re told that taking notes aids learning. The act of writing things in your own words helps you process and remember information.
This is true for deep learning. If you’re truly studying something, taking notes helps. But most internet reading isn’t deep study. It’s browsing, exploring, researching. For this kind of reading, research suggests that retrieval practice (testing yourself, trying to recall) matters more than note-taking.
Saving links with brief context creates natural retrieval practice. You capture why something mattered, then rely on your memory plus the link when you need it again. This is often more effective than elaborate notes you never revisit.
The Complexity Appeal#
Note-taking systems are impressively complex. Bidirectional linking, graphs, templates, queries, plugins. There’s always more to learn, more to optimize.
Link management is comparatively simple. Save URL, add context, organize by theme. There’s less to fiddle with, less to optimize.
For some people (myself included, historically), the complexity is appealing. It feels sophisticated. But simple systems that you actually use beat complex systems you abandon.
The Tool Vendor Incentive#
Note-taking app companies benefit from you spending more time in their apps. The more elaborate your notes, the more locked in you become, the less likely you’ll switch.
Link management is less lock-in prone. URLs work everywhere. This is good for users but bad for vendor lock-in strategies.
So note-taking tools get VC funding and marketing budgets. Link management tools are comparatively underfunded and under-marketed. This shapes what gets mindshare in productivity communities.
How Link-First Thinking Changes Your Workflow#
Once you start thinking of links as the primary format, several things shift in how you work:
You Read With Less Pressure#
When every article needs to become notes, reading feels like work. You’re constantly switching between consumption and capture mode. This pressure often means you read less, or you save articles “to process later” and never do.
When you’re just saving links with brief context, reading becomes lighter. Find something interesting? Save it, add one sentence about why, move on. The reading itself is the reward, not the notes you’ll produce.
Your System Becomes Browsable#
Elaborate notes create friction. Finding something requires searching through text, hoping you remember your phrasing. Even with good search, you often need to open multiple notes to find what you need.
Link collections are scannable. You can browse by theme, see titles and domains at a glance, recognize what you’re looking for visually. This makes serendipitous rediscovery more common.
When I built stashed.in with visual collections (like Pinterest boards but for links), this browsability became even stronger. You recognize stashes by their header images and aesthetics, not just text labels. Your brain processes visual patterns faster than reading lists of titles.
You Share More Generously#
When your knowledge lives in elaborate personal notes, sharing requires either exposing your messy note-taking system or carefully extracting and formatting content.
When your knowledge lives in curated link collections, sharing is natural. “Here are 20 resources about X” is easy to share. People can explore them at their own pace. You’re not dumping notes on them, you’re offering curated paths through existing content.
This changes how you think about learning. You’re not hoarding knowledge in private notes. You’re curating pathways through public knowledge that others can follow.
You Respect Content Creators More#
Note-taking can feel extractive. You’re pulling value from someone’s work into your system. The original creator gets no ongoing benefit or attribution.
Link curation feels collaborative. You’re pointing others to good work. The original creators get traffic and recognition. You’re participating in the web as it was designed—a network of interconnected content, not isolated content silos.
You Build Faster, With Less Friction#
When you need to write something, having link collections beats having note collections.
Notes need to be interpreted, verified, and often re-researched because you don’t trust past-you’s summary. Links can be directly referenced, quoted, and cited. The authoritative content is right there.
I’ve written dozens of articles primarily by browsing my stashed.in collections, pulling relevant links, and synthesizing the content they point to. This is faster than writing from notes because I’m working with primary sources, not my interpretation of them.
The Optimal Link Management System#
If links are the format, what’s the right system for managing them?
After experimenting extensively (and building a tool specifically for this), here’s what works:
Frictionless Capture With Minimal Context#
Saving a link should take under 10 seconds. Anything more and you won’t do it consistently.
What you need:
- The URL (automatic)
- One sentence about why you saved it
- Basic categorization (which collection/theme)
What you don’t need:
- Detailed notes
- Careful tagging
- Extensive metadata
The context sentence is crucial. “Great explanation of CSS Grid” is infinitely more useful than just the URL. Future-you needs to know why past-you cared.
Thematic Collections, Not Hierarchies#
Folders force you to choose one category per link. But knowledge doesn’t work that way. That article about team communication is relevant to both management and remote work.
Collections (or tags, or boards) let links belong to multiple themes. Organize by how you actually think, not by forcing artificial hierarchies.
Visual collections (with header images that reflect the vibe of each collection) make this even better. When your “Design Inspiration” collection looks visually distinct from your “Technical Deep Dives” collection, navigation becomes intuitive.
Regular Browsing, Not Just Searching#
Search is important, but browsing is underrated. Regularly exploring what you’ve saved serves multiple purposes:
- Spaced repetition for memory
- Discovering unexpected connections
- Noticing patterns in what you collect
- Enjoying what you’ve curated
Schedule time to wander through your collections. Not “organizing” time. Just browsing with curiosity. This keeps your system alive rather than just being a database you query desperately.
Sharing as Default (With Privacy Controls)#
Make it easy to share collections publicly, privately, or with specific people.
Public sharing creates accountability (you curate better when others might see it) and contributes to the commons. Password-protected sharing works for teams and study groups. Private collections for genuinely personal content.
This flexibility means you can share generously without exposing everything. When I build stashes on stashed.in, some are public resources for anyone interested. Others are password-protected for just my team. Some stay private for early-stage research.
Export Always Available#
Your links should never be trapped. Reliable export in standard formats (JSON, HTML, CSV) means you can always take your data elsewhere.
This isn’t just about leaving a platform. It’s about peace of mind. Knowing you can export anytime removes anxiety about platform risk. You’re using a tool because it’s useful, not because your data is hostage.
Real Examples of Link-First Workflows#
Let me show you how this works in practice across different use cases:
For Developers and Technical Learning#
Instead of copying code snippets into notes, save links to:
- Documentation pages for APIs and frameworks
- Stack Overflow answers that solved specific problems
- GitHub repos with example implementations
- Blog posts explaining concepts clearly
Add context like “best explanation of React hooks I’ve found” or “solved the authentication bug with this approach.”
When you need to solve a similar problem, browse your technical collections. You’ll find authoritative sources, not your potentially incorrect notes.
For Writers and Researchers#
Instead of highlighting and copying quotes, save links to:
- Articles that changed your thinking
- Research papers supporting specific claims
- Examples of excellent writing in your niche
- Contrasting viewpoints on topics you cover
Context like “counterargument to common productivity advice” or “this metaphor explains it perfectly.”
When writing, you have primary sources to reference and quote. Your work becomes better researched and properly attributed.
For Designers and Creative Work#
Instead of downloading and organizing countless images, save links to:
- Dribbble shots that inspire specific directions
- CSS-Tricks articles about techniques
- Case studies of excellent work
- Tools and resources you might use
Context like “color palette inspiration” or “this interaction pattern is perfect for mobile.”
When designing, browse your visual collections. The living, up-to-date sources are more useful than static downloaded images.
For Product and Business Strategy#
Instead of lengthy notes from articles, save links to:
- Case studies of successful products
- Analysis of market trends
- Competitor research
- Framework explanations
Context like “their onboarding flow solved the activation problem” or “this framework explains our positioning better than I could.”
When planning, you’re working with full context, not fragmented notes.
What I Learned Building a Link-First Tool#
When I started building stashed.in, the core insight was simple: treat links as first-class citizens, not as references in notes.
This meant:
Visual organization matters. Links presented in scannable, visual collections get browsed more than lists in folders. The Pinterest-style board approach makes exploring enjoyable rather than tedious.
Context trumps metadata. One sentence about why you saved something matters more than elaborate tagging schemes. “This article changed how I think about pricing” is more useful than tags like “business, pricing, strategy.”
Privacy needs nuance. All-public or all-private is too limiting. People want to share some collections while keeping others private. Password-protected sharing adds the middle ground for team resources or study groups.
Social features create better curation. When people know others might see their stashes, they curate more thoughtfully. Public stashes become resources for entire communities. This network effect makes everyone’s curation better.
Export builds trust. Making it easy to export everything, anytime, paradoxically makes people more committed to using the platform. They know they’re not trapped.
The goal was building a tool that respects what makes links powerful while removing friction from collecting and browsing them.
The Future Is Link-Native#
I think we’re moving toward link-native workflows whether we realize it or not.
Tools like Raindrop, Pinboard, and stashed.in are gaining traction. People are realizing that elaborate note-taking systems often become digital hoarding. The simplicity of link curation appeals after you’ve burned out on complex PKM systems.
AI makes this shift even more relevant. When you can ask an AI to summarize or explain content, saving the link becomes more valuable than saving your summary. The link gives you access to authoritative content that AI can process on demand.
The fundamental insight is this: most valuable content already exists in high quality online. Your job isn’t to recreate it in notes. Your job is to know where it lives and why it matters.
Links are the simplest, most durable way to do this.
Start Thinking Link-First Today#
You don’t need to abandon note-taking entirely. For deep study and original thinking, notes still matter.
But for the vast majority of internet reading and research, try link-first thinking:
This week: When you find something valuable online, just save the link with one sentence of context. Don’t take elaborate notes. See how this feels.
This month: Create 3-5 thematic collections for topics you care about. Organize links by theme as you save them. Browse them weekly.
This quarter: Try sharing one collection publicly. See how curation changes when you know others might benefit from your work.
You might discover what I did: links were the answer all along. We’d just been taught to undervalue them.
Your knowledge doesn’t need to live in elaborate notes. It can live in carefully curated collections of links that point to the best thinking on the web.
The web is already an incredible knowledge base. You just need a good map.
Start building yours with links today.
