Digital Zettelkasten

Digital ZettelKasten: Principles, Methods, and Examples

Notes

• The purpose of Zettelkasten is to explore the connection between notes.
• Zettelkasten helps you ship writings.
  • It helps you to:
    1. retain what you read
    2. retrieve it quickly
    3. know what to read next
    4. develop your ideas
  • But ultimately the goal is to produce a piece of writing at the end.
• You can still read for pleasure without writing notes. Don't think you need to write notes and highlight things for every piece of article or books you read.
  • Only do it for things you do want to retain and use for your purpose later.
• It's not useless to write things down word-for-word if you want is exactly that: to refer to the exact text later.
• Otherwise, it is better to process that into your own words.
  • re-writing it involves actively thinking about it, and this fires a different part of your brain.
  • it leverages your brain's power to associate a piece of knowledge with other existing ideas.
• Using Google to substitue your memory and using a Zettelkasten is different.
  • The association does not happen in your brain.
• Using a a pen and paper could have benefits.
  • Research shows that writing by hand improves retention.
• In fleeting notes, you need to record enough of the context so that when you access it later to turn that into a literature note, you can recall what you were thinking when you were reading it.
• Choosing the right keyword allows you to explore your Zettelkasten effectively.
• Archivist's mind and writer's mind pick keywords differently
  • archivist: how do I choose a keyword so that I can retrieve this easily without second guessing?
  • writers: how do I choose a keyword so that it's useful in writing later?
• Try choosing keywords that are specific to an idea.
• Links or tags? They serve similar purposes.
• highlighting the highlights -> "progressive summarization" (Tiago Forte)