There is nothing stopping you from doing that. Well, there is one thing stopping you – the fear of painting yourself into a corner.
You’ve written a lot in this thread. Have you started adding notes, and adding tags or user attributes to them? What have you found so far?
Chances are, you won’t paint yourself into a corner. Tinderbox gives you the tools to transform your data from one representation to another. You probably don’t know how to do that yet, and that’s fine. That’s why we have the forum, so people who have gone through this before you can help you out.
tags-to-attributes.tbx (54.4 KB) is an example TBX I put together that shows one way to convert tags to attributes and back.
I did that in five minutes. Could you do that on your own today? Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know. But what you could definitely do is share a document that includes the two notes – without stamps – and ask, “How do I get from the first note to the second note?” And a few people here will pop in to show you how to make it happen.
What’s better from a philosophical standpoint, tags or attributes? I don’t know, and I don’t think it really matters. What matters is that you try something and make progress, and learn from it. Which one do you have a hunch about? Go that direction. Then come back here and share your experience. What do you like about the approach you tried? What don’t you like about it? Ask for suggestions on how to proceed?
I’ve been in your shoes, and here’s how I would apply that thinking to this specific situation:
What I tried: Thinking upfront about which approach I should use
What I liked about it: Taking some comfort that I’m doing things the right way
What I didn’t like about it: The nagging feeling that I’ll run into a wall; avoiding my work by overthinking my approach.
What should I do now?
Suggestions from people who have done this before: You have some good ideas. Try them out. Come back and ask for help when you feel a different kind of stuck.
I love this! I definitely have not thought about it in these terms before. I find it hard to get away from the hierarchical thinking.
I keep a lot of stuff in boxes at home, so this could be helpful. Plus it’s called Tinder"box"…