Filing aid

Find the discipline

Choosing a discipline is the only decision the scheme asks you to make, and it is meant to take seconds. Four questions settle most cards; one rule settles most of the rest.

Four questions

Say what the card is about in one noun phrase. If you need and to say it, you are holding two cards. Split them first — this is the single most common reason filing feels hard.
Is it about doing something in the world? A trade, a profession, a protocol, a method you would actually carry out — that is drawer 5000, and it is the largest drawer for a reason. Most cards a working adult writes are practice cards.
If not: which kind of thing is it? What people made and meant → 1000. How people behave together → 2000. The physical world → 3000. Structure that would hold in any world → 4000.
Read the scope notes in that drawer and take the first that fits. Not the best one — the first. The scope note is written to be scanned, and a card in a defensible discipline beats a card in the perfect discipline twenty minutes later.

When two disciplines both fit

Almost every hard call is the same call, wearing a different subject. Two disciplines fit because one explains how the thing works and the other tells you what to do. File by which of those your card is.

Mechanism files with the science. Action files with the practice.

If the card is…		…rather than
2050	why markets behave that way	5060	what to do on Monday
3050	how a metabolism works	5051	what to eat
3060	how an ecosystem works	5090	how to manage the land
2040	why attention fails	5150	how to structure your week
4040	what is computable	4050	how to ship it
2060	what legitimacy is	5110	how the agency delivers
1050	reading the sentence	1060	writing the sentence
4010	whether the argument is valid	1060	whether it persuades
4070	the theory of information	5031	the practice of keeping notes
2080	how media shapes a public	5062	how to reach a customer
3010	why the beam bends	5040	how to build the bridge

Some of these seams end in a sub-discipline of mine — 5031, 5051, 5062. The rule is the same either way, but those rows are not on the core list, and yours will land somewhere else.

If it is genuinely both, pick either and move on. Write a cross-reference card in the loser pointing at the address you chose. That is not a failure of the scheme; it is the scheme working. 228 of the discipline names below have two defensible homes, and no amount of taxonomy design removes them.

Do not invent a discipline while holding a card. Note the near-miss on the card itself and file it in the closest existing row. When three or four cards have made the same complaint, that pattern has earned a sub-discipline — take the next free units digit and cut a tab. A new tab should be paid for by cards, never by anticipation.

Look up a discipline

2,517 names from the academic outline, each mapped to the discipline a card on that subject belongs in. Use it when you know the field's name but not where it sits — or to check that your instinct matches the map.

It searches both tiers — the 46 core disciplines and the 5 sub-disciplines of mine — because when you are holding a card you want every row that exists, not only the canonical ones. Results from my tier are tagged mine, and you can tell the finder is doing its job when searching venture capital or zettelkasten returns something: the academic outline has no entry for either.

Build your own filing assistant

The table is small enough to hand to any assistant as a prompt. Copy the block below into Claude, a custom GPT, a local model, or a Claude Code skill file — it carries the whole taxonomy and the tiebreak rule with it, and it works without this site.

It comes in two blocks. The first is the core list, which you can use unchanged; the second is my own sub-disciplines, clearly marked — keep the ones that suit your box and replace the rest with yours as you earn them. Edit the rows, keep the rules. How a row is earned →

You help me file index cards into an Antinet Zettelkasten.

When I describe a card, reply with exactly:
  1. the four-digit code and its name
  2. one sentence saying why, in terms of the scope note
  3. the runner-up discipline, if a second one genuinely fits

Rules:
- Choose by what the card is FOR, not by the nouns it contains. A card that
  explains a mechanism goes to the science discipline; a card that guides an
  action goes to the practice discipline, even when both are about the same
  subject.
- Never invent a code outside the table below. If nothing fits well, say so
  and name the closest two, so I can decide whether a pattern of cards has
  earned a new sub-discipline yet.
- A code ending in a non-zero digit is a sub-discipline of the code above
  it ending in zero.
- Do not suggest anything after the four digits. Position beneath a discipline
  is mine to assign, and it carries no meaning.

The core table — the canonical list, adopt it as it is:

1010  Philosophy — Metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and the philosophy of any X. Formal logic is 4010.
1020  Religion and theology — Comparative religion, mythology, scripture, doctrine, ritual, and every specific tradition. One card per tradition, then branch beneath it.
1030  History — Historiography, periods, regions, and historical biography. A discipline's own history files with that discipline, not here.
1040  Language and linguistics — Phonetics, grammar, semantics, etymology, translation, and individual languages. The study of language; writing it well is 1060.
1050  Literature — Poetry, prose, drama as text, criticism, genre, and national literatures. Reading it; writing it is 1060.
1060  Writing and rhetoric — Composition, style, argument, storytelling, editing. Craft rather than criticism. Writing that sells something is 5060.
1070  Visual arts — Painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, craft, and art history.
1080  Performing arts — Music, theatre, dance, and film, including the technical craft of performance.
2010  Anthropology — Cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology; ethnography, folklore, kinship.
2020  Archaeology — Material remains, excavation, dating methods, and specific sites and cultures.
2030  Sociology — Social structure, class, demography, institutions, deviance, family, and social movements.
2040  Psychology — Cognitive, clinical, developmental, and social psychology. Attention, habit, motivation, and memory file here; their neural machinery is 3050.
2050  Economics — Micro, macro, trade, monetary theory, behavioural economics. Theory of the economy; running a business is 5060.
2060  Political science — Government, political theory, international relations, elections, power. Delivering policy is 5110.
2070  Geography — Human geography, cartography, regional studies, GIS, place and space. Rock and weather are 3040.
2080  Communication and media — Journalism, broadcasting, mass communication, platforms, media theory. Selling through them is 5060.
2090  Area and ethnic studies — Work scoped to a region or an identity rather than to a method. Use when the region is the subject, not the setting.
2100  Futures and foresight — Futurology, scenario planning, forecasting, long-range risk.
3010  Physics — Mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, optics, quantum, relativity, particle physics.
3020  Chemistry — Organic, inorganic, analytical, and physical chemistry; matter at the molecular level.
3030  Astronomy and space science — Cosmology, astrophysics, planetary science, observation, and the science of spaceflight.
3040  Earth science — Geology, meteorology, oceanography, hydrology, palaeontology, and climate as a physical system.
3050  Biology — Genetics, cell and molecular biology, evolution, microbiology, botany, zoology, physiology, metabolism, neuroscience as mechanism.
3060  Ecology and environment — Ecosystems, biodiversity, population dynamics, climate impact. How nature works; managing it is 5090.
4010  Logic — Formal, mathematical, and philosophical logic; proof, validity, fallacy. Arguing persuasively is 1060.
4020  Mathematics — Algebra, geometry, analysis, number theory, topology, discrete mathematics.
4030  Statistics and probability — Distributions, inference, experimental design, sampling, and data analysis.
4040  Computer science — Algorithms, data structures, computability, complexity, programming language theory. Theory; building software is 4050.
4050  Software engineering — Design, architecture, testing, delivery, tooling, and team practice. The craft of shipping working systems.
4060  Artificial intelligence — Machine learning, neural networks, language models, robotics, alignment and safety.
4070  Information and systems science — Information theory, cybernetics, network theory, complexity, systems thinking. The theory of organising knowledge; the practice of keeping notes is 5030.
5010  Agriculture and food — Agronomy, horticulture, animal husbandry, aquaculture, forestry practice, food science, cooking.
5020  Architecture and design — Built environment, urban planning, interiors, industrial and product design, typography, interface design.
5030  Education and learning — Pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, educational psychology, and self-directed study.
5040  Engineering and technology — Mechanical, electrical, civil, chemical, materials, and manufacturing engineering. Software engineering is 4050.
5050  Medicine and health — Anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, clinical practice, nursing, public health, mental health treatment.
5060  Business and management — Strategy, operations, entrepreneurship, org design, people management, accounting, governance. Practice; economic theory is 2050.
5070  Law and jurisprudence — Constitutional, criminal, civil, contract, intellectual property, and international law; legal theory and practice.
5080  Military and security — Strategy, tactics, defence technology, logistics, intelligence, information security.
5090  Environment and sustainability — Conservation, resource management, forestry policy, energy transition, climate policy. Managing nature; the science is 3060.
5100  Library and information practice — Cataloguing, classification, archives, curation, museum studies, records management.
5110  Public administration and policy — Governance, public management, service delivery, policy design and evaluation.
5120  Social work and human services — Casework, community services, welfare, counselling practice.
5130  Sport and recreation — Physical performance, training, coaching, kinesiology, leisure, games and play.
5140  Transport and logistics — Transport systems, supply chain, mobility, freight, infrastructure operations.
5150  Home and personal management — Household economics, personal organisation, productivity, focus, and time practice, consumer decisions. The psychology behind it is 2040.

My own sub-disciplines. These are not canonical: they are rows my own cards
paid for. Keep any that suit you, drop the rest, and add your own as you
earn them.

5031  Note-taking and knowledge systems — Zettelkasten, personal knowledge management, reading method, memory technique, indexing. Cards about running this box file here.
5051  Nutrition and metabolic health — Diet, fasting, keto, macronutrients, and metabolic protocols as practice. How a metabolism works is 3050.
5061  Sales and negotiation — Selling, commercial persuasion, deal-making, pricing, objection handling.
5062  Marketing and branding — Positioning, brand, advertising, copywriting, content, channels, consumer behaviour.
5063  Finance and investing — Corporate and personal finance, capital markets, venture capital, valuation, financial risk.

Take it to the box

The four questions and the seam table are the part you want beside the card box rather than on a screen. — the print stylesheet drops everything except the decision sheet, which fits on one side of A4. Put it in the front of the first drawer.