Your first note
Five minutes: create a note, format it, link it to a second note, and see it on the map.
Work through this in order and you will have seen the whole Flints workflow end to end.
1. Create a note#
Click New note in the left sidebar, or press Ctrl + Alt + N. A new
note opens with the cursor in the title field.
Type a title — say, Books. The title is the note's name and is what you will
use to link to it later, so keep it short and specific.
2. Write and format#
Press Tab or Enter to move into the body and start writing.
There are two ways to format:
- The slash menu — press
/and pick a block type from the list. Headings, lists, tables, code blocks: they are all there. - Markdown — type
#followed by a space for a heading,-for a bullet. Handy when you would rather not leave the keyboard.
Select any text and a formatting toolbar appears above it — bold, italic, colour, highlight, and more.
3. Link to a second note#
Type [[ in the body. A list of your existing notes appears immediately. You can
also type a name that does not exist yet — say [[Atomic Habits]].
Click the link and that note opens. If it does not exist yet, Flints creates it for you. In other words you can link first and write later, which is a good way to avoid breaking your train of thought.
4. Look at the backlinks#
Open the newly created Atomic Habits note and scroll down. Under Backlinks
you will find Books, because that is the note that pointed here.
You did not create that connection by hand. It appeared on its own.
5. Open the map#
Click Map in the left sidebar. Both notes appear as dots, with a line between them — the link you just made.
Right now that is two dots. A hundred notes later it is a map of your thinking.