The Only Organization Gravity Needs

Open Gravity. Type this:

todo: finish the pricing page copy

Now type this:

read: that thread on LLM evals someone linked

Now search for todo:.

You just built a filtered view of your todos. No settings. No tag database. No feature to enable. You typed some characters, and now those characters are searchable.

This is the entire organization system in Gravity. It's called prefixes, and it works precisely because there's almost nothing to it.

By the end of this post, you'll understand:

• How prefixes create structure without creating overhead
• Why typing text is better than selecting from menus
• The exact prefixes worth using (and how to know when to add more)

Prefixes are just text

Let me be precise about what's happening here.

When you type todo: finish the pricing page copy, you're not applying a tag. There's no metadata layer. There's no database entry recording "this note has the todo tag." You're writing a note that happens to start with the characters t-o-d-o-colon-space.

When you search for todo:, you're doing a text search. Gravity finds every note containing that string. It doesn't know these are "todos" in some semantic sense. It just matches characters.

This sounds primitive. It is primitive. And that's exactly why it works.

The cost of "proper" tagging

Compare this to how tagging works in most apps:

1. You write a note
2. You click a tag field or type a special character
3. You either select from existing tags or create a new one
4. The app stores the tag as metadata attached to the note
5. Later, you navigate to a tag view or filter panel
6. You select the tag you want
7. The app queries its database and shows matching notes

That's a lot of machinery for "show me my todos."

And the machinery creates problems. The tag list grows. You forget what tags you've created. You end up with #todo and #todos and #tasks all meaning the same thing. The tag view becomes cluttered. You spend time managing tags instead of using them.

Prefixes have none of this. There's no tag list to manage because there's no tag list. There's no special UI because prefixes aren't a feature—they're just how you choose to write. The "machinery" is your keyboard and text search.

Why not just search for "todo"?

If it's just text search, why use todo: instead of just writing notes that happen to contain the word "todo"?

The colon is the trick.

Without a delimiter, you'd get false positives. A note saying "I need to figure out what to do about the API" contains "todo" but isn't a todo. You'd have to read each result to know which are actual tasks.

The colon creates a pattern that doesn't occur naturally. Nobody writes todo: in the middle of a sentence by accident. So when you search for todo:, you're getting exactly the notes you intentionally marked as todos. Zero noise.

(You could use any delimiter—todo/, TODO:, [todo]. The colon is just fast to type and looks clean. Pick what feels natural.)

The prefixes that earn their place

Here's my list. Yours might be different.

todo: — Anything I need to act on. Quick capture, not a replacement for a project management tool. I review these when I scroll, bump the ones still relevant, archive the ones I've done.

read: — Links and references I want to get to later. Articles, papers, videos, threads. When I have time to read, I search read: and pick something.

idea: — Thoughts that aren't actionable yet. Hunches, questions, half-formed concepts. These have the highest sink rate—most of them don't survive repeated review, and that's fine. The ones that keep catching my eye might be worth developing.

buy: — Things I want to purchase. Boring but practical. I check buy: before ordering from Amazon.

Four prefixes. I type each of them at least a few times per week. That's the bar: if a prefix isn't useful weekly, it doesn't earn its place.

What about more categories?

You could add more. quote: for things worth remembering. project: for work stuff. journal: for personal reflections. meeting: for notes from calls.

I'd caution against it.

The power of prefixes is that they're few enough to become automatic. Four prefixes means four muscle-memory patterns. Eight prefixes means hesitation—which prefix applies here?—which defeats the purpose.

If you find yourself wanting more categories, ask: do I actually need to filter this separately? Or am I building taxonomy for its own sake?

The answer might be yes, you genuinely need another prefix. But usually the answer is: the stream handles it. If it's not a todo, a read, an idea, or something to buy, it's just a note. It goes in the stream. You'll see it when you review.

What if I forget the prefix?

The note still exists. You'll still see it when you scroll. You just won't find it when you search for that specific prefix.

This is different from forgetting a tag in a tagging system. There, an untagged note is invisible to tag-based navigation. It falls through the cracks. You've created a hole in your system.

Here, a note without a prefix is just a note. It lives in the stream like everything else. The prefix is an enhancement, not a requirement. The system works without it.

Why this compounds

The more you use prefixes, the more automatic they become. todo: starts to feel like part of the phrase—you don't think "should I prefix this?" you just type todo: call the bank as a single unit.

And the searches become instant habits. Need your shopping list? buy:. Want something to read? read:. Checking what's actionable? todo:.

No navigation, no tag management, no wondering which folder your todos are in. Just type a word, hit enter, see your filtered list.

Over weeks and months, this tiny system saves you hundreds of small decisions. And because there's nothing to maintain, it never breaks down. The text is the system, and text doesn't decay.

Getting started

Pick one prefix. The one that matches how you already think about notes.

If you capture a lot of action items: todo:. If you save a lot of links: read:. If you have lots of half-baked thoughts: idea:.

Use it for a week. Don't think too hard about it—just type the prefix when it feels right. Then try searching for it.

That moment—when you type your prefix and see just those notes filtered out of the stream—is when the system clicks. No setup. No settings. Just characters you typed, working for you.

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Prefixes are as complex as it gets. And they're just text.