👌12:25 The goal of Zettlekasten is to express knowledge (in your own words) and use it to publish. Zettlekwsten is NOT for collecting and organizing information
Your stipulation is accentuating Ramella's quote, but it is a fallacy. A Zettelkasten is a slip box: it can be empty = no cards it can be filled with unwritten cards = tabula rasa it can be (partly) filled with written cards = captured information If you take a look at the atomic notes below, your brains will recognise the abbreviations. storage_BASB-Building-A-Second-Brain-(Forte,-Tiago) storage_BASB.CODE-capture-organise-distill-express storage_BASB.PARA-project-area-resource-archive If you read CODE it contains the steps before you can express/publish. A slip box is always organised. Just like Tony Ramalla Niklas Luhmann had a poor memory, he overcame this by using his numbering method in the organization and distillation phase of his card indexes. The principle of connecting cards by this numbering method should be denoted as Folgezetteling-process. Niklas Luhmann said: "The fixed filing place needs no system. It is sufficient that we give every slip a number which is easily seen (in or case on the left of the first line) and that we never change this number and thus the fixed place of the slip." Niklas Luhmann, Communicating with Slip Boxes An Empirical Account luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes Conclusion: the organisation of Luhmanns slip boxes is numbering.
Yeah - it took me a while to reconcile Vicky Zhao and Nick Milo's similar approaches on linking notes. Short version is that they were trying to put frameworks on the relationship of how notes were connected (builds upon, reminds me of... etc.). For me, I just need the link. Since it's my zettlekasten, the relationship is self-intuitive.
Your understanding of "atomic notes" is different from mine. I understand it not as "atomic power", but "indivisible atom"-- a single core idea. Would you say that indivisible notes are a key component of a ZK system?
Thank you so much for making this video! You finally enabled me to delete those useless "atomic notes" that were one sentence each and I had no idea what to do with them (causing more confusion than clarity...). My book-notes however are thriving and I often have cross-topic questions popping up in me, so those are doing their job. As for the Zettelkasten compass - yes, it is a conglomeration of two different concepts: one, the Zettelkasten, and two, an "idea compass" where you take your "atomic note" and ask four different type of questions: where does X come from? is North, what is similar to X? is West, what is opposite of X? is East, and where does X lead? is South. Apparently, it should enhance link creation because you are actively linking your "atomic notes" together.
I’m so glad this helped! I have never heard of this idea to make your notes a few sentences but I don’t understand why that would even be necessary. The compass concept sounds like an interesting tool to get you thinking about where a note is placed in your zk, but something like that would be used in place of cataloging your sequenced notes with unique IDs which is a core feature of zk (although optional in a digital context). I think a lot of it comes down to digital zk being relatively new and everyone’s still trying to figure out what works best, but my approach is to do what you can to get closer to the Luhmann way that has stood the test of time rather than innovating zk into a more relative methodology. There is an underestimated amount of flexibility in the Luhmann way and the limitations enhance that flexibility rather than hinder it. The system is neither rigid or fluid, but rough. Or as Luhmann called it, chaotic order.
🙋♂️Hi Tony! This is a common problem when trying to learn something from various sources. The person or persons read the original material and may interpret it either in the wrong way or make their on conclusions of what was originally author intended. Thus making it somewhat confusing in the eyes of those trying to learn the subject-matter. Kudos from NYC.🗽
Yes, thank you for your comment. I suppose the problem may be that everyone is getting their information from Ahrens and he never gives any clear instructions on how to actually build a zk. So I can understand why everyone has their own interpretation of his book. One book that helped me gain a much better understanding of how it works is Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott Scheper. Its very anti-digital zk but understanding the principles of the analog box gives a much clearer understanding of how to build one digitally.
I can attest that Vicky's compass system was confusing in practice. I think the idea was something like: North: link to whats similar to this note East: link to what notes lead to this note West: link to what notes this idea leads to South: what notes are the opposite of this note "South" can be hard to conceptualize for a lot of topics. And East/West/North mostly work if you've already got notes, so if you're starting out it's a heuristic that slows you down. For math notes, since that's adjacent to what the reddit OP is saying this doesn't work for, I have an "atomic" note for every theorem summarized in my own words plus the original definition. These are then linked to all the axioms and theorems required to get to this point, followed by a link to a dedicated "non-atomic" note for the proof of the theorem in case I want that for reference. When I'm not feeling lazy I go in and add the backlinks in the actual text of the previous "atomic" note. Nearly every idea in math, and likely economics, comes from combining a bunch of already proven stuff to create new stuff. Assignments in University-level math are almost always just "let me comb through the ideas we were taught and see which ones lead to the solution".
I kind of liked reading Ahrens` book. You just shouldn´t take it too seriously. The confusion and pain that seems to get more and more prevalent in the community are largely due to him. Also, just go with pen and paper and forget all these fancy programs. That´s what Luhmann did.
I didn't understand zk until I went the analog route as well. To be clear I quite enjoyed Ahrens book and I think much of the confusion is due to the fact that its not exactly written as an instructional book on how to build a zettelkasten.
I have to be honest with you. You just found a very confused (but articulated) person who wrote this post under fight or flight stress mode and hoped to find a quick solution for his/her current issues (preferably not working at all for his/her system or process of note taking). Basically, a child. I can see that you are smart and pragmatic, focused on end goal. Many of the TH-camrs are in love with developing the most complex systems which in real life stand no chance. Vicky Zhao is a very coherent TH-camr and she is pragmatic too. She combined (and mentioned that is not part of Zettelkasten) multiple things that helped her expand her knowledge, one of them is Idea Compass (4 questions to expand on something you thought about) which can be used or not. I guess is up to everyone to distill the best info. And is also their responsibility to make it theirs. If you want to make a public service, develop a basic Zettelkasten video and then add to it what worked for you. It would be of great help. All the best! P.S. Great channel! I subscribed.
@@cocoxborde thank you for sharing your insights my friend. I actually plan to upload my next video on how I use a digital zettelkasten. The public service I offer is a free download of my vault which is continuously updated by adding more simplicity rather than complexity. It does require some explaining because no vault can teach you the systems thinking that is required to understand its pragmatic usage. Thanks for subscribing!
I sense a lot of confusion here and elsewhere around the question of just what is an atomic note. I find the concept of an information unit from Information Mapping to be helpful in building my Zettelkasten. IM is content development methodology that is widely used in the technical writing domain. In IM, the basic element of content is the information unit, also called a block. Blocks have the following qualities: - A block is a manageable chunk of related information that answers one primary question or addresses one main idea. - The block is clearly labelled to identify the idea or what question is being answered. - The block contains a single information type (fact, concept, structure, procedure, process, principle). - The block is presented in the most appropriate method for the content. The basic presentation methods are: text (one or more sentences), list, table, graphic, multimedia. In IM, these blocks (information units, topics) are organized into information maps, which is essentially a printed-page methodology for linking related topics. I'm not going to go into a full discourse on Information Mapping here, but I think this might provide some food for thought around the concept of "atomic notes."
I completely understand the concept and value of an atomic note, my point here is that you don't approach writing every note with the goal of making it atomic. I am saying that atomicity happens organically. Trying to impose atomicity on any given note creates unnecessary friction and lead to endless refactoring of the initial "atomic note", which is contrary to how ideas are developed and catalogued in a traditional zk. IM is very useful for technical writing and if that is your primary output for your notes, then I can understand the incentive to create atomic notes as informational units is beneficial. But if that involves refactoring, deleting and editing existing notes for any reason, this is a complete departure from zettelkasten and becomes something entirely new, which only bears some slight resemblance to the traditional system. A large part of the value the zk provides is not just the interlinking, but having ideas catalogued in the sequences they emerged. Having a big web of links without the structure of branched sequential thoughts is closer to a personal wikipedia than a zettelkasten.
I agree to a large extent with your thoughts about atomicity happening organically. I think Athens demonstrates that organic process when he discusses Luhman's reference notes. The reference note starts out as a collection of ideas, questions, and so on from a source. Then as you understand or process this material, you may create "main" notes from those initial reference notes as appropriate. For me, the value of the IM concepts comes in helping me create those main notes "atomistically." I also strongly agree that a big web of links without some structure is not particularly generative. It's just large scale info capture which is the mistake so many people make (myself included at times) when they start out with their PKMs.
The Zettelkasten-principle did not work for you. The Zettelkasten-method itself is not a battlefield: scientist versus scholar versus layman. You understand the Zettelkast-method (10:08), but you have yet not discovered to incorporate economics into this method. Deduction: how to learn economics or how learn to learn? Time is a parameter when you study, this implies that the depth of connections in a slipbox should limited. The maximum is three steps. Just take a glance ar Zsolt pkm Sun Ray to get an idea. Leave the index card, take a folio or A3. In middle of this leaf you put your Harrod-Domar-model. Draw two axes to imitate Zhao's compas. The north is knowledge and the south refllections and connextions. Now you can sketchnote/mind map the economic model. The left-upper is place of the tacit, prior knowledge. Decompose the model in coefficients (0.5), parameters and unities (IS=LM) and ceteris paribus. These are your atomic notes (concept and its description). The right-upper is the room for the expected/future knowledge: the calculations and the result. The left-under is the place of reflection: why could i make or make not this calculation(s)? Do not forget to register your mood. The right-under is the chamber to register the connections. This model belongs to this mouvement/school (keynesian, chicago, wiener); this model is a part, that is incorporated in an other model ect. This workflow is the result of reading of your sentences (11:01): "Consider something like Harrod Domar growth model ... (an idea = a chapter) ... You cannot divide it (models) into ideas, it takes much more time doing so." Reverse engineering: economic models are built on the foundation of ideas. IS = LM - the production sector and the money system are bidirectional linked to force each other in an equilibrium. Conclusion: a formula can be written in words and ideas. Just work with paper and pen, collect all the folios and review in them in the summer of 2025 and the Zettelkasten will reemerge, because you understand the inside of your economic field much better. Good luck, Tony. Book Passion
Enroll in Zettelkasten Mastery to start publishing with your notes: flowlabs.co/zettelkasten
What I learned was that ZK was not too great to study for exam but ideal for research and knowledge development.
Another very good video, Tony. Thank you very much for your work.
👌12:25
The goal of Zettlekasten is to express knowledge (in your own words) and use it to publish.
Zettlekwsten is NOT for collecting and organizing information
Your stipulation is accentuating Ramella's quote, but it is a fallacy.
A Zettelkasten is a slip box:
it can be empty = no cards
it can be filled with unwritten cards = tabula rasa
it can be (partly) filled with written cards = captured information
If you take a look at the atomic notes below, your brains will recognise the abbreviations.
storage_BASB-Building-A-Second-Brain-(Forte,-Tiago)
storage_BASB.CODE-capture-organise-distill-express
storage_BASB.PARA-project-area-resource-archive
If you read CODE it contains the steps before you can express/publish.
A slip box is always organised.
Just like Tony Ramalla Niklas Luhmann had a poor memory,
he overcame this by using his numbering method in the organization and distillation phase of his card indexes.
The principle of connecting cards by this numbering method should be denoted as Folgezetteling-process.
Niklas Luhmann said:
"The fixed filing place needs no system.
It is sufficient that we give every slip a
number which is easily seen (in or case
on the left of the first line) and that we
never change this number and thus the
fixed place of the slip."
Niklas Luhmann, Communicating with Slip Boxes An Empirical Account
luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes
Conclusion: the organisation of Luhmanns slip boxes is numbering.
Yeah - it took me a while to reconcile Vicky Zhao and Nick Milo's similar approaches on linking notes. Short version is that they were trying to put frameworks on the relationship of how notes were connected (builds upon, reminds me of... etc.). For me, I just need the link. Since it's my zettlekasten, the relationship is self-intuitive.
Your understanding of "atomic notes" is different from mine. I understand it not as "atomic power", but "indivisible atom"-- a single core idea. Would you say that indivisible notes are a key component of a ZK system?
Thank you so much for making this video! You finally enabled me to delete those useless "atomic notes" that were one sentence each and I had no idea what to do with them (causing more confusion than clarity...). My book-notes however are thriving and I often have cross-topic questions popping up in me, so those are doing their job.
As for the Zettelkasten compass - yes, it is a conglomeration of two different concepts: one, the Zettelkasten, and two, an "idea compass" where you take your "atomic note" and ask four different type of questions: where does X come from? is North, what is similar to X? is West, what is opposite of X? is East, and where does X lead? is South. Apparently, it should enhance link creation because you are actively linking your "atomic notes" together.
I’m so glad this helped! I have never heard of this idea to make your notes a few sentences but I don’t understand why that would even be necessary.
The compass concept sounds like an interesting tool to get you thinking about where a note is placed in your zk, but something like that would be used in place of cataloging your sequenced notes with unique IDs which is a core feature of zk (although optional in a digital context).
I think a lot of it comes down to digital zk being relatively new and everyone’s still trying to figure out what works best, but my approach is to do what you can to get closer to the Luhmann way that has stood the test of time rather than innovating zk into a more relative methodology.
There is an underestimated amount of flexibility in the Luhmann way and the limitations enhance that flexibility rather than hinder it. The system is neither rigid or fluid, but rough. Or as Luhmann called it, chaotic order.
🙋♂️Hi Tony! This is a common problem when trying to learn something from various sources. The person or persons read the original material and may interpret it either in the wrong way or make their on conclusions of what was originally author intended. Thus making it somewhat confusing in the eyes of those trying to learn the subject-matter. Kudos from NYC.🗽
Yes, thank you for your comment. I suppose the problem may be that everyone is getting their information from Ahrens and he never gives any clear instructions on how to actually build a zk. So I can understand why everyone has their own interpretation of his book. One book that helped me gain a much better understanding of how it works is Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott Scheper. Its very anti-digital zk but understanding the principles of the analog box gives a much clearer understanding of how to build one digitally.
I can attest that Vicky's compass system was confusing in practice. I think the idea was something like:
North: link to whats similar to this note
East: link to what notes lead to this note
West: link to what notes this idea leads to
South: what notes are the opposite of this note
"South" can be hard to conceptualize for a lot of topics. And East/West/North mostly work if you've already got notes, so if you're starting out it's a heuristic that slows you down.
For math notes, since that's adjacent to what the reddit OP is saying this doesn't work for, I have an "atomic" note for every theorem summarized in my own words plus the original definition. These are then linked to all the axioms and theorems required to get to this point, followed by a link to a dedicated "non-atomic" note for the proof of the theorem in case I want that for reference. When I'm not feeling lazy I go in and add the backlinks in the actual text of the previous "atomic" note.
Nearly every idea in math, and likely economics, comes from combining a bunch of already proven stuff to create new stuff. Assignments in University-level math are almost always just "let me comb through the ideas we were taught and see which ones lead to the solution".
I kind of liked reading Ahrens` book. You just shouldn´t take it too seriously. The confusion and pain that seems to get more and more prevalent in the community are largely due to him. Also, just go with pen and paper and forget all these fancy programs. That´s what Luhmann did.
I didn't understand zk until I went the analog route as well. To be clear I quite enjoyed Ahrens book and I think much of the confusion is due to the fact that its not exactly written as an instructional book on how to build a zettelkasten.
This helped a lot im new to this too.
I have to be honest with you. You just found a very confused (but articulated) person who wrote this post under fight or flight stress mode and hoped to find a quick solution for his/her current issues (preferably not working at all for his/her system or process of note taking). Basically, a child.
I can see that you are smart and pragmatic, focused on end goal. Many of the TH-camrs are in love with developing the most complex systems which in real life stand no chance.
Vicky Zhao is a very coherent TH-camr and she is pragmatic too. She combined (and mentioned that is not part of Zettelkasten) multiple things that helped her expand her knowledge, one of them is Idea Compass (4 questions to expand on something you thought about) which can be used or not.
I guess is up to everyone to distill the best info. And is also their responsibility to make it theirs.
If you want to make a public service, develop a basic Zettelkasten video and then add to it what worked for you. It would be of great help.
All the best!
P.S. Great channel! I subscribed.
@@cocoxborde thank you for sharing your insights my friend. I actually plan to upload my next video on how I use a digital zettelkasten. The public service I offer is a free download of my vault which is continuously updated by adding more simplicity rather than complexity. It does require some explaining because no vault can teach you the systems thinking that is required to understand its pragmatic usage.
Thanks for subscribing!
Could you link to the reddit post please
www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1amjm3q/i_am_quitting_zettelkasten_framework/
Oh my god, finally some speak that loudly!
I sense a lot of confusion here and elsewhere around the question of just what is an atomic note. I find the concept of an information unit from Information Mapping to be helpful in building my Zettelkasten. IM is content development methodology that is widely used in the technical writing domain. In IM, the basic element of content is the information unit, also called a block. Blocks have the following qualities:
- A block is a manageable chunk of related information that answers one primary question or addresses one main idea.
- The block is clearly labelled to identify the idea or what question is being answered.
- The block contains a single information type (fact, concept, structure, procedure, process, principle).
- The block is presented in the most appropriate method for the content. The basic presentation methods are: text (one or more sentences), list, table, graphic, multimedia.
In IM, these blocks (information units, topics) are organized into information maps, which is essentially a printed-page methodology for linking related topics.
I'm not going to go into a full discourse on Information Mapping here, but I think this might provide some food for thought around the concept of "atomic notes."
I completely understand the concept and value of an atomic note, my point here is that you don't approach writing every note with the goal of making it atomic. I am saying that atomicity happens organically. Trying to impose atomicity on any given note creates unnecessary friction and lead to endless refactoring of the initial "atomic note", which is contrary to how ideas are developed and catalogued in a traditional zk.
IM is very useful for technical writing and if that is your primary output for your notes, then I can understand the incentive to create atomic notes as informational units is beneficial. But if that involves refactoring, deleting and editing existing notes for any reason, this is a complete departure from zettelkasten and becomes something entirely new, which only bears some slight resemblance to the traditional system. A large part of the value the zk provides is not just the interlinking, but having ideas catalogued in the sequences they emerged.
Having a big web of links without the structure of branched sequential thoughts is closer to a personal wikipedia than a zettelkasten.
I agree to a large extent with your thoughts about atomicity happening organically. I think Athens demonstrates that organic process when he discusses Luhman's reference notes. The reference note starts out as a collection of ideas, questions, and so on from a source. Then as you understand or process this material, you may create "main" notes from those initial reference notes as appropriate. For me, the value of the IM concepts comes in helping me create those main notes "atomistically."
I also strongly agree that a big web of links without some structure is not particularly generative. It's just large scale info capture which is the mistake so many people make (myself included at times) when they start out with their PKMs.
The Zettelkasten-principle did not work for you. The Zettelkasten-method itself is not a battlefield: scientist versus scholar versus layman. You understand the Zettelkast-method (10:08), but you have yet not discovered to incorporate economics into this method. Deduction: how to learn economics or how learn to learn? Time is a parameter when you study, this implies that the depth of connections in a slipbox should limited. The maximum is three steps. Just take a glance ar Zsolt pkm Sun Ray to get an idea.
Leave the index card, take a folio or A3. In middle of this leaf you put your Harrod-Domar-model. Draw two axes to imitate Zhao's compas. The north is knowledge and the south refllections and connextions. Now you can sketchnote/mind map the economic model.
The left-upper is place of the tacit, prior knowledge. Decompose the model in coefficients (0.5), parameters and unities (IS=LM) and ceteris paribus. These are your atomic notes (concept and its description). The right-upper is the room for the expected/future knowledge: the calculations and the result.
The left-under is the place of reflection: why could i make or make not this calculation(s)? Do not forget to register your mood. The right-under is the chamber to register the connections. This model belongs to this mouvement/school (keynesian, chicago, wiener); this model is a part, that is incorporated in an other model ect.
This workflow is the result of reading of your sentences (11:01): "Consider something like Harrod Domar growth model ... (an idea = a chapter) ... You cannot divide it (models) into ideas, it takes much more time doing so."
Reverse engineering: economic models are built on the foundation of ideas. IS = LM - the production sector and the money system are bidirectional linked to force each other in an equilibrium. Conclusion: a formula can be written in words and ideas.
Just work with paper and pen, collect all the folios and review in them in the summer of 2025 and the Zettelkasten will reemerge, because you understand the inside of your economic field much better.
Good luck, Tony.
Book Passion