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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

#121

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

Same; I've been using various note taking approaches over the years, but my "problem" is that I rarely actually have to go back to a note, they are usually only relevant for one task like e.g. writing a blog post or implementing a feature.

So while I'd like to retain my knowledge and research somewhere, at the same time I don't actually use it???

But some writing I've done that will be relevant in the next years is writing ADR's (Architecture Decision Records) in my application about technology and architecture choices I've made, so I can look them up later, use it to train new people, and have a basis to challenge a decision on as well. That's more practical for my personal situation.

But maybe one day I'll be doing something more academic and will need a way to collate research and the like.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#122

Post by suref »

To me the most important thing in notes is to find what you want easily. Because of this I think having some sort of online system is needed, otherwise if you have the notes at different places you will in the end give up on it and also tags and search is a huge advantage. But in the end I don't think there are one system that fits all, Zettelkasten might work for some people while others want it another way, this hypothesis is strengthened by the continuous output of new notes software. For this reason I created my own system, fitting _my_ needs. As a coder I chose markdown to also have the functionality to add snippets and search those snippets. The markdown documents stays in a folder type structure to organize the content and be able to use the vs code command cmd+p that I'm very used to. This works for me, https://www.theorylog.com.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#123

Post by raxxorrax »

Normille wrote: post #49

Are Zettelkasten the latest Hipster fad? A fortnight or so ago, I saw a link on HN mentioning 'Zettelkasten' and had to look up the word, because I'd never heard it before. Since then, there must have been a Zettelkasten reference at least every other day.

Tagged info can already constitute a Zettelkasten, since relations exist on matching tags. A wiki is much more advanced and a superset of Zettelkasten functionality.

In light of the "graph"-craze I could imagine that we will hear more of it.

That said, it can be helpful for sourcing all kinds of stuff, but still think it is a hipster fad.

edit: some dictionaries suggest that "outliner" is a fitting translation. I don't think that is true due to the hierarchy outliners seem to require.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#124

Post by Cogito »

I have no idea what system they used (if any) but this reminded me a lot of how 'Every Frame a Painting' [0] described their note-taking when watching films.

One of the best parts of their videos was that every technique they were describing had multiple examples from often very different genres, or directors, or periods. The assumption was that they managed to keep all those connections in their head, but the reality was excellent note taking!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#125

Post by stippenplan »

Personally, I am a big fan of Vim-Wiki [0]. Provides basic note taking, can be reached anywhere from Vim. It is great for jotting down TODOs, while it is also suited for more substantial, longer thoughts. You can add links to other notes as references, or just for quick navigation. These internal links can then be visualised, to highlight the connection between your notes and thoughts [1].

[0] https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki

[1] https://github.com/maxvdkolk/vimwikigraph

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#126

Post by rhythmofrest »

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.

I've recently got into using https://kinopio.club for noting down these kinds of interconnected thoughts, which encourages combing and refining thoughts down to the root issues. But, some may find it too minimal compared to the tools linked in the article.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#127

Post by fishmaster »

suref wrote: post #122

To me the most important thing in notes is to find what you want easily. Because of this I think having some sort of online system is needed, otherwise if you have the notes at different places you will in the end give up on it and also tags and search is a huge advantage. But in the end I don't think there are one system that fits all, Zettelkasten might work for some people while others want it another way, this hy…

That looks good.

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#128

Post by Kosirich »

It might sound kinda weird, but I see Azure DevOps Boards (or similar) an ideal system for implementing this. Why: 1) Small notes via User Stories (or tasks) 2) Has linking capabilites 3) Has TAGs 4) Visual representation of LINKS 5) Most of the grind associated with doing this via other systems is removed 6) Free & you can download the data in .csv if needed

Thoughts?

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#129

Post by Kosirich »

It might sound kinda weird, but I see Azure DevOps Boards (or similar) as an ideal system for implementing this. Why: 1) Small notes via User Stories (or tasks) 2) Has linking capabilites 3) Has TAGs 4) Visual representation of LINKS 5) Most of the grind associated with doing this via other systems is removed 6) Free & you can download the data in .csv if needed

Thoughts? It is something I wanted to try out for a while ( I currently use onenote with #(tags)).

Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead

#130

Post by fishmaster »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #121
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.

Same; I've been using various note taking approaches over the years, but my "problem" is that I rarely actually have to go back to a note, they are usually only relevant for one task like e.g. writing a blog post or implementing a feature. So while I'd like to retain my knowledge and research somewhere, at the same time I don't actually use it??? But some writing I've done that will be relevant in the next years is w…

You could still benefit from a Zettelkasten just by distilling knowledge in note form. Even if you don't actually have to go back very often.
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