I'm finding this a concept a little hard to understand, but it vaguely sounds like a system involving hyperlinkable notes.
Wouldn't vimwiki basically accomplish this?
Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
281–290 of 309 posts
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#282This seems to be a new trend now. I'm skeptical. Many of the most successful people I know don't have complicated systems like this - instead of spending time on optimizing note taking, they actually get stuff done. In fact, many don't have systems at all. On the other side, most people raving about the systems are "productivity gurus" writing articles and books, not people who actually get stuff done or would be con…
Full disclosure: I am CEO of a productivity/note taking app (Amplenote) that arguably competes with Roam.
Roam & Zettelkasten share a user base thick with academics. Productivity doesn't tend to be their stated end goal. Their goal is more often to arrange thoughts into webs of knowledge. They allow connected ideas, like wikis, except with zero forethought put into how the ideas should be organized. People really like being able to start writing without figuring out how to organize the thing they're about to write.
The goals that the R&Z community will benefit everyone as they seep into the broader ecosystem. It's (purported to be [1]) a powerful experience if you have the time to build a visualized network of your thoughts and see how they connect together. But it's not very similar to getting things done.
Incidentally, our app, Amplenote, allows bidirectional linking like Roam, and is focused specifically on helping users get things done (e.g., https://www.amplenote.com/classic_todo_lists_always_fail). In the real world, our product has allowed us to build three businesses that profitability sustain our team of 20. We have zero hype in part because we spend most of our time working. When a relevant comment like this one comes up, I don't see it until 12 hours later. C'est la vie when trying to actually get stuff done.
[1] Haven't had time to actually try out networked notes, but we're planning to add it to Amplenote later this month. Will develop an original opinion on them then.
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#283This seems to be a new trend now. I'm skeptical. Many of the most successful people I know don't have complicated systems like this - instead of spending time on optimizing note taking, they actually get stuff done. In fact, many don't have systems at all. On the other side, most people raving about the systems are "productivity gurus" writing articles and books, not people who actually get stuff done or would be con…
I’ve worked with a few very successful business people. What was common among them was they wrote things down (frequently, but a little, not a lot) and had excellent recall. They wrote on anything handy, and discarded when done. Their systems were mostly disposable. They didn’t create libraries of notes. I’m technical, self-employed, with an academic background. I’m very tempted by systems (I often think of the book…
Pretty much the same realization I came across too. I used to love taking down notes for the sake of notes... now I don't. Likewise pictures too, my idea was to capture everything
Notes for me now is just a temporarily placeholder to help process a lot of information in one go.
I don't ever store notes long terms until I find myself reaching for it the 2nd time
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a programmer, every time I try to nail down the flow for a new program, I quickly realize that I'm just writing pseudo-code - and often, just straight code. Maybe the problem is English. Maybe there's a way to structure English sentences in a more precise and meaningful way with hypertext linking and structuring like a legal document? ...but for human-to-human communications?
I like this idea of somehow augmenting human language with more associative structures for deeper meaning and shared understanding. Maybe one implementation of this is that if the people we talk to (perhaps via a chat app) have their own Zettelkasten, the chat is supplemented/augmented by each others Zettelkasten (either publicly or privately) so we have a deeper understanding of each other and we can go on interesti…
Be sure to write something about this if you ever take it further. I think it'd be a cool concept and could potentially help connect with people.
I could also see it being too overwhelming and nobody reading the extra context available to them.
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I completely agree. Note apps are focused on categorization when 90% of note taking is creation, not retrieval. I have a new app that’s focused on creating notes as quickly as possible, working offline, and syncing to all your devices (web too). I’d love to include you in the alpha we’re launching this week, just send me an email and we’ll add you. This is open to anyone else as well!
Do you have a link to a website for your app? I'd be interested in trying it out.
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your skepticism and concern is well placed -- the output is what matters. But I'm a little confused about one aspect: what is it that you perceive as "complicated" and "complex" in this? Genuinely curious and not meant to be snarky.
By using tools for this you will inevitably spend additional time organizing, tagging, and summarizing notes, most of which is probably a waste of time. The article has a pretty good example of this > I find watching how this knowledge graph grows satisfying Yep, it's satisfying. Because it's procrastination and gives you the illusion of "being in control" - just like engaging in social media is satisfying. Or cleani…
It surely is easy to procrastinate by inventing more and more complicated systems, but I don’t think the (base) Zettelkasten is an example of such procrastination.
> active note taking, e.g. while watching a lecture, is a crucial part of learning
I agree! The word “active” is crucial here — categorising, structuring and interlinking knowledge fosters understanding. The Zettelkasten builds on this principle, because — when it works in classroom, maybe it would be good to interlink and structure your ideas outside of it as well.
> Organizing them into some (in case of roam, PAID!) system that you will probably not even come back to?
I sense a straw man here. Of course, if you don’t plan to look at your notes ever again, why bother writing them down in any kind of system?
The whole point of Zettelkasten is to write down notes that you intend to use in the future. You can still have some ephemeral notes, but you don’t rewrite those to the Zettelkasten.
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#287Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Creating a hierarchy of notes using folders can be counterproductive. It will be easy to classify the majority of notes, but some of them will match multiple categories, or even none of them. Unfortunately, those notes are usually the most interesting. Case in point: I have some notes regarding good technical writing, and some notes concerning good Git usage. If I had a hierarchy, the first notes would go under "writ…
There are note taking systems that enabled that. Obsidian (from here a couple days ago) and Trilium both track links and backlinks, which can let you integrate that to a degree. It creates a web of information, as opposed to a strict hierarchical taxonomy. So you can link across those to hopefully maintain discoverability. I generally dislike labeling systems. My interpretation of a label is too context-dependent and…
In the book "How to take smart notes" by Sönke Ahrens, there's a lot of thought given on the real value of tags. I'd say the problem you describe happens because you are trying to create a taxonomy using tags. Classifying the notes using tags can feel rewarding in the short term, but it's not useful in the context of a linked notes system.
When creating tasks, the main question that is answered is "in which contexts would I like this note to show up?". The answer to this question is completely subjective. If, for instance, you were doing research for game level design, it makes sense for the systems architecture notes to be tagged with "game engine", "achievements", "quick save", or anything else that you will want to look up later on. The Napoleonic architecture notes could be tagged as "level design", "gameplay cues", or "side quests".
As you can see, these tags would be different for every person, and that's kind of the point. Two people can read the same content, and take the same note from it, but the intended purpose could still be completely different, and that would show up in the tags.
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> tending to a setup like this in Emacs can easily become a time-sink I've started to wonder if the Emacs community should put together versions that are ready for different kinds of users out of the box. Say, a version for scholars with everything Auctex, org/org-roam, spell check, email, rss, etc already there, and a walkthrough to boot. Like a distro or spin, basically.
There are a few projects that do this, but I think there's certainly room for more. I'd love to see one focused on using the Zettelkasten method. Here are three I'm aware of: Scimax: https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax Emacs Speaks Statistics: https://github.com/emacs-ess/ESS Frontmacs: https://github.com/thefrontside/frontmacs So long as these approaches expose the full power of Emacs to their users, I can't imagine…
Thank you! Good pointers indeed.
Re: Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead
#290I've taken 3000 pages of notes in a linear, bullet-point fashion, and I also keep up with education research. As far as I can tell, both in studies and in personal experience, the fiddly details of your note-taking schemes don't matter. The only thing that matters is attempting to integrate the information into a cohesive whole, which takes intentional thought. With linear notes, there's a failure mode where links th…
Zettelkasten can handle this. Create a note called "My Theory" with the contents "X causes Y if Z", where X, Y, and Z are links to the relevant notes.