Using a Zettelkasten is about optimizing your workflow of learning and producing knowledge. Use a real notebookto capture thoughts. German for “slip box,” Zettelkasten is a note-taking method pioneered by Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist, who, over the course of his career, wrote more than 70 books and 400 academic papers. I already talked about reference managers. The building blocks of a Zettelkasten are the inbox, the note archive, and the reference manager. The syntax or “language” I use to format notes and add references is called MultiMarkdown. Press question mark to learn the rest of the … I think it’s more suitable to begin with the lowest hurdle possible, see which applications outreach the expectations, then allow to be surprised. A Zettelkasten (die Zettelkästen in plural) is a methodology for thinking in writing. 307 The Zettelkasten Method; 48 Writing; 238 Software & Gadgets; 22 Workflows; 431 The Archive; 43 Resolved Issues; 50 Your Current Projects; 43 Project: Zettelkasten.de; 88 Random; 243 Introduce … Interpretation of descriptions and patterns. The layers are: When your archive grows, you’ll add Structural Layers in your Zettelkasten through links. First, we’ll see what the bare minimum features are. If you would like to help out with testing, just drop me a line. Each note is given a unique identifier and an appropriate title 3. Text in the note field seems unlimited. I’m going to take a close look at applications to find out which are suitable to implement the Zettelkasten note archive. I put tags into the back matter as well so they get out of the way when reading the note; the topmost lines are precious screen real estate I don’t like to waste. In my case, it contains a list of tags, too. The nice thing about YAML is, though, that you can embed them into every text file if you put a line with three dashes (---) above and below the YAML content. Which criteria for testing would you like me to add? If you’d like to share your experience, send in an app … There are numerous digital Zettelkasten programs available. Here you’ll find my criteria. 311 The Zettelkasten Method; 48 Writing; 241 Software & Gadgets; 24 Workflows; 435 The Archive; 45 Resolved Issues; 51 Your Current Projects; 43 Project: Zettelkasten.de; 88 Random; 244 Introduce … Vendor lock-in is only a problem when the company stops to support the application – but that seems unlikely in the case of Word: So yes, [plain text] should last forever. As lines of reasoning are created through the linking of notes, the method … 308 The Zettelkasten Method; 48 Writing; 239 Software & Gadgets; 23 Workflows; 432 The Archive; 45 Resolved Issues; 50 Your Current Projects; 43 Project: Zettelkasten.de; 88 Random; 243 Introduce … ... the Zettelkasten method … Nowadays, there’s other means to get this feature, enabled by the popular Pandoc document converter. It combines note-taking while reading, personal thoughts and a bibliographic system. Wiki-like software makes linking painless, while others provide sophisticated search mechanisms. In this example, there’s a literature reference in the MultiMarkdown format: As you see, I use plain-text notes. The levels are: “Trust the process” (an essay) hits the nerve: thinking and memory retention are improved by working through problems. A Zettelkasten (die Zettelkästen in plural) is a methodology for thinking in writing. in the electronic Zettelkasten Think about the topic or subject, where a new note fits into Find a starting point in the Zettelkasten related to this topic and start reading / exploring your existing notes … Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed CC-BY-SA. In the comments, you can contribute to this list. Since 2018, we offer our own app, The Archive for macOS, to manage your Zettelkasten. Just compare how the same note looks with and without Markdown-specific coloring: Plain text has its benefits, especially when it comes to longevity: while every other file format might go out of fashion at some future time, plain text will likely stay. This is a running list of applications I want to look at. And it’s worth remembering that for writers these are intermediate formats – in the end you wind up as digital media, whether it’s Kindle, mobi, epub or whatever, all of them capable of being reverse engineered. Zettelkasten is a writing and thinking process developed by Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist who wrote 70 books and nearly 400 peer-reviewed articles in a 30 year career. system of index cards. Participate in the comments below: Comments are powered by our forums. I discovered MultiMarkdown because it is built into Scrivener. Extending The Archive’s functionality with scripts and other apps: This site was built by Christian Tietze. Alternatively, you can attach a BibTeX file with all the reference information. Each note is also given tags for classification. To cope with the constant influx of new information, use temporary “buffer” notes to collect stuff that you can later re-arrange. The Zettelkasten Method is an amplifier of your endeavors in the realm of knowledge work. If you are fond of Markdown but don’t like MultiMarkdown’s peculiarities, you can rely on Pandoc’s markup language support for conversion and utilize its all-purpose metadata format. Synthesis of patterns, descriptions and interpretation. It may include a dedicated list of links on the same topic if you want to add those. These are the basics to get started with effective knowledge management: 1. In a traditional Zettelkasten you start with blank cards and this software gives you an open text editor with formatting tools, no form fields in the text area. The Zettelkasten Method is an amplifier of your endeavors in the realm of knowledge work. I then read through what’s arguably the most authoritative website about the process and gained a solid understanding of praxis for using the Zettelkasten method, which got me started. ZETTELKASTEN METHOD (Explained Clearly with Examples and … Like I said, you could put the tags in the running text, too (“inter-textual tags”). (Fun fact: Lumen used the Slipbox or Zettelkasten method of … Don’t go down the same rabbit hole as I did, researching the method for tens of hours. This article should be enough of … This representation could look like the one I used in the one-size-fits-all example: Walter Isaacson (2004): Benjamin Franklin. As I said, I like to preserve space at the top of the note, so this is the path I’d chose. A Zettelkasten is a personal tool for thinking and writing that creates an interconnected web of thought. After all, the Zettelkasten method works with paper, so why worry about the latest fad in computing? (Christian still has skeletons in the closet.). This one is suitable for every editor which supports saving text. That is part of the date-based unique identifier. The second difficulty is offered by the format itself: Markdown files are plain text and therefore don't allow for all too … It is highly effective, and many people report they have more fun, one even comparing it to the addictive nature of games like World of Warcraft, and have an easier time doing knowledge … This isn’t mandatory; I only tell you so you know which particular details I settled on. Remember, when using the Zettelkasten Method, you want to add connections to other notes, so that you can jump … Zettelkasten … How will I compare? The front matter of my example note from above would look like this in YAML: Not much has changed. According to Luhmann, this extreme productivity was directly linked to Zettelkasten. Contact & Legal Notice, The Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method, About learning and knowing-more in general, Read the Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method, A Zettelkasten improves your thinking and writing, A Zettelkasten extends your mind and memory, Reading for the Zettelkasten is searching, ongoing research on Luhmann’s Zettelkasten by Johannes Schmidt, in accordance with our software review principle, How to Use Wiki Links for Saved Searches in The Archive, Collection of Keyboard Maestro/Alfred Macros. Zettelkasten aka slip-box note-taking is the new cool kid on the block. They have digitized the whole Zettelkasten. I will evaluate these individual properties too, of course, but only in respect to their usefulness for managing a Zettelkasten note archive. Pandoc is a popular conversion tool to create Word .doc files or PDFs from plain text input, even MultiMarkdown files. The idea behind the Zettelkasten method is to encourage cross-linking of information and ideas that might otherwise remain siloed — for example in the notes of a particular research project — in order to produce novel insights and connections. If you want to know more about the history of the Zettelkasten Method, check out the ongoing research on Luhmann’s Zettelkasten by Johannes Schmidt at Bielefeld University. The metadata is embedded in a different markup language called YAML. Top Layer: Main Structure Notes and Double Hashes (that is: special tags), Christian also wrote a Mac app for this: the, Buffer files in your Zettelkasten are great to, Interoperability with the Markdown preview app, Marked 2, supports. The categories we find fit the process well at the moment are the following: Principles are higher than techniques. (Zettelkasten refers to this as atomicity.) Which software would you like to add to the list. Internally, Zettlr uses 32Bit-Hashes to identify specific files. This means your notes will have different kinds of content. To get you in the mood to grow your archive, read “Trust the process”, an essay. This brings us to one of the defining features of the Zettelkasten method: the addressing system, which is how links between cards are established. Set links between notes.Search a… It doesn’t suffice to bookmark websites or just read and annotate books. I want to establish an all-purpose note layout as a baseline in a way that every text editing software on this planet can cope with it. Some will even support links to other notes you can click on. So how will notes look like? The back matter should contain references (and in case you write your notes in Markdown, it can also hold link definitions and footnotes). Here’s an example note with the full bibliography reference put in YAML front matter: With Pandoc, you can create a PDF from this note with a real bibliography at the end because all the information is contained in the reference list of the YAML front matter. I consider these things interesting, but not mandatory. With time, you’ll notice multiple Layers of Evidence emerge. To get knowledge out of the Zettelkasten, it has to be fast at retrieving notes, too. Good tagging helps with accuracy when searching. When these tasks were slow, you probably wouldn’t use the note archive enough. If you drop all the Markdown formatting, this is still a viable example: This is perfectly readable in any application that can display text. Johannes is the Guardian of the Godfather’s Zettelkasten, and his work is genuinely interesting for knowledge work nerds. Blog Feed Note that it is likely that the tool you use doesn’t really matter all that much. Press J to jump to the feed. The building blocks of a Zettelkasten are the inbox, the note archive, and the reference manager. What does any note archive software has to achieve to be useful? The method… We also cover the relevant bit of history in our introduction to explain how the Zettelkasten Method works. In … On the other hand, one could say that as long as Microsoft exists, there’ll be a Microsoft Word. The Files. The body text or content dominates. 3. For comparison, see Software comparison. Every note consists of various parts: it needs to have an identifier for linking, it needs to have body text or content to actually say something, and it may have some front matter and back matter to provide more info about the note or its sources. I’d like to add iA Writer to that list, as I think it ticks pretty much all the boxes. 5. There are five different types of note-taking processes that build on each other. This note collects links and pointers for choosing the right one. He credits much of that success to an index card-based note-taking system he called Zettelkasten. (Well … Also, I’m going to link to reviews from here as soon as they’re done. At first, let’s pretend that there’s no such thing as rich text. Hands down, apps like Zettlr, The Archive, and the shiny new toy on the block, Roam, … Blog Feed It is so customizable, that once you understand how the method works, you can come up with your own unique way of implementing it, whether it’s with note cards or software. The Zettelkasten Method is, in many ways, similar to the notecard method, which many of us learned in school. Citations work as they do in print: you put “(Author YEAR)” in the appropriate places and append a readable list of references in the back matter. As a tool, the Zettelkasten … But I think Word – like jpeg for photos – is going to be around for a very long time too. Since then, we stopped reviewing commercial tools because of a clash of interests. As a concept, the Zettelkasten method involves capturing, storing and organizing information using a simple (yay!) It supports metadata in the front matter or header which doesn’t show in HTML previews and exports to LaTeX nicely. Transforming to nearly every possible format on earth useful for sharing documents with mere mortals. Try a bespoke app A second approach is to use software developed specifically for Zettelkasten. 311 The Zettelkasten Method; 48 Writing; 242 Software & Gadgets; 24 Workflows; 435 The Archive; 45 Resolved Issues; 51 Your Current Projects; 43 Project: Zettelkasten.de; 88 Random; 244 Introduce … But these depend on the paths, and, as Zettlr is designed to work even with cloud-saved files, the path on one computer will not be the same as on another computer, making the hash unusable as an ID. We honestly think The Archive is great, and that you should check it out. The zettelkasten (German: "slip box") is a knowledge management and note-taking method used in research and study. While I am a plain text aficionado, MultiMarkdown is not a flavor for everyone. It combines note taking while reading, personal thoughts and a bibliographic system. Luhmann, an accomplished academic and … However, by using Luhman's tried and true technique, singular notes become … 4.1. Beck uses Tinderbox software to create a hyper-organized system of notes for her Ph.D. studies in contemplative practice and information science. 2. The Zettelkasten or Slipbox as a form of research and note-taking was popularised, at least in Germany, by sociologist and author Niklas Lumen. The Zettelkasten method is a powerful system for thinking and writing. This site was built by Christian Tietze. I think notes should be self-contained. The Zettelkasten method has totally changed my approach to learning for the better. While reference managers can be switched pretty easily, migrating a database of notes is far from being a trivial task, depending on the software you used in the past. To find out, recall the essentials you have to adhere to when you want to create a Zettelkasten to be your second brain: There should be no obstacles when it comes to writing notes.
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