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How to ThinkIn the Age of AI
Principlev1PR-483

Design your primary hierarchy to optimize for the access…

Design your primary hierarchy to optimize for the access pattern you use most frequently, then use tags, links, or AI search to surface alternative organizations on demand.

Why This Is a Principle

Derives from Goals as Perceptual Filters (goals function as perceptual filters) and Information and attention have an inverse relationship (wealth of information creates poverty of attention). This prescribes a practical compromise: optimize your primary structure for common cases while maintaining alternative access methods for edge cases. It's actionable and addresses the economic reality of maintaining multiple hierarchies.

Source Lessons

Multiple valid hierarchies for the same data

The same set of items can often be organized in several equally valid hierarchical structures. Each hierarchy foregrounds different relationships and obscures others. No single arrangement is canonical — the right hierarchy depends on what you are trying to see, find, or do. Recognizing this multiplicity is a precondition for deliberate knowledge design.

Connections

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