From simple notes to Powerful Ecosystems
What if I told you there’s a single tool that could replace your task manager, note-taking app, project planner, and database—all while making them work together seamlessly? After years of digital productivity chaos, jumping between dozens of specialized apps and complex integrations, I’ve discovered what might be the holy grail: Tana. And it’s about to change everything about how you manage information.
I’ve spent dozens of hours mastering Tana’s capabilities so you don’t have to start from scratch. In this article, I’m sharing my complete framework for building powerful systems—insights that took me months to develop.
Over the years, I’ve experimented with practically every productivity tool on the market – Roam Research, Obsidian, ClickUp, Monday.com, Evernote, Apple Notes – you name it, I’ve probably tried it. I’ve built complex systems using automation tools like IFTTT, Zapier, and Power Automate (thanks to my work with Microsoft platforms). I’ve created intricate workflows, spent countless hours configuring integrations, and constantly searched for that elusive “perfect system.”
Then I discovered Tana.
What makes Tana special is how it brings together elements from all these different applications into one cohesive platform. Now, I’ll be upfront with you – Tana is not a simple application. It has a steep learning curve that requires commitment to master. But I firmly believe the investment is worth it. The fruits you’ll harvest once you become a Tana expert are extraordinary.
Key Takeaways:
- Tana evolves from simple notes to complete ecosystems through four distinct levels
- You can start simple and gradually increase complexity as your skills grow
- The super tag system transforms unstructured notes into powerful structured data
- By Level 4, you can create interconnected systems that rival custom software
- Despite its learning curve, Tana offers unparalleled flexibility for personal productivity
Think about how much valuable information is currently scattered across your digital life. How many brilliant ideas have you lost because they were in the wrong app at the wrong time? How many hours do you waste each week just trying to find information you know you saved somewhere? This digital fragmentation isn’t just inefficient—it’s actively preventing you from reaching your potential.
In this post, I want to walk you through the four levels of system thinking built into Tana. I’ll show you both how easy it is to get started and how incredibly powerful it can become as you advance. Because Tana isn’t just another note-taking app – it’s a platform where you can build entire applications and ecosystems within a single tool.
Level 1: Basic Notes – The Entry Point
The most basic way to use Tana is simply as a note-taking application. At this level, you’re working with one-dimensional notes – capturing thoughts, ideas, and information in their most basic form. Most people start with daily notes, Tana’s default way of organizing information chronologically. You open the app (either on your phone or through the web interface), navigate to today’s page, and just start typing. No complex linking, no fancy features – just capturing information.Familiar Territory with Hidden Potential
This is Tana at its most accessible. If you’ve ever used Apple Notes or Evernote, you’ll feel right at home. The barrier to entry is intentionally low, allowing anyone to start using the system immediately. But even at this basic level, you’re laying the groundwork for something much more powerful. Every piece of information you capture becomes part of a system that can evolve into something far more sophisticated.
Level 2: Supertags and Fields
Transforming Text into Structured Data
Tana becomes significantly more powerful when you introduce super tags to your notes environment. Super tags are essentially a way to classify and categorize information, transforming simple text into structured data. To visualize this transformation: imagine turning a simple bullet point like “Call Sarah about Q3 marketing budget” into a structured entity that shows its status (pending), priority (high), deadline (tomorrow), related project (Q3 Marketing Campaign), and even a reminder to mention the new social media strategy. With one simple tag, that bullet point becomes a rich, trackable object in your system.
For example, I have super tags for:
- Tasks
- Projects
- Meetings
- Investments
- API keys
- One-on-one conversations
- Daily entries
By applying these super tags, your notes are no longer just flat text or paragraphs – they become specific types of information with their own properties. A line of text becomes a task. A paragraph becomes a meeting note. A thought becomes a project idea.
What makes super tags particularly powerful is that you can attach fields to them. For my task super tag, I’ve added fields like:
You can also customize super tags with icons and colors, making your information visually distinct and easier to navigate. This visual organization helps bring structure to what would otherwise be a chaotic collection of notes. This level of Tana usage is where many productivity apps stop. But Tana is just getting started.
Level 3: Building Applications
Creating Your Own Productivity Applications
At the third level, you upgrade your super tags into full-fledged applications within Tana. This is where things get really interesting. Let me give you a concrete example. I’ve built an application called Lumibee, which is essentially a project and task management system within Tana. Lumibee incorporates several super tags: each of these super tags has its own set of fields. Tasks have statuses, priorities, and deadlines. Projects have owners, timelines, and objectives.
From Personal Experience: Transforming My Workflow
Let me share how this transformed my own workflow: Last month, I was managing the launch of a new client project with multiple moving parts. Before Tana, I would have had meeting notes in one app, tasks in another, and project documentation somewhere else entirely. Instead, during our kickoff meeting, I captured everything in Tana. As team members mentioned deliverables, I tagged them as tasks on the fly. When we discussed technical requirements, I tagged them as development items. By the end of the 60-minute call, without any additional work, I had a fully structured project with assigned tasks, prioritized development items, and complete meeting context—all interconnected and instantly actionable. What would have taken an hour of post-meeting organization happened automatically.
The Power of Views and Queries
What transforms this collection of super tags into an application are the views. Views in Tana are essentially sophisticated search queries that display information in specific contexts. For instance, when I look at a project, I can see all related tasks, development items, and meetings in one place.
I can create overview pages that show me all tasks across all projects, filtered by status or priority. I can view all upcoming meetings related to a specific initiative. The possibilities are virtually endless.
What makes this level particularly powerful is that Tana supports web API connections. Your applications can call external web services or API endpoints, making them truly dynamic. You’re no longer just organizing information – you’re building interactive systems that can take actions and respond to changes.
The query language behind Tana’s search functionality deserves its own blog post – it’s incredibly powerful and allows for complex filtering, sorting, and visualization of your information. This is what transforms a collection of super tags into a cohesive application.
Level 4: Ecosystem Integration – The Ultimate Power
Creating Your Digital Command Center
The fourth and most advanced level of Tana usage occurs when you start connecting your applications to create an integrated ecosystem. This is where Tana’s true potential is realized. While Level 3 allows multiple super tags to interact within a single application, Level 4 is about making different applications talk to each other. Let me illustrate with some examples:
Cross-Application Workflows
Imagine connecting your API key management application with your project management system. When you configure a new software project, you can automatically pull in relevant API keys. Or connect your one-on-one conversation tracker with your task management application – now you can see all tasks assigned to a team member during your one-on-one meetings, and any tasks created during those meetings automatically appear in your task management system.
My one-on-one application shows me all open tasks for each team member. Simultaneously, when I’m in my task application, I can filter to see tasks assigned to my team members, helping me provide timely reminders when I see them.
Advanced Integration Examples
Another example: an investment tracking application that connects with your project management system. You can link investments to specific projects, track ROI against project milestones, and generate comprehensive reports that combine financial and operational data.
The possibilities expand exponentially when you add external API integrations. You could:
- Trigger email campaigns in ConvertKit based on project milestones
- Update inventory in Shopify when certain tasks are completed
- Control smart home devices through Home Assistant based on meeting schedules
While some of these examples might seem far-fetched, they’re theoretically possible within Tana’s framework. The system becomes a central hub that not only organizes your information but actively connects with and influences your digital environment.
I still do plenty outside of Tana – it hasn’t replaced my email client, for instance – but it handles more and more of my digital life every day. The ability to create these interconnected systems within a single application is what makes Tana truly exceptional.
Why Tana Matters
Imagine waking up to a system that knows exactly what you need to see today. Your most important tasks, relevant notes from recent conversations, project deadlines approaching—all presented in context, without you having to search or switch between apps. This isn’t just about being more productive; it’s about reclaiming your mental space and focusing on what truly matters.
What makes Tana special isn’t just what it can do today, but what it represents for the future of personal productivity. It’s not merely a note-taking app or a project management tool – it’s a platform for building your own digital systems, tailored precisely to your needs.
I’m not alone in this assessment. Across Twitter and productivity forums, early Tana adopters are sharing remarkable systems they’ve built—from academic research databases to complete business operations centers. One user described it as “the first tool that actually thinks the way my brain does.”
Yes, Tana has a learning curve. Yes, the application is still evolving and has room to grow. But even in its current state, it’s more powerful than most productivity applications I’ve encountered.
The beauty of Tana is that you can start simple – just taking notes – and gradually expand into more sophisticated usage as you become comfortable with the system. You don’t need to build complex applications on day one. Start with Level 1, experiment with super tags at Level 2, and slowly work your way up to building applications and ecosystems.
For those willing to invest the time to learn its capabilities, Tana offers a level of integration and customization that’s simply not possible with most other tools. It’s not just about doing more – it’s about creating systems that work exactly the way you think.
The path from digital chaos to a personalized ecosystem is now open before you. The only question is: how far will you take it?
