Introduction to Zettelkasten
Source: https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/
Short explanation:
A Zettelkasten is a personal tool for thinking and writing. It has hypertextual features to make a web of thought possible. The difference to other systems is that you create a web of thoughts instead of notes of arbitrary size and form, and emphasize connection, not a collection.
Luhmann’s Zettelkasten
Niklas Luhmann was a highly productive social scientist. He published 50 books and over 600 articles.(1) He didn’t achieve this on his own. He had quite a companion.
There are also over 150 unfinished manuscripts left in his estate. At least one of them is a text of 1000 pages. So his productivity surpassed even his already astonishing body of published work.
Luhmann himself stated that his productivity stems from working in a partnership with his Zettelkasten. This strikes a chord with people investigating the Zettelkasten Method.(2)
Luhmann’s Zettelkasten is a collection of notes on paper slips with a special twist: It is a hypertext that he could navigate the drawer cabinet containing all the paper slips with a reasonable amount of time and energy.
Why it is interested us?
- We want to be as productive as Luhmann
- There are benefits in using this method:
- Improve the connectivity of our thoughts. Thanks to hyperlink
- We can be more productive. low friction due to streamlined workflow, guidance on what to do.
- Stop wasting our time. Even the note we currently taking is not useful for now, we prepare it for future access.
- Tackle more complex problems. We can focus deeply on small topic and then take a step back to see the broader view.
- Normal note taking will create a mess overtime. The Zettelkasten otherwise will scale itself to the size of problem you try to solve. It grows organically.
- Make writing easier, more coherent, smoother, and convincing.
Important keys
- The fixed address of each notes
New notes that completely NOT related to previous notes will be given new numbering. Otherwise, make a branch from previous notes.
The registers are the entry points to deeper web.
Zettelkasten method is a personal tools
It is an organic non-linear, even living, approach on note taking.
Important trait:
- It is Hyper-textual
- It adheres to the principle of atomicity. One note for one thought.
- It is personal
Anatomy of a Zettel (note)
The true magic of a Zettelkasten, when compared to ordinary note-taking systems, comes from the heavy emphasis on connection. Each new Zettel needs to be placed in some relationship to another Zettel.
The main benefit from connections is their effect on you and your brain: When you relate pieces of knowledge to others, you create relationships between pieces of knowledge. Knowledge relationships significantly improve recall, and forming them also trains your mind to see patterns.
As you connect, you will learn, understand, and thus expand yourself in two ways: (a) Your knowledge will increase and (b) you will be a better observer. By being a better observer, you will be able to draw more insights from observation. More universal patterns arise and become more apparent to you. A fundamental aspect of working like this is that it allows you to access the general patterns of reality.
To make the most of a connection, always state explicitly why you made it.
If you just make link without any explanation, you will not create knowledge. This is the link context. An example link context looks like this:
The next step will be finding tools that can perform this method best.
One of them is Obsidian.
Then just do it.