# Map of Content (MOC) Created On: 06-12-2023 09:48 am Type:: #note/evergreen🌲 Up:: [[My Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) (MOC)]] Topics:: Related:: [[20 Template - Map of Content]] --- >[!note] Note >This is not an actual MOC - it is an exploration of the concept ## Overview A Map of Content (MOC) is a “higher order note” concept that constructs a sense of vertical structure and meaning to other notes - it is “a note of many notes”. These notes enable the owner to more easily group, traverse, and give broader meaning to the network of relevant [[Permanent note]]s on a given topic. This concept tends to solves for the lacking structure, or "flat nature," of linked-based notes when folders are not used to otherwise provide this structure. For example, instead of having a folder called "Happiness" that all notes surrounding that topic fall into, all notes exist in a flat folder structure, "Permanent Notes", and rely on [[Obsidian]]'s linking functionality (backlinks and outgoing links) to generate structure through the use of MOCs. Here is a good example of a working MOC: [[Happiness (MOC)]]. --- ## When to use MOCs The ability to know when and how to make an MOC is a key skill in overcoming overwhelm and project slowdown. Whenever you start to feel that tickle of overwhelm ([[Mental squeeze point]]), that's when you need to *become a cartographer of your own content* and create a new MOC. For example, let's say you have 20 scattered notes on the project you’re making. Just like putting 20 index cards on an inviting rustic workbench, putting links to all 20 notes into a new MOCs is the digital equivalent. That's from a bottom-up starting point. You will also want to use MOCs to make sense out of existing knowledge from a top-down starting point. --- ## Why use MOCs 1. MOCs help you **manage anxiety** in a positive way by allowing you a dedicated space to place related notes together. 2. In that space, MOCs create a concentrated environment that **encourages rapid ideation** through the interaction, exchange, and development of thoughts, notions, and ideas. 3. After you've developed an MOC you're happy with, it **becomes a reference** for whatever project you need to complete: an essay, a product, a summation of thought on a topic. Thanks to developing your MOC, you might find that your new project is already 80% complete. 4. The MOC remains as a **reliable navigational tool** to the rest of your digital library. 5. The MOC also **acts as a reminding tool** on a subject. Years later you can quickly return to it and remember, "Oh I remember now, that's what I thought about the how the evolution of fonts related to the broader movements of Art History!" 6. The MOC **remains ready to evolve** as your thoughts grow, mature, develop complexity on a subject. 7. MOCs **maintain their fluidity**: As opposed to folders, MOCs are nondestructive, non-restrictive, non-limiting perspectives. Unlike a folder, you are not forced to use them to access your notes. MOCs are “overlays” that add relevant information but that don't affect your base level notes. 8. MOCs **allow for limitless flexibility**. Unlike folders or Table of Contents (TOC), MOCs are not hierarchical. They are [[Heterarchy|heterarchical]]. This means that different MOCs can map the same info in different ways, to fit whatever your current needs might be. 9. MOCs **encourage "Relational Positioning"**: Don't argue with the Ancient Greeks and Romans about the [[Method of Loci|value of spatial relationships]]. It helps us remember better when ideas are not floating in isolation, but as a part of a spatial constellation.