My favorite Tana "LEGO® block"
Folks often think of Tana as having a "steep learning curve." And I get where that comes from—it's flexible and powerful, so there are a lot of different ways to set up workflows. But there's a specific relationship between supertags, fields, and searches that is simple to learn that I consider my fundamental Tana LEGO® block.
It works like this. If I want to see how two things relate—say, books and authors—I first create supertags for both. Then within the #book supertag I create a field called "Author" that draws its options from instances of the #author supertag. And in the #author supertag, I create a search called Books that finds all books by whatever author you're looking at.
It sets up something like this:
A Tale of Two Cities #book
- Author:: Charles Dickens #author
and
Charles Dickens #author
- Books by this Author (<- search)
- A Tale of Two Cities #book (<- search result)
- David Copperfield #book (<- search result)
The syntax of the search inside the #author supertag is
- #book
- Author:: PARENT
As in, find all books where the author is whatever author you're currently looking at.This pattern is powerful, because its how I connect tasks to projects (Project field in #task, Tasks search in #project), or quotes to sources (Source field in #quote, Quotes search in #source), or discussion points to people (Person field in #discussion point, Topics to Discuss search in #person), etc.
The pattern is simple to learn, but many complicated-looking dashboards in Tana are little more than just a lot of these simple relationships working together.
I actually have a video coming out on Friday about how to set this up. It will be the culmination of my free Essential Tana Skills YouTube playlist, which you can check out here if you want: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGL797U3UcfO2bQm5tzJSny62qdVpj5bi.
Are there any simple Tana workflows—or even more detailed ones—that are especially valuable for you?
@steveb It is awesome, you can use commands with tags or fields. For instance I have a command that when I paste a youtube video or audio there is a button that I can press and it will transcribe the video and then I have a command that uses AI to summarize the video and give me questions to answer to check my comprehension. That is one of many ways that AI works in Tana
@steveb, though there are TONS of possibilities for using AI in Tana, the one I use most just hides behind the scenes once you've set it up.
Tana's Voice Capture from the mobile app is incredible, and you can use AI prompts to tell Tana how to organize information based on what you said in the voice capture. The three key pieces of information I need organized when I capture a task is the name of the task, when I intend to complete it, and what project it belongs to. I can set up AI prompts in the #task supertag to parse what I say and set all my fields with the correct information. Simple, but amazing!
Love this breakdown, R.J.! The way you simplify Tana’s structure makes it much more approachable. The books/authors relationship is such a clear example of how small building blocks can create powerful workflows.
Curious—do you think this approach works just as well for non-hierarchical relationships, or does it need a clear parent-child structure to be effective?
By the way, we’re launching soon! Would love your thoughts—just visit my page and click ‘Try Helix for FREE’!
@vishal_rayarao, I don't know that I'd say "non-hierarchical," but I'd definitely say it works in multiple dimensions. For a simple example: my #task supertag has fields for the date I intend to complete the task and the project it belongs to. If I also led a team, I would have a field for who the task was delegated to. (I try delegating to my kids, but they never pay attention.)
On the "capture side," it would look like this, then:
#task
Scheduled for::
Project::
Delegated to::
With just this info captured, I could now have a search inside my #team member supertag:
Delegated Tasks
- #task
- NOT DONE
- Delegated to:: PARENT (as in, whichever team member I'm currently looking at)
And a search inside #project:
Project Tasks
- #task
- NOT DONE
- Project:: PARENT
And a search on my #day tag:
Today's Tasks
- #task
- NOT DONE
- LT:: Scheduled for:: FOR RELATIVE DATE tomorrow (= "less than" tomorrow = due today or overdue)
Those are obvious. But I could also weave them together.
I could have a Dashboard made up of three of the exact asame search—undone tasks that are delegated to someone—but each is in a different view: maybe one is a calendar view, leveraging the Scheduled for field too. Maybe one is a list grouped by Project, leveraging the Project field. Maybe another is a board grouped by who the task is delegated to, where I can drag and drop to a new person.
The point being: with just those three tidbits of information, I can use that same "field for capture, search for surface" pattern to build things that look elaborate and deliver valuable information, but are actually pretty simple to set up.
I love this pattern. It's the cornerstone of many of my Tana apps. Great post @r_j_nestor
Looking forward to your video. I feel like I've been underutilizing Tana's search features.
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Having not used Tana, this helps me get a sense for what it can do. Thanks for sharing.
I'm still interested in learning how the AI parts of Tana work, too!