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Luhmann's Zettelkasten

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Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#21

Post by jboynyc »

darkpicnic wrote: post #5

Zettelkasten has to be the least explained concept I've discovered online. Sure, they'll explain the _technique_ of it, but I've almost never seen any solid examples of it in _use_. I was so excited when I first heard of it, but I'm a person that learns by seeing examples and I couldn't find any good ones anywhere. Does anyone have any good examples they've seen?

I used to assign a short piece by Luhmann on how to read that describes his note-taking technique with some concrete examples.

At the time I used my own translation (based on the text in Short Cuts published by Zweitausendeins), but I see somebody else has now translated (most of) it here: https://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/luhmann-on-learni...

Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#23

Post by crucialfelix »

ThouYS wrote: post #13

Cool, reminds me of "Roam Research" which calls itself a tool for "networked thought" [1] [1] https://roamresearch.com/

I started using Roam last month and it's been very effective for me. The linking between documents literally stitches all my work together and let's me flow and wander, improving and adding each time.

Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#24

Post by marvinblum »

pfortuny wrote: post #18
Schlaefer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sat in the same boat as OP and that page wasn't that helpful. It's starts backwards with - How many of things I know nothing about should I have. - Don't use this aspect in the thing, use the other. … And every article is a text wall of minutia addressing questions which are going to be relevant later on, but are just information overload if you try to understand What is it?

The page honestly reads like Hesse’s “description” of the glass-bead game: lots of things and no true explanation.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm still working on my writing skills :)

Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#25

Post by void_nill »

I used the Zkn3[1] software for a while, but unfortunately it is not updated anymore. Also the software quickly reaches its performance limits with many entries. Nevertheless it is worth a look, if you want to see the concept as software.

[1]: http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/download.php

Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#27

Post by dredmorbius »

darkpicnic wrote: post #8
dredmorbius wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Getting Started": https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/

Trust me, I've read every page of Zettlelkasten.de. It's a nice site (and I like their software) but there is no fleshed out examples that I've seen on it. Again, I get the concept, but I want to see examples in use.

Could you clarify what specifically you have questions about, and/or what docs are perhaps slightly better (or worse). Or documentation for other concepts you've found useful?

Regards Zettlekasten itself: the key notion to me is simply capture and reference. Those are the dual-natured heart of the system.

The rest is just mechanics. Important mechanics, in cases, but mechanics all the same.

Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#29

Post by killjoywashere »

darkpicnic wrote: post #5

Zettelkasten has to be the least explained concept I've discovered online. Sure, they'll explain the _technique_ of it, but I've almost never seen any solid examples of it in _use_. I was so excited when I first heard of it, but I'm a person that learns by seeing examples and I couldn't find any good ones anywhere. Does anyone have any good examples they've seen?

I’ve kept a personal wiki since about 2007 for my notes on medicine and pathology. The “structure discovery” function it enables is very similar to Zettelkasten. I would submit the affordances of physicality can’t be replicated in software without AR.

Re: Luhmann's Zettelkasten

#30

Post by gpanders »

I implemented my own Zettelkasten tool as a simple bash script. I use the shell as my interface into my notes (create a new note, list notes, open a note, etc.), Vim to write new notes, and grep to search contents and tags. If, for any reason, I want to view a note in the browser, I use pandoc to convert into HTML.

The things I like about the Zettelkasten method is the concept of atomicity (notes are short and simple and are about just one thing) and then linking related notes together. Keeping notes plaintext also makes them easy to use with other tools (such as grep). I then just sync my notes in a Nextcloud instance across all of my different devices. Out of the many different note management methods I've tried this one is so far my favorite.

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