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?
With powerful features like supertags, custom commands, and AI integration, Tana lets you build a fully customized workspace—no rigid default structure. Instead of adapting your workflow to a tool, Tana adapts to you.
Whether you’re crafting an interconnected knowledge system, managing projects and tasks, or building a CRM, the possibilities are truly limitless.
Here’s an example of how you can structure a CRM in Tana:
Tana has a learning curve, but once it clicks, it’s a game-changer. What was the moment when you realized just how powerful it is?
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For me, it was the moment that I realized anything in Tana could become... anything! With my background in building atomic design systems and running deep data analysis, I understood the power of maximum fungibility. And then you add AI to the mix...
Everything clicked in that moment, and I understood that while Tana is excellent for note-taking (I see it as the gateway drug), there are no limits to what's possible.
This short video is the result of that early 'Aha!' moment: