Outliner — block structure as the atom of every note
A note does not start with a sentence. It starts with a bullet — and the rest takes shape as you type.
- ··The outliner is the foundation: every later block reference, every search, every backlink hangs off it.
- ··One claim = one block. Tab/Shift-Tab makes the hierarchy, not keyboard choreography.
- ··The block ID is the address — the path through the outline is a view, not the truth.
- ··An outline is never “finished”. It grows, shrinks, shifts — and stays referenceable.
Transcript
What if a note did not begin with a sentence, but with a bullet — and the whole rest took shape only as you type? That is where the outliner comes in, and over the next few minutes you will hear why it is the foundation under everything else in mium.
If you learn just one tool in mium, make it the outliner. Block references, tags, backlinks, queries, templates — they all assume that a claim is addressable. And a claim becomes addressable only once it is a block of its own. As long as your thoughts stay glued into long sentences, you can read them, but you cannot reuse them.
The first rule is the only one that really counts: one claim equals one block. If a block carries two claims, you can reference only one of them — the other is lost in the backlink noise. Atomicity is not pedantry; it is the condition for a claim to stand somewhere else later without losing its context.
You make the hierarchy with Tab and Shift-Tab, not with keyboard choreography and not with the mouse. Bullet lists out of Word are not outlines — they are a flat list at one depth. And the address of a claim is never its path in the outline, but the block ID, the UUID. You may move the path whenever you like; the backlink follows on its own.
Expanding is reading, not editing. A collapsed outline is your table of contents; you edit only what you need right now. Depth four is the reading limit — anything deeper needs a sub-page of its own. And unlike the finished Word doc, an outline is never closed. It grows, shrinks, shifts, and stays referenceable throughout. That is the point, not the bug.
In the pilot a strategy team migrated fourteen quarterly Word docs onto outlines. Building the next quarter afterwards took two hours instead of a day and a half — not because anyone typed faster, but because the arguments already stood there as blocks and only needed re-framing.
The honest question at the end: which claim from your last document would you have reused elsewhere, but had to copy rather than reference? Write once, use everywhere. Your second brain keeps every claim addressable — a companion that thinks alongside you, not a filing cabinet.
Why the outliner comes first
If you use just one tool in mium, make it the outliner. Block references, tags, backlinks, queries, templates — they all assume a claim is addressable. And a claim is only addressable once it is a block of its own.
The rules
Atomicity is the only discipline that counts. If a block carries two claims, you can reference only one of them — the other is lost in the backlink noise.
Tab and Shift-Tab are the only tools for parent–child relationships. Bullet lists out of Word are not outlines — they are a flat list at one depth.
A claim's path in the outline is a view — the block's UUID is the truth. Move it whenever you like; the backlink follows.
A collapsed outline is a table of contents. You edit only what you need right now. Depth 4 is the reading limit — anything deeper needs a sub-page.
Unlike the final Word doc, an outline is a living document. Claims move into concept pages, come back as a backlink, get restructured. That is the point — not the bug.
Before and after
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| q2-competitor-analysis.docx··12 pages of running text··the turn of the quarter = a refactoring project | page q2-competitors··an outline of 38 blocks··every claim ((blockref)) citable in Q3, Q4, … |
When one block should become two
- When the block contains an “and” that joins two separate claims.
- When the block carries a citation in brackets — the citation belongs in a child block.
- When the block carries a “but” — the counter-position needs its own block, or it is lost.
- When you already reference the block from three other places — it is a concept and belongs on its own page.
- When the block runs over two screen lines without being a list.
- Atomicity
- A note is atomic when it holds exactly one self-contained claim. Atomicity is the precondition for reuse — only an atomic claim can stand in another place without losing its context.
The human side
Outliner discipline is a writing technique, not a feature of the tool. At first the extra Tab keystroke feels like bureaucracy. After four weeks you realise that linear, sentence-by-sentence writing only seemed faster because the cost in the following quarter was invisible.
Atomic notes are not an end in themselves. They are the basis for every reuse — and so for every hour you do not work twice.
Done in three weeks
- Week 1: learn outliner discipline — keep one note a day deliberately atomic.
- Week 2: migrate three existing Word documents — deliberately “one claim = one block”.
- Week 3: set your first block refs — reference a claim from doc A in doc B rather than copying it.