Zettelkasten

What is Zettelkasten?

• means “books of cards” in German

• a method to deal with knowledge in your life

  A Zettelkasten is a personal tool for thinking and writing. It has hypertextual features to make a web of thought possible. The difference to other systems is that you create a web of thoughts instead of notes of arbitrary size and form, and emphasize connection, not a collection.

  제텔카스텐은 사고와 글쓰기를 위한 개인용 도구입니다. 하이퍼텍스트 기능이 있어 생각의 웹을 만들 수 있습니다. 다른 시스템과의 차이점은 임의의 크기와 형식의 노트 대신 생각의 웹을 만들고, 컬렉션이 아닌 연결을 강조한다는 점입니다.

Luhmann’s Zettelkasten: The beginning

Niklas Luhmann:

• considered godfather of Zettelkasten Method
• highly productive social scientist

What was his Zettelkasten like?

• a collection of notes on papaer slips with a special twist: surfable hypertext that helped him navigate the drawer cabinet containing all the paper slips

  Surfable?

  Think of Wikipedia: there are links to other articles → you surf on articles

Luhmann used Zettelkasten to:

1. Build a web of knowledge
2. Retrieve the right memory
3. Find connections among topics
4. Develop ideas and arguments

Method

Luhmann had two boxes:

1. Reference Box
   • contains reference detail
   • brief notes about content
2. Main Box
   • Ideas, thories, arguments, dicussions

Steps

1. Take Literature Notes
   • information you don’t want to forget
   • things you might use later
2. Take Reference Notes
   • reference details + brief note about the content
3. Make Permanet Notes
   • go though notes taken and make new notes
   • goal is not to collect as many notes but to add values to existing ideas, arguments, and discussions

     find meaning of what you just learned, connect it to what you already knew

4. Review and Repeat

Finding meaningful connections

• How does this idea fit into what I already knew?
• Can this be explained by something else?
• What does X mean for Y?
• How can I usse this idea to explain Z?

Finding Keywords

Finding keyword is

• not about where to store information
• but about how to retrieve it

It is not about:

• findind most fitting word
• what category does this fall into

Instead, it is about:

• in which circumstances do I want to stuble upon this note?
• when and how will I use this idea?

“Keywords should always be assigned with an eye towards the topic you’re working on or interested in, never by looking at the notes in isolation”

Fixed Address of Each Note

Luhmann’s numbering system allowed to make sequences and intersperse notes between dajacent notes thourgh adding another character to the end

1. First note assigned to 1
2. Second note not related to note 1 is assigned 2
3. But if you want to carry on with note 1, the new note branches off to 1a
4. If you continue on with 1a, the new note is 1b
5. If you want to go back and comment on 1a, the new note with comment would be 1a1
6. and so on

This method makes:

• organic grouwth possible
  • this organic growth is how wikis and their wiki-link feature works
• linking possible