Zettelkasten Method

Created: 2020-09-28T21:06:18+00:00

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• A zettelkasten is basically a "card file."
• It replaces the concept of a citation manager.
• Academics use "citation managers" to track things they've read while writing dissertations. They also tend to dispose of these records once the paper is published.
• Zettelkastens are not disposed of after a work is complete; it is a life-long system for organizing and re-reviewing notes.

• You make cards for important things you have read (e-mails, interviews, books.)
• You can make cards to group other cards (Quinn calls these "hubs.")
• You also make cards when making conclusions from other cards; these reference the original cards as well.

• In a physical card file there are "addressing systems" where cards have unique labels and counters on them.
• In a digital card file you can often just let the computer insert a unique identifier for you and not worry about it.

TODO point out how this also helps with classical trivium

Software

• You primarily want note software that lets you do full text searching.
• Ideally you do not even want to have to deal with naming cards; the content should be sufficient to find anything. If it is not then take better notes.

nvALT for Macs

QOwnNotes for Windows, Linux

deft-mode for emacs

notdeft-mode for emacs

There are other fancy tools like "The Brain" (and its emacs analogue org-brain,) or "Roam" (and its emacs analogue org-roam.) You might be interested in looking at those if you need something fancier.

In an ideal world you would use an outliner to write your cards instead of plain-text, but we do not live in that ideal world and outlining software is all but dead.