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Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

eugeneyan.com

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Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#21

Post by exmadscientist »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #15
exmadscientist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you agree with any particular Controversial Political Figure or not, using one as an example will annoy about 50% of your audience (variable, of course, with your audience's current politicization and self-selection). Using neutral examples will help keep the focus on your message rather than incidental politics.

> will annoy about 50% Why? I'm conservative but I've taken tips from Obama and Bill Clinton. A good idea is a good idea. That Obama and Clinton are successful is all the more reason to pay attention when they give productivity advice, even though I disagree with several of their policies.

Learning from your opposition is one thing. "Here is a look at how John Smith furthered his goals" is a fine article. An article about another topic with an "I <3 John Smith" banner is just going to annoy people who hate him, to no end; it's completely disconnected from the article and therefore shows poor judgement on the author's part.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#22

Post by meagher »

People love doing things that feel like work, but aren’t.

I’m terrified of picking up new systems like this without having a purpose. I could spend hours building out a graph, admiring all of MY knowledge, but not really have any intended use for it other than telling others about it and how I’m going to use it someday.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#23

Post by Gatsky »

This looks interesting, but one potential problem with this method is that you start treating the number of notes or the size of the graph as a success metric. The author even notes how it is 'pleasing' to see their note graph grow in size. This could be a perverse incentive.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#24

Post by ssivark »

tagh wrote: post #10

It's important to keep in mind that Zettelkasten's creator was an academic in the humanities. When I tried this system, I found it really shone when my goal was literature review -- i.e. to weave together arguments from disparate sources and articles, particularly when there was no quantitative or numeric way to do that weaving (e.g. in a table). I think that more technical and quantitative subjects do not benefit as…

Well, yes. It is important to clarify the purpose for note taking. Zettelkasten-like approaches are useful when you're trying to synthesize knowledge into a framework/perspective, sometimes as a way to find and contextualize new ideas. If one doesn't care about that, and ones notes already have a well-defined taxonomy/structure then the linking feature of Zettelkasten is not particularly useful.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#25

Post by memexy »

meagher wrote: post #22

People love doing things that feel like work, but aren’t. I’m terrified of picking up new systems like this without having a purpose. I could spend hours building out a graph, admiring all of MY knowledge, but not really have any intended use for it other than telling others about it and how I’m going to use it someday.

Do you know Vannevar Bush? Most note taking tools/systems are an approximation of a memex. I think it's worthwhile to develop a system along the lines of a memex because sharing knowledge effectively is how we all become more effective.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#26

Post by sooheon »

meagher wrote: post #22

People love doing things that feel like work, but aren’t. I’m terrified of picking up new systems like this without having a purpose. I could spend hours building out a graph, admiring all of MY knowledge, but not really have any intended use for it other than telling others about it and how I’m going to use it someday.

This way of notetaking is the first time I feel the "actions that feel like work but isn't" overhead is below a critical threshold. I don't plan anything, I don't do reviews, I spend no time working with or around the tool, I just stick to a couple simple principles and jot things down, curating connections as they arise.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#27

Post by ssivark »

Gatsky wrote: post #23

This looks interesting, but one potential problem with this method is that you start treating the number of notes or the size of the graph as a success metric. The author even notes how it is 'pleasing' to see their note graph grow in size. This could be a perverse incentive.

Yes, and what I find even more worrying about a densely connected graph is that it is not easy to extract information! Lack of connections (factorizing knowledge) is as important as noticing connections. Otherwise you'll be swimming in connections of marginal relevance (i.e. distractions). IMHO a sprinkling of connections, resulting in a relatively sparse graph is quite easy to make sense of. It's not easy to foresee where the optimum might be.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#28

Post by sooheon »

frandroid wrote: post #18
self_awareness wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate why?

He's an anti-scientific schmuck. I basically stopped reading this post 3 sentences after seeing the reference to JP, as clearly this person can't distinguish what's shit from what's useful, as evidenced by this over-involved note overaccumulation system. Also sure, what's-his-face wrote 70 books, but I had never heard of him before. Quantity before volume please, is what note-taking should be about.

> sure, what's-his-face wrote 70 books, but I had never heard of him before

Is that because his output is insignificant, or your knowledge was limited?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Luhmann

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#29

Post by ellyagg »

exmadscientist wrote: post #9
self_awareness wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate why?

Whether you agree with any particular Controversial Political Figure or not, using one as an example will annoy about 50% of your audience (variable, of course, with your audience's current politicization and self-selection). Using neutral examples will help keep the focus on your message rather than incidental politics.

I've heard this rationalization before but it falls down on closer examination. If propensity for outrage at "controversial figures" is asymmetrical, then factions that exaggerate outrage get to control the conversation.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#30

Post by kiba »

tasogare wrote: post #8

> Though it’s still early days, adopting a Zettelkasten has been one of my most productive habits. If productivity is measured against the volume of notes taken, sure. Otherwise probably not. Notes are an intermediate step to build something else, which is the real output on which productivity is usually measured.

He used the notes to output a small article.
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