Zettelkasten Note-Taking: What I wish I knew about Smart Notes
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
- Learn how to take atomic notes with the Zettelkasten method and create masterful work with my book Atomic Note-Taking:
www.atomicworkflows.com/atomi...
I'm building a note-taking app to help you study, learn, think, write and publish-with maximum efficiency and consistency. Check it out at:
join.flowtelic.com.
In this video I give an introduction to the Zettelkasten note-taking method where you learn about fleeting, literature and permanent notes, along with the concept of bi-directional linking. With this, you'll get an understanding of how to use it to manage your notes and create new insights so you can create new topics for blog posts, etc.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:23 What is Zettelkasten and Smart Notes?
0:51 Note types
0:58 Fleeting notes
1:29 Literature notes
2:29 Permanent notes
3:49 Linking notes
4:19 Example of insights from linked notes
5:58 Using notes to create content
6:26 Ask questions to your slip-box
7:36 Summary
8:09 Flowtelic
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#zettelkasten #smartnotes #secondbrain
Thank you for making it simple for us to understand the Zettelkasten Note-taking.
This was literally the only zettelkasten video thats made sense to me, thank you.
I was so thankful to see this comment after I watched all the other ones. And even more thankful because you were right.
I've been trying to understand Zettelkasten for over a year now. This is the most concise and helpful explanation I've seen. Thank you!
I am really happy that I found this video. After reading up about the Zettelkasten principles, everything remained quite confused but the visual representation and easy access explanation here cleared the fog. Extremely helpful content.
The most concise, simple, comprehensive video in Zettelkasten. Utterly no-BS approach. Thanks a lot for that Martin.
I just finished making my very first zettels and sat in front of my laptop just to unwind and browse through youtube, and guess what, your video popped up. I wish I had come across your video a few days back. I haven't come across a single video which explains the zettelkasten system in as systematic a way as you've explained it. I had to re watch videos several times and then make connections between different videos just to get a birds eye view of the whole system and understand how everything links together. having gone through the entire process of understanding the system on my own I realize how valuable and time saving your video is. You've done people a huge favour, whether they realise it or not. Thanks man :)
Thank you so much for saying so. I really appreciate it knowing that this is helping.
Finally found a method to remember what I read, listen and learn!! Thank you Martin for this!!
Best introductory video on ZK I have watched so far (in many years honestly)…
I like the way he actually uses the Zettelkasten method to explain it--instead of a separate graphic. Brilliant!
Seriously the best Zettelkasten video I’ve found.
This video was published two years ago but, I still find it the most informative and enriching video out there about the Zettelkasten Note-Taking. Thanks a lot!
Thank you so much for your kind words!
Short and straight to the point, thanks for sharing it 🙂
Your video manages to do what others seem unable to: give a simple explanation with actual examples that doesn't meander. You've earned a subscriber.
Thank you! These are high words of praise, I’m humbled and appreciative!
Thank you, Martin, for putting together this great summary. You graphic is also extremely helpful.
The best video I have ever seen regarding Zettlekasten! You are an artist, you made the trick look easy.
Thank you, that means a lot. I have a lot to learn and a lot of practice to go, but I like the idea of mastering the skill of teaching through video.
the best also the simplest for the Zettelkasten concept-actually its essential!
Thanks for making this video. It's helpful in getting started with organizing notes by showing me a new framework.
I saw the preview and I like it! Thank you Martin
Thanks for good explanation. I highly recommend the book : How to take smart notes. It makes all these concept clear.
This visual representation is brilliant!
Love the graphs, and I think I now understand the difference between the notes a bit more, still not full. It takes time to understand. Thanks.
I LITERALLY was trying to figure out Zettelkasten this morning, but I became frustrated so I decided to start my propositional logic assignments. I just finished notes and your video was the VERY FIRST video in my list and it cleared up and greatly reduced my anxiety. Then to make this a home run, bringing up the slip box question (brilliant BTW), was the final mathematical notation I doodled with a confused Yoshi and an irritated Mario!!!!! #FTW
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Thank you so much. I'm thrilled that this video has helped you, and especially happy that I hit publish today and didn't wait until tomorrow as you may not have discovered it. I really appreciate the comment!
There was confusion around the different stages of note-taking and you helped me a lot to get the idea. Thank you! By the way, having watched this, it strikes me that academic thinking comes down to the pursuit of a moment when different ideas come across each other. Put it simply, it's all about making connections that simply aren't there. Human mind is known to be wired for connections and with Zettelkasten, Luhmann has turned it into a conscious yet effortless process to trigger associations and unlock endless possibilities of an idea running into another one. That being said, based on my personal experience, I still find writing an actual thesis is a completely different story from putting all the notes together...
That idea of linking two disparate things to come up with something new is called "bisociation", a term invented by Arthur Koestler. Good luck in yr exploration.
The best explanation I have heard on the subject. Thank you.
I have signed up and looking forward to the app. I wish you all the best.
Awesome! It's still early days, but you can get a feel for how to use it in this video:
ua-cam.com/video/pKZd8IAD188/v-deo.html
There's no login yet, so just go to the URL in the video and start playing. All notes are stored in the browser, right-click the collection to backup on your machine.
Probably the best overview I've seen! Thank you so much for posting and I look forward to watching more from your channel! And best of luck on your app! Keep it up!
Thank you so much for the kind words!
very insightful! Thank you!
A nice clear explanation
Best explanation that I found so far !
Thanks!
Hi Martin! This was an excellent explanation and I'm very surprised not a lot of people know about taking smart notes! I hope it becomes more popularized in the near future. The biggest similarity smart notes have to something everyone knows is Wikipedia, we often look things up, and on Wikipedia were able to dive deeper into the topic were searching for. The biggest difference between smart notes and using Wikipedia is it's rather our thoughts of instead of someone else's information.
That’s exactly it. Wikipedia is also fact based with references, but our notes can be insights and ideas which could lead to research to treat of they are artists or not.
Great video, I agree with others who have commented; the way you explained this is by far the best on youtube. thanks.
Thank you, I really appreciate you saying so!
Thanks for the post
Thanks for this vidéo. I am pretty visual and the simple fact you ad a pic helps a lot :)
Great video!
Excellent, thanks.
Merci pour ce que vous faites, you're creating vocations!
De rien
Martin, excellent video.
I have 2 questions.
1 - I don’t understand how the “linking” process works from a practical standpoint. For example, starting with your Note about “Brain Stress Triggers”. Suppose you created it 6-12 months ago. If you are like most people, you’ve likely forgotten about what that Note says. Then, today, you create your Note about “Imposter Syndrome”. And, yes, let’s assume that combining the ideas of both Notes leads to a new and important “Insight”. - - - My question is, when writing the Note about “Imposter Syndrome”, what prompts you to remember the Note about “Brain Stress Triggers” so that you can develop the “Insight”?
2 - How do you create the links? What do they look like?
Nice summary mate.
Great video, Martin. Love the illustration of the workflow which honestly I haven’t seen before. Not sure I understand it yet…, but its good to noodle on. Trying to practice using Craft for Mac at this time. Subscribed.
Thank you! I really appreciate your kind words!
Who said (I’m paraphrasing here) “If you can’t explain it simply then you don’t understand it” Brilliant.
I believe you're thinking of Feynman.
Great explanation - struggling to know if I'm putting too much info in my literature notes // permanent notes (not being atomised enough). Have subbed - thanks!
I think it gets most important when you get them in permanent notes. The idea is that you don't want to bury the insights in longer pieces of text as you're more unlikely to find it, and nearly never deep link to it (unless you like that way of doing things in Obsidian). Where I'm trying to get to is that my notes are really atomic, then they rollup into larger notes (via Maps of Content for now) to show it's connections in the greater. Personally I want to get to the point where the permanent notes are the foundation of blog articles and things I publish-which are in essence more long form notes with an understanding at that moment in time.
It was my problem when i first started taking note in my notebook.problem was that i was thinking through writing, but currently i devided them. First i analysis and distill information in my mind and then just write 1-2 sentence that is about key ideas
Thanks Martin. Great introduction. Have signed on for flowtelic, but hard to work out on my own. Any ideas of best place to find out how to use it well? best Joseph
Hi Martin, Happy New year to! Well done on this summary of Zettelkasten principles.
May I ask: what app did you use for the visual representation of the different phases of Zettelkasten?
Thanks
Hey, thank you! The app I used was Affinity Designer.
Holy… I was watching a whole lot of media about this method but my confusion just got bigger with each until I found this video… I am a PhD student, started my 2nd year, and my research area is full of interconnected informations (different brain areas, cell types, receptors etc.) therefore I read a huge amount of different literature which NEEDS TO BE CONNECTED, and I struggled for years. Maybe this method will help me, thank you for your explanation. I really don’t understand how others make it way more confusing.
Thank you for sharing such kind words. I'm so glad that this video has helped and hope that you're able to use it for your PhD research. It's been a while since I made this video, but I've just launched my new book Atomic Note-Taking which aims to bring together all the learning into a single place. www.atomicworkflows.com/atomic-note-taking/
Thanks for this Martin. This pieced it together for me. Question: Say you are taking notes on a book chapter on brain stress triggers. How would you break that up in fleeting notes? One note for the full chapter, or separate fleeting notes for individual sections within the chapter? What have you found works best?
Hey. Great question. What I normally do in practice is use the Kindle app to record my notes by highlighting the passages, then writing a brief note of what my own thinking is around that passage. Often it'll spark a connection with some other thing I've learned and I'll draw that connection in there. Then I use Readwise to sync my kindle highlights and notes to Notion in one page, which becomes my fleeting notes (they've recently launched a sync from kindle to Obsidian).
Other times I'll create a study note in my own app and just jot it all down in one long fleeting note. This will then be the basis of how I take that through to literature and permanent notes. So for me, one long note is generally how I would consider a book, video, article.
Thanks for the content Martin!
Extremely helpful indeed.
Could you please tell me what software is this that you used to make the presentation?
Thank you. The graphic was made using Affinity Designer and the video was recorded using Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)
Very interesting¡
I am trying to put this into practice. What I am doing is creating a reference file so I can keep the themes organized, then I will develop each theme or topic I referenced in different files. These files will include the subsequents ideas or notes related to each topics...
Would that be correct in order to apply this method?
Thanks
Awesome video! Great example of how it works! Thanks …. Btw is the a chance that we can have access to this amazing chart ? I would love to have it handy
Thanks. Yes, you can find it on this tweet: twitter.com/Martin_Adams/status/1412002581933604864?s=20&t=tgDcQRD33m26PyPapb5iBA
What app are you using in the video to Create the flow you are showing on the screen?
Very interesting method. I look forward to your app. If I may ask, what programming language are you writing it in?
Thanks. It’s written in JavaScript with React and the backend will be Node.js backed by a Postgres database (for cloud sync when that’s ready).
@@Martin_Adams ahhh a web based app. gotcha. Thanks! I'm noticing a trend in apps movings from desktop to web, and as a newbie programmer who initially began in hopes of making desktop apps, I see where I need to make the switch
@@Shka_maru don't let the desktop market die please. follow your dreams!!!
Hi, beautiful video! I've been using Obsidian for a while but I've noticed that I often link different atomic notes together, however I create few "higher concepts" that contain them, it's like I stay "down" and horizontal instead of going up. Do you have any advice for me?
Thanks for the compliment. I’m not sure if I fully get the question you’re asking, but what does come to mind is that your ‘higher concepts’ might be Maps of Content (MoC) where you’re looking at the notes through a particular lens. This is what’s great about the Zettelkasten as you can create any number of these and use the notes to build a picture to solve or answer a given question. In a way, I feel the whole method keeps things quite atomic and low level. If I want to stack things up, this is where I might create some type of project to piece it all together with the foundational notes underpinning the higher elements. Hope that makes sense.
@@Martin_Adams Thanks for the reply, I was referring exactly to the MOCs. I have few MOCs but I have many atomic notes and citations linked together but not placed together in one note. Also, I wanted to ask you if you happened to have notes with different titles but conceptually similar, if so how do you handle this redundancy?
@@danielemingolla Excellent. So what I've done where I have a different note title but it's related is potentially alias it to a master version of the note (a bit like how Wikipedia will alias pages to a different page). I like this approach as it makes discovering those entry points much easier. I'm still exploring this aspect in my own note taking so don't know yet if it has any major problems.
Interesting approach, thanks for the video.
Is it too early to ask which OSes will receive Flowtelic?
Web based at the moment, but when there is a desktop app, probably Mac, Windows and hopefully Linux if that doesn’t pose challenging. Not sure of the challenges for mobile apps yet.
Very well explained video. I have read the book. Do the format of the literature notes is the same as the format in permanent notes?
I often like to use the same format. The main thing to consider with literature notes vs permanent notes is in a literature note it's just your understanding of the material you just read, whereas the permanent notes considers all the material you've read.
So while the format may be similar, the contents will evolve in the permanent notes over time.
Hi Martin and thank you very much for this beatiful reference on ZK method. Is it possible to get the beautiful slide showed in the video? I would like to add it on my obsidian :)
Thank you so much for the kind words. The quickest way to get it that I have is from this tweet where I’ve shared the image.
twitter.com/martin_adams/status/1412002581933604864?s=21&t=wJ64HF5AxoJpcsVdLBE7dQ
Hope that works!
When sharing PPT slides, please put in presentation mode so we can see the details of your glorious slides.
Hi Martin. I want to start using the system and am wondering about the long-term life of fleeting notes and literature notes. Do you tend to delete fleeting notes once you have processed them into literature notes? And following on from that, do you ever refer back to literature notes once you have created permanent notes from them? Is it necessary to keep your literature notes organised or connected to each other in a consistent way, or would you even go as far as to archive literature notes once they have become permanent notes? Thanks for the great content - the most helpful Zettelkasten videos on youtube :)
Hi Archie,
So I personally would archive off my fleeting notes once I have them processed. My literature notes are early versions of my permanent notes to make sure I understand the material I've studying. So once you've processed those and made permanent notes that connect to the rest of your Zettelkasten, then I would consider archiving them off also.
You can still link your permanet notes to the literature notes, and your literature notes to the fleeting notes. This is great for knowing where your thinking came from. But you don't need to store the fleeting/literature notes in your main slip box.
As for making links in your literature notes. It can help, especially on new subjects where you don't have much to consider from your slip box when converting them to permanent notes.
Give it a go and see how it feels. You can always adjust and adapt it to something that works for you. The main goal is to have a collection of atomic notes in your slip box that allows you to see the links between them that's meaningful to you, and have a way to add. your own thoughts in as new notes and connect it to the notes they relate to.
@@Martin_Adams Great :) thanks for the comprehensive reply!
Hi, very pertinent video. What is the name of the app for this beautiful infographic that I used to understand everything with ease?
Thanks. The app is Affinity Designer.
Where do you stand on the whole UID issue? The zettelkasten guide is pretty insistent on it, along with some people in the obsidian forums.
Great question. I’m still figuring this out. I personally like cleaner more titles and conversational ways to link to them. However having two notes with the same name but different contexts is the issue here. I personally don’t like seeing IDs shown everywhere because really that is the responsibility of the software, not the user. The notes should have them internally to maintain accurate linking, but the user should have nice clean looking notes. Needless to say, this isn’t my final thinking on this, I will be exploring it more in the future, especially as I want it to feel right in the app I’m building.
So in summary, fleet notes are good for little things to capture, literature notes are information from lectures and youtube videos you need to know, and permanent notes are where you develop your understanding of a topic into a concise format developed from literature notes? When you go through your permanent notes you want it to be easy to understand and if you want to know more about a topic within those notes then you can break it down into its own card, by doing so you're able to ask questions and further you're understanding by finding gaps of information you may want to know.
thank you!
Yeah, that's a great summary. I would only say that you might make fleeting notes from books and videos. The literature now is when you rewrite your understanding from those books/videos to formulate your own understanding. It's completely in the context of the book through. Only when you put it in your permanent notes do you make it in the context of your own existing understanding. A literature note might explain that "X is true" but by the time you consider it in your permanent notes, you might end up disagreeing. And in that case, you create a permanent note explain why you disagree.
@@Martin_Adams if we break a permanent note into new topics that reach to our mind, then these new topics that we didn't know enough about them, would be new fleeting/literature note after research.
Is that true?
@@AK-ox3mv Yes, I would say they are more fleeting notes as they are incomplete ideas. Sometimes you can use them to prompt questions that you want to answer to help clarify your understanding. Then ideally that will direct the books and articles you consider when continuing your research.
@@Martin_Adams i think i get it😃
as a person who seek to become entrepreneur, most of the times i find myself generating ideas without further research.
This method help me to gather all ideas, priorities them and do further research about most important ideas. Only difference with content creation is that after making permanent notes, instead of publishing, it will be a project to run.
That's Great
What software did you use to create this beautiful diagram?
Thanks! This was made using Affinity Designer.
Can you show a demo of a Zettelkasten workflow where you handles tech related area? from fleeting notes----->literature notes---->permanent notes. Most of the videos I saw on the Zettelkasten system are like for non tech topics.
I'm actually planning some content around this. I feel the Zettelkasten is a great way to learn programming, devops, etc. So I'm pleased that you've asked this question. It's important that I teach the methods and not the tech specifically. The main benefit is giving the tools to learn anything. In the meantime, checkout this video for some inspiration: ua-cam.com/video/jbvEJvTwllk/v-deo.html
I think we must just capture the "aha moments"
Suggest that the notes include a reference to its source (ISBN, magazine, Podcast, etc.) so that if you need to go back to it, you can.
Yes, that's a great recommendation. This is what the reference note in Flowtelic is supposed to be, so you record that once, then you can see all the notes you've made from it.
I am still a bit confused at the literature note / permanent note part.
I've written a fleeting note on for example data modeling. It is basically a summary of a web article of IBM.
On each heading of this summary I've written what I believe to be literature notes.
For example: There is a header called "Types of Data Models".
One of the 3 types is: "Conceptual Data Model". I wrote a note about it with my understanding of that type of data model.
It is a short note with an image to illustrate it.
I wrote short notes of all the 3 types capturing my understanding, in a short and concise way.
I was then wondering, maybe I've skipped a step and I immediately made a permanent note?
As I've already captured a single idea that I could potentially link with other notes.
But then again what is a literature note then? Is a literature note then a larger note where I rewrite my fleeting note but then in my own words?
Thank you for this great video! I immediately subscribed to your channel as you deserve way more subscribers and views!
Excellent question!
So when you start out, literature notes will feel a bit redundant as they will look a lot like permanent notes. The main thinking here is that a literature notes are a set of atomic notes from a single piece of material you've studied (e.g. the fleeting notes from a web article). They are in your own words, pose the questions to test your understanding, challenge the thinking of the material, etc. You should be able to take one of these notes and it should make sense in isolation, with links to other notes to fill in any foundational material or continuation material (notes that build on this understanding).
So, permanent notes is where those literature notes move into your master body of notes in the slip box. To do that, you need to figure out how best they slot in. So now, you need to consider whether they still hold true when compared against previous things you've studied. You need to think how it relates to previous notes you made. As you start to slot it in, you can spot interesting patterns and create connecting notes (the connected thinking part of the Zettelkasten). For example, you might want to consider data modelling against data security, or distributed computing, or blockchain, or performance, or mutation of the data model, or concurrent editing of the data model. None of that would be in the original article, but as you consider it against your permanent notes, you strengthen your overall understanding. You can create joining notes between two other ones and create new insights. That's the exciting part of the Zettelkasten in my opinion.
I hope that helps. We have a community site where you can ask more deeper questions and get feedback from others as well, so feel free to join in. Community: go.meda.io/community
Signup link: meda.io/community/join
Would the question you ask yourself be in the form of a fleeting note, the presentation was good but I had few questions. If I purchase a book is there a community of owners I can ask questions to?
My book Atomic Note-Taking covers everything from the ground up. So any open questions you have you would start these as fleeting notes, but as you move this into your slip box, they can become their own open questions with relationships to other notes that help answer them. This concept is covered in the book.
As for a community, I do host one here, but it’s relatively quiet at the moment. Free to join if you buy the book or not.
meda.io/community/join
Hey martin great video, i'm a medical student and having a hardtime to study from 2 main source such as lecture slides from powerpoint and textbook. Do you have any suggestion on how i can use obsidian fleeting notes to permanent notes, or just straight up to permanent notes? Thanks really helpfull video!!!
Thanks and great question. My thinking is that if you go straight to permanent notes, you might start ‘copying’ the source material in there and not fill engage with thinking about it. You want to consider its relationship with other notes, write it so *you* understand it. This process helps strengthen your memory and understanding.
However, the end process should be a set of atomic notes which you can add to over time and use for studying. If you achieve that, I think you’re going along the right path.
Hope that helps and good luck with the studies!
@@Martin_Adams thanks alot for that. One more question, which source should i learn first, the powerpoint slides or the textbook so i can write my fleeting notes?
@@duketimi5397 i think its better to have a general view at first, then deep dive into details, because it help to connect diffrent aspects of the text.
For example, before reading a textbook, its usefull to read a bit about everything. Table of content, first paragraph of every chapter, first line of each section, pictures and charts and examples and ask questions of yourself about diffrent aspects of that datas.
It will make you curious about the text, then in next turn of reading you can read book much easier
@@AK-ox3mv aight thanks
Can this be applied to technical books? Say I want to remember some protocol. Surely by the time I get to the Permanent Note, it'll just be the protocol and it's mechanisms/functions...?
Yes, I used this to technique to learn DevOps. What is really helpful is linking the right things together so they are easily discoverable. One such example is how I can extract SSL certificates out of a cert bot Kubernetes deployment using the kubectl command line. I can link them in the relevant places to easily discover just what I need at the right time. I find that my permanent notes are a mix of step by step instruction-e.g. tutorials (great if you want to blog it later) and higher level explanations of why it is done a certain way. An example of the latter might be a style guide to help you write React component, manage state, etc. If you're working with a team, it s a great way for them to skill up with how your project works. This is something I want to explore more about using the technique to learn programming languages, frameworks and technologies.
With regards to fleeting notes, this might be your raw notes from a tutorial. Your literature notes might be the early draft of your own interpretation, adaption, etc, and the permanent notes might be the final version of those, all cleaned up and easy to digest on it's own with references to other notes that help answer any questions that may arise.
How would you go about archiving your fleeting notes?
Good question. I like having them stored in their own folder away from permanent notes. Then I would use a hashtag to manage the status, such as #status/todo, #status/done. That way I can find the ones I’ve processed or not. Then when linking my permanent notes, I do it within the permanent notes folder so they don’t get in the way.
Great explanation but there is still one thing I am not clear on... how exactly do you 'bidirectional link' different notes? Obviously this is where the strength of the digital systems are but you still need some kind of a category list (a pretty large one if you have a lot of interrelated topics) to be able to relate different notes.
Assuming a physical zettelkasten, what would you use as a linking system to relate the different cards? I would think this is different than just a simple index of your note card subjects? You have to update all related note cards with a link to a new card? Does that (typically) go on the back of the card? Seems like it could be a long list! None of the videos I have seen describe this linking system in detail... so I am left with just a box of notes that are in chronological order and no way to relate between the two.
Thanks!
Hey Hank. Great question.
So my exploration has used digital note-taking, so the linking can be done within the notes and you don't need to manage the numbers or updating references. You can number your notes with 12-digit timestamp if you want, e.g. 202001010000 and prefix that in your notes. I personally don't like the visual clutter of this, but it's handy to know which one specifically you're referring to if it's a generically named note.
Now, for your other observation. The indexes should be left to what's called a Map of Content (MoC), which are often organised by topic. So I might have an MoC for topics like, Mindset, Psychology, Stoicism, etc.
But when it comes to the individual notes, you want it to convey one single idea, which can be understood in isolation. And example of this might be something like "Grit is a learnable trait". In this note I might say something like:
"Research shows that grit is not something that is a natural talent, but an adopted personality trait which comes from perseverance and passion"
That might be the full contents of the atomic note. What I would then do is add to my links here things like the following:
1. A study that concludes the research on grit
2. Where it is believed that grit is an natural talent
3. Different personality traits that support a gitty nature
4. What perseverance is (this might even be a MoC on the whole subject)
5. What passion (again, might be a MoC)
With those references, it now means that if I'm looking at any of those other notes, such as "personality traits", I can see that I've thought about it in the context of grid, and can start asking questions with these in mind. Things like:
1. How many personality traits indicate a gritty behaviour
2. Can you change your personality traits to be more gritty
3. Can you spot if someone has a gitty personality
4. Can you spot if someone doesn't have a gritty personality
I hope that gives a bit of insight into how to link your notes together. This would be a great question to dive into in a future video.
@@Martin_Adams
Excellent! Thank you for such a fast and detailed response!
So, if I am understanding you, as you add your note 'Research shows that grit...' you update your MoC (or several Maps) at the relevant connecting subjects and add the unique identifier for the Grit note? So you might add your grit note identifier to the MoC at 'Talent', 'Personality Traits', 'Perseverance', and 'Passion'? That makes a lot of sense! I was stuck picturing more of a flat index that was being updated and couldn't wrap my head around how that would produce insights.
I think I get it now, thanks. I am going to research different content mapping strategies and, yes, if you did a video on this (specifically in reference to Zettelkastens) I would definitely be interested! :)
@@Hank254 Thanks Hank. Yes, I think you’ve got it. And yes, this would be a great idea for a video.
How do you link cards? Do you number the three types of notes independently (F1, L1, P1), or chronologically (1, 2, 3)?
Right now my prefered way of linking notes is more 'conversational' in a rather freeform way. For example I might have a note titled "How running makes you happier" and outline my thoughts on such a topic. It has limitations though, especially when studying material which has a natural sequence of notes.
It's an area I'm exploring more and have been working on a video around the folgezettel part of the Zettelkasten. The idea here is that you can create continuation notes with a numbering system, e.g. 1, 2, 3, but you can insert a note using alternating number/letter, so you could have 1, 1a, 2, 3. It's taken from the way you would do it on physical index cards and not have to rewrite subsequent numbers when creating a sequence of notes.
As for applying this in say Obsidian, I'm still figuring that out. I want to consider it more completely in Flowtelic as well, so it's a bit of a work in progress. It's an area which I think could differentiate Flowtelic from other note-taking apps and have some really exciting things I want to prototype to see if it works.
@@Martin_Adams thanks so much for the response. I just started out, and I figured at the moment, the numbering system doesn't work for me, since I am still getting my bearings together. I'll love to see how you evolve your method!
I feel like I'm not getting one thing. Why the literature note then connecting to the permanent note? Couldn't you go right to the permanent note from the fleeting note?
You can if you want. But when you get deeper into the process and you have hundreds of permanent notes that already exist. If you are trying to understand what new material (like a book) is really saying, then the literature notes is like a sandbox you can play in to make sure you properly understand it. Only after you understand it, do you connect it to what you have previously learned in your permanent notes. The reason for this is to help avoid any confirmation biases or contractions that get in the way.
I cover this a lot in my Atomic Note-Taking book.
Here’s an example from the book. If you had read about wizards and made lots of notes about it, and your learning came from Harry Potter, then you would have an understanding of it through that lens.
Then if you start to read about wizards from Lord of the Rings, you’d continually have to keep comparing it to Harry Potter before you’ve had the chance to fully understand what Lord of the Rings wizards are like. You’d have confirmation bias, it would slow you down and you would probably miss important key details and ideas.
Using literature notes for you understanding of just your fleeting notes in isolation helps free you up to entertain different points of view, contradictory points of view of other things you read, and help you make sure you understand what the author was saying before you decide if you agree. You only make that decision when it comes to your permanent notes.
Of course, doing it this way has a trade off of taking more effort. But at least you’ll understand what compromises you may be making if you go right to your permanent notes.
@@Martin_Adams Great explanation. Thanks!
lets say ur learning networking, linux, windows server (tech topics in college). How do you take notes with getting lost in the details. Wouldn't it be hard to study for a midterm or quiz bc how do u find the relevant notes? I usually just do linear notes and copying the slides when the teacher talks because its all sequential and theirs usually a certain way to something. it either works or it doesnt. most tutorial are not focus on the tech topics and more on the "creative" side
The way I approach this is using Index Notes (or Maps of Content). They are outlines of your notes that achieve a specific goal. So if you have to study for a specific midterm, you can create an index note that includes just the relevant notes you want to study for. This means you don't really need to worry about all the unrelated notes in your system.
Personally I do like to separate out my tech notes (e.g. code snippets, how-to guides) and my non-fiction notes (productivity, health, business books etc). So I would have one vault for tech and another for non-fiction. I'm more likely to want to consider notes about productivity to health, or business. But I'm unlikely to link a note about exercise to a tech note.
But yeah, I would create index notes to be your revision guides that links to all the sub notes you need.
Just remember, the notes aren't really just a place to store the lecturer's slides, but more of your deeper understanding and thinking on the topic. By writing things in your own words do you get to develop a better internal recall of that concept. Your lecturer notes would generally be the fleeting notes (which can of course be longer notes). Only when you process them to the literature then permanent notes do they get broken down into the atomic notes.
Do you recommend deleting Fleeting Notes after being processed into Literature Notes or Permanent Notes ?
I don't any more. I like to keep them there and have your literature and permanent notes reference your fleeting notes. Generally you'll find your fleeting notes reference the original material you've researched. So having that full audit chain of original text, to notes, to ideas in your Zettelkasten means you can keep on top of where your ideas are originating from. That's just my personal preference. You could archive them in some way though so it doesn't clutter up your app, but being able to follow the reference chain can be helpful, especially if you need to cite your courses in an publication of some sort.
Can it happen that from a Feeting note you create a literature note, but it does not have space in your permanent notes yet?
Yeah, I’d the note is already covered but you feel doesn’t add any value then it can be discarded from making it to your permanent notes
I'm missing something. How, exactly, are notes 'bi-directionally linked'? I can't see how this happens, so I cannot see how I can find them. Please clarify.
It's probably worth watching the whole video, but this section demonstrates how to make linked notes using Obsidian. ua-cam.com/video/ziE6UExsOrs/v-deo.html
Another example is using my own app Flowtelic where you can link notes together:
ua-cam.com/video/cMuFV8U3Lug/v-deo.html
The bi-directional aspect is where you have a view of what other notes are linking to the note you're looking at. Obsidian has a backlinks view panel that expands on the right and Flowtelic has them in the Stack view which can be shown on the application view menu in the top left.
Firstly, let me say that this is by far one of the best explanations of a rather involved concept.
As I went through this video I became lost right after your explanation of permanent notes. You start to talk about linking notes but you are not saying what kind of notes you are linking and producing. IOW, if you had perhaps made better use of color (for an example) to distinguish the different kinds of notes it might have been more clear. I think the point of confusion is the idea of a "note type". This problem surfaces again in your other video where you get into your MOCs. Is MOC a new note type that is part of the Xettelkasten method, or a kind of control or navigation structure layered on top of the ZC system? Is it an index into the highest level of concept or an outline of a prospective blog post? I think what you are suggesting is that you first produce three note types to capture the material and in the second part you begin a process of creating new material. I guess you are producing new permanent notes as you analyze the existing permanent notes you took from this reading, and previous, permanent notes you created from other research. Or are you saying that you are defining a new note type -- or several new note types -- related to the process of writing?
One commenter here requested that you use an example related to his interest in technology. I think I felt something similar. I got very confused when you went on about crocodiles. I think it might be helpful if you create an example of something so trivial and simple that no one has to fight to keep your example from confusing the point you are making. When I was looking into task management systems, for example, I made myself a dead simple "project" to see how the systems might work and if it made sense to me. (My sample project was "build a bird house". That is trivial but contains all of the ideas that need to be managed for any project, from the simplest to the most complex. As I learned each new system or app, I quickly surfaced the underlying problems when I could not easily manage my bird house project, For one thing, most systems designers don't understand how projects relate to sub projects and tasks. The failure to make those distinctions render the system they are selling ineffective.) My point being that I don't think that you need a particular application to make your idea clear, but rather that you need a contrived simple example. One that is so simple that it does not distract from understanding your process, in the abstract. Something that does not require dangerous reptiles! :-)
Again, thanks for your work in explaining this. The Zettelkasten system is puzzling in one odd way. It really makes more sense if one uses a bunch in index cards in boxes and LESS sense when trying to use technology. More is not always better. ;-)
Thank you for the feedback and sorry about the crocodiles. It's valuable to hear how the video comes across as it helps me spot the pain points in future videos which I can simplify the explanations. I want to go through more simple examples in future videos so we really get to the understanding of what's going on. It's a process to improve the teaching and again, your feedback is really valuable.
Could this be used for just learning new things
New skills 😊
Absolutely! I even used it to help me learn Blender 3D, by creating small atomic notes for each 'thing' I wanted to do.
@@Martin_Adams oh okay so create “topics” you want to learn an go through the process of finding the information.
So when you found something you just implemented it into your daily life?
@@panashephiri1912 yeah, that can work. You can link notes across topics if it’s helpful. Give it a go and once you get a feel for it, you can think of ways to change it if it’s not quite right.
When you discover a new insight, do you file it in with permanent notes ? or a different folder ? How best to easily recall all the original insights you came up with ?
For now, i've figured out a solution. I use dataview and frontmatter (yaml), and then i can tag the note with "insight" or similar. Then I can search/browse for matching notes later. Also works for "TODO" tags :)
Yeah, that works really well. Another thing you can do it use nested tags to scope the type of notes. Something like #type/insight
What is slip box? Permanent notes location?
Yeah. Slip box is the name of the ‘storage container’ for your notes. The word Zettelkasten is German for slip-box, and before the computerisation of note taking, would be a box to contain the notes written out if 6”x4” cards. So today we refer to it as where you put your permanent notes.
I think "Literature" in "Literature Notes" isn't referring to the source material. It's called that because it's your own words and writing; it's your own literature. ^_^
Everyone say use short, small notes but no body actually use this practice....
Yep. You have to find what works for you. I do try to keep my notes short, but at least they're not multi-chapter documents.
V
I think the whole idea of "single idea" is very flawed. Ideas in a book or an article often don´t stand by themselves. They make sense in connection to a number of other ideas that flow throughout the book. Think of a book that talks about a single case, or example. Are you gonna repeat that important case/example to all your Zettels to make them sufficient?
Not sure I fully follow the specific details of what you’re saying so apologies if I’m off the mark. The way I see it is exactly what you described, a book or article is a collection of ideas that form a coherent narrative-they make sense in the connection to a number of ideas that flow throughout the book. That’s no different to individual notes being connected to form a coherent narrative. The difference here is that in a slip-box, you’re not forced to see it through the lens of a single book or article, but you can make connections across multiple directions. An example would be,
a note about mindset could be connected to psychology, business, fitness-where the same idea holds true but in the context of different narratives. I personally wouldn’t repeat all the foundational information in each Zettel, but I’d link it if it was crucial to backtrack my understanding of what underpins the insight. I like the idea that each note IS a single idea, written so you can comprehend its argument in isolation, but is related to other notes so you can either dig deeper or back up the justification of the note.
@@Martin_Adams
Assume you are reading a book. The book starts with a single example or proposal in the first chapter. The rest of the chapters are elaborations that single core proposal.
Now, my issue is, how can I produce a zettel, that is singular in idea, which doesn´t refer to that single proposal of the book.
Am I gonna repeat that core proposal on each zettel I will produce by reading the book? If I have to do that, it would be redundant. The alternative is to leave that core proposal out, in which case, the zettel would lack context and would make little sense.
My point is: yes, writing notes of a SINGLE idea is theoretically attractive. But, it is impossible to achieve in most situations; or need to put a lot of work into it, in this case, would lose the purpose. Ideas are connected, and the connection is often much more complicated. Singling out an idea into a discrete single zettel file is often very difficult, if not impossible.
What's the biggest fear here, is it that you'll read a note and it wont make any sense because you're missing the core concept? In that case I would like to the core concept, encapsulate that as a high level note and then keep my zettel a single idea. Let's take an example, the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. The core concept is that some people have a fixed mindset and some people have a growth mindset. I would then create related notes with the next layer down in the understanding here, such as:
1. Fixed mindset can be a learned trait based on how we are praised
2. People with a fixed mindset are more likely to cheat to pass an exam rather than those with a growth mindset (link to study)
3. People with a fixed mindset are more likely not attempt challenges if they believe they cannot succeed (link to study)
4. People with a growth mindset compare their ability to their own progress
5. People with a growth mindset never judge their self worth and can objectively identify the areas they need to practice
In that example, I would have about 6 notes, link the 5 sub notes to the core concept of the book. Now, when I want to talk about mindset and challenges, I might take note 3, understand it in isolation and have the links to see it in the context of the bigger picture.
I'm really interested learn what I'm not getting with your perspective here. Do you have an example of where you feel the Zetteklasten approach wouldn't work? At the end of the day, it's just one approach and isn't the right approach for everyone.
Sounds to me like you're trying to add a bit more info into your ZK than you really need. If you can extract valuable ideas/observations/anything out of those elaboration chapters -- add it into a separate zettel (and link with anything relevant in your ZK). Otherwise, what's the point?
"Before your human part of your brain kicks in" (4:32). I gently disagree that the life form that is you and me is an animal and becomes a human only through thinking. The life form that is you and me *is* human. It behaves often like an animal, and ocassionally a bit smarter. But it's not only sometimes human. It *is* human.
Yeah the terminology was simplified as it's an area I want to study more so I wouldn't take it too literally. The 'human part of the brain' is really the logically processing part that can store new memories, which is often switched off when we are in a flight or fight response. Which means it's important to have those memories stored before a flight or fight situation as you're not going to be able to think clearly in a stressful situation. That's the thinking around it and by no means a complete or even fully accurate picture of it. But I'm happy to see that the mention of it got you thinking!
Your sign up form 404's. Great video though! Thank you.
Oh weird. I’ve checked the link just now and it seems to work. Does it 404 if you type it manually?
@@Martin_Adams The form is fine and appears but when I entered my name and pressed return it 404'd. Let me try again. Thank you so much.
works fine now. I was probably trying to be clever and busted it. Clearly I am not. LOL :-)
@@surjist Very strange. I just tried it now and it worked. I wonder if you have an extension or ad-blocker that is thinking it shouldn't be allowed is running.
@@Martin_Adams Yes, Mr. Angry Paranoid Old man has ,any many ad blockers that are probably doing the opposite :-) That and also i have a weird packet error with my router. Regardless, really looking forward to your software.