TJL #25: Zettelkasten method
How to take smart notes
Welcome back to Today Jan Learned (TJL) #25. In this newsletter I share the best of what others have figured out already. To get the full TJL experience, subscribe today.
What you might’ve missed:
TJL #23: Building Wedje (part 2): In my previous post I created an initial prototype which went well.
TJL #24: Obscurity is good: In which I argue that you should enjoy your obscurity while it lasts.
Today I woke up at 5am and worked for 2 hours on Wedje. That was really nice. What looked complex yesterday evening was quite do-able this morning. I should wake up early more often. I think I do my best work in the morning.
I’m thinking of changing the frequency of these posts to weekly posts. I like sharing things daily but I notice that if I don’t actively make the time to write I tend to rush these posts, something I don’t like.
In this post:
Zettelkasten method
Zettelkasten method
I am currently experimenting with a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system called Zettelkasten. This video is a great introduction:
The Zettelkasten method is a note-taking method created by Niklas Luhmann. He was a prolific scientific author and published more than 70 books and 400 articles in his lifetime. According to him, all thanks to his Zettelkasten method of notetaking.
After collecting notes for a while like we all do, commenting in the margins, highlighting some stuff, copy and pasting it somewhere, Luhmann realised that this way of note-taking was not taking him anywhere. So he turned his note-taking method on its head.
Instead of adding notes to predefined categories, he wrote each note on a single piece of index card, gave it a number and label, and collected them in a large archive called the Zettelkast (German for slip-box).
Here’s an example of such a card
By writing a single idea on each individual note and making links between them he was able to use his Zettelkasten a dialogue partner, idea generator, evidence collector, and much much more. d
My main interest in the Zettelkasten method comes from the fact that I take notes, a lot. I take a lot of notes but what have they really amounted to? I have probably written enough words to write a book, but I haven’t written a book yet! My interest in this method stems from the fact that I want my notes to amount to something useful in the end, if not for me, then for someone else. And, geeking out about stuff is always fun!
Recap
Today I showed you a little bit of the Zettelkasten method of note-taking. If you have any questions about this or how I implement this in Roam please reach out!
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As always, you can find me on my website janmeppe.com or on Twitter at @janmeppe.
Previous TJLs
Read my previous TJLs by following on the links down below: