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siiky
2022/08/10
2022/08/11
en
I started almost a year ago (damn!) using Org Roam to finally try and organize my notes and random things I write. I heard about zettelkasten I don't even remember whence anymore, but it stuck with me. I spent a couple of weeks learning more about it, searching for (software) systems, &c, until I finally settled on Org Roam. As a Vim user this was a very... interesting experience! But let's leave that for another day.
When does a Zettelkasten become useful?
Here, my notes are basically a structure-note for every big topic linking to structure-notes of every sub-topic linking to the actual information that sometimes links back to already learned information, but not from other subjects. The problem here is, that this is easily converted to a linear note structure, (...)
(...)
To basically summarize what I (believe) am doing differently in my Zettelkasten, I emphasize on collecting the information in a way I understand and is easy to search instead of linking the notes to create new ideas. Maybe the word "wiki" might be closer to what I am doing, but as I was starting off with the idea of creating a Zettelkasten, this word has stuck for now.
After reading both posts, I guess what I'm doing is more like a wiki too. I have a page/file for a topic usually, where I write about it and how it relates to other topics. I tried opening some random notes just now (in Doom: SPC n r a) and like 5 in a row were pretty much useless. Some of these were created during the first few days, when I was kind of filling it up with whatever came to mind, kind of trying things out. Reflecting on how I use it too (more next) in retrospect it makes sense now that opening random notes doesn't prove too informative or interesting.
So much thought and energy went into organizing and maintaining a sensible structure that it became kind of unwieldy and was ultimately not very flexible.
I sometimes feel this too, especially for larger pages it can become a yak shaving activity -- "would it be better if I laid things out this way or that way?" And whichever way I choose I lose, it's never the right one, because every time I come back to the page I get that same feeling, that maybe it's still not just right...
It seems to me that one reason people will tend to impose structure in a zettelkasten-like system is that they are digesting information that is already structured. It seems like it would make sense to replicate that structure---that it would be useful---especially, as Schmiddi suggests, if the point of the lecture you are attending is for students to replicate its contents.
Some of my most comprehensive and useful files are on Petri nets, and they exactly fit the description of this paragraph. I wrote these notes while reading the papers. Sometimes I would pause reading to take note or transcribe something directly on the computer, other times I would take note somewhere (a notebook or the paper itself) and later transcribe to the appropriate file. In general, the material wasn't adapted very much from the original text.
mieum clearly knows their zettelkasten shit better than I do. After reading their post it became apparent to me that my "zettelkasten" isn't that great quality. Even so! Not all is lost! I'm using Org mode after all. This took me a long while to get familiar with but damn, all the praise people throw at it is well deserved.
I use it for pretty much everything I want to document for myself now. Pages I want to read/write about, books/videos/movies/series I want to read/watch, events with notes available right there, &c, &c. Everything that isn't in this capsule, or paper notebooks that I'll never pick up again, is in there. I have a significant collection of Org Roam files now. When I want to search for something I can, and I usually find what I'm looking for. Things are tagged liberally (I had this insight early on luckily). I have URLs to external sources, associated files (PDFs, images, audio files, &c), my own notes, quotes, code sometimes, ... Everything!
I may be a hoarder, but I think this is great! It's a lot better than my previous approach of writing random things in whichever random paper notebook is closest (I have 4 or 5 of these spread all over the place) and never getting around to re-read and transcribe it into some more organized notes system.
(BTW I have 714 files as of now, the first created on 2021/08/28 22:42:02 and the latest on 2022/08/09 17:13:50 according to their filenames)
The other reason I find is that people don't fully trust their tools, or their tools are cumbersome enough to inhibit a freer interaction with the zettelkasten, so it feels like structure is necessary to access or retrieve all the information it contains.
This is an interesting thought. Yeah, it may be that I don't trust the zettelkasten system and that leads me to try and organize monolithic notes from the start. But if that's the case (me not trusting it) I think it's more likely because I haven't used it correctly, rather than because I don't believe it works. I've thought about this in the past, even before and after settling on Org Roam: maybe I'm losing something for trying to use the zettelkasten system in a computer. It's so easy to put anything in (SPC n r f); I'm not forced to think about what I'm putting in; and I can always edit it later!
I wonder if I should start one with pen&paper.