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Comment by jarnagin | Hacker News Reader

Zettlekasten: the Kubernetes of note-taking systems.

I think it’s important to bear in mind the context this system grew out of (academic research) and ask yourself whether you really need such a heavyweight note-taking system. It’s also important to realize this system is not a substitute for accepted patterns of knowledge generation, such as summarizing extemporaneous notes and making time to review your notes frequently enough that the knowledge captured actually sticks.

Zettlekasten is a system layered on top of that and basically serves as a database for things you already know. If you’re not already doing the former behaviors then it’s likely you’re just going to be wasting your time hacking on a system that won’t provide you enough value to justify the maintenance cost. In fact, it’s likely that the overhead will be so high that you’ll lose time to practice the foundational behaviors that really pay off in the long run.

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It's just sequences of notes and then inserting certain notes into other sequences. The "heavyweight" part of it disappears when you're using software which handles all this in the background.

The remaining parts of it is the unexpected results for someone who hasn't used this sort of note taking system. The book "How to Take Smart Notes" explains this. You use the notes as a starting point to come up with new ideas. It's useful if you do regular writing, especially as part of work rather than for personal private stuff.

For example, I use this method for jokes. Much of the value is simply having a list in one place. If I want to come up with a new joke, I look at all my material as a branching tree. I can extend a branch by going deeper. I can combine branches to come up with something completely different. I can start green branches. I can write new material all day long by doing this, rather than by waiting for inspiration to nail me.

I think people get too caught up in the technical parts. It's just a branching system of ideas.

I'll add this book to my queue then. Because so far, the "heavyweight" part of Zettelkasten for me wasn't organizing notes into graphs, but fitting thoughts into index-card equivalents. I found myself cutting tightly couple prose into linked pieces, with the link forming a fixed and necessary spine, because the whole set of pieces only makes sense if taken together.

The lightbulb moment for me was simply creating these sequences without putting much thought into them beyond that. It may have ended up a little messy but then I found that my creativity in coming up with new ideas lit up. That became super useful even if I were breaking any other "rules."

A lot of people seem to get caught up in LARPing by following strict rules before they see this usefulness and that rational approach holds back the creativity. It's like getting so caught up in the process of how to have sex that you never figure out how to actually enjoy it.

And yes, the card system would require these rules to make it work because otherwise you might not be able to find anything.

Another issue is that people get carried away with some of the better software for using this system and they end up creating their own rigid system. For example, the power in RoamResearch for me is the most basic features it shipped with. But it could also be a sort of "no-code" platform which people use to "no-code" themselves into a corner. I feel like you should have one "database" in Roam which you use only for this purpose and largely without structure. Make a mess and resist temptation to make it super organized. The more you get caught up in structure, the less you're thinking about exploring your ideas.

> making time to review your notes frequently enough that the knowledge captured actually sticks.

Strictly inferior to a spaced repetition system.

> Zettlekasten is a system layered on top of that and basically serves as a database for things you already know.

Things you already understand. If you already knew it in a deep sense it would be redundant. In reality zettelkasten enable you to think better by giving you a lightweight prosthetic expansion to working memory. You can get the same benefits by elaborative expansion but writing a ton of loosely related notecards is a lot less demanding than writing an article or book.

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