A-Zettelkasten examples to get started
most zettelkasten resources explain the principles and assume you know how to design your implementation
- this article helps you get started with zettelkasten
Here is a possible workflow
- take fleeting notes about what you think is important
- review fleeting notes, pick most important ideas and elaborate them in full. try to write down stuff in your own words. You need not know everything at this point, just make it up, and finish it. Be detailed. One idea per note. But include reference to the source. This is called a literature note.
- Take the idea in the literature note, and convert it to be independent of the context it came from. See how it connects to the other notes you already have, and make those connections. this is called a permanent note.
what are differences between literature note and permanent note?
- literature note makes sense only in the context of the source it came from. But permanent notes are context independent
- literature note only links to the source material. permanent notes make infinite number of connections to other notes
some kinds of connections you can make:
- note to define a term
- author bio note
- note that supports/contradicts another note
- note that adds to a note
- personal comment on a note
- bridge note to join to seemingly unconnected ideas
- topic index notes (map of content)
- keyword notes
topic index notes (also called map of content) are just notes with pure links. These do not contain any text or ideas. that would be in a permanent note. these serves are points of entry into other notes
keyword notes are like index notes, but they can be useful to define keywords based on a specific topic. like all engineering terms can be grouped for easy access. this note is also purely for links only.
# writing your first zettelkasten note
- better try it out on an article first. books tend to be too detailed
- write a stream of conciousness style fleeting note without any attention to form or structure to just capture all the info
- convert this into a literature note.
- your first literature note will become your permanent note because you dont have links yet
- for every future permanent note, try to make links to existing notes
- some notes may never get linked, thats okay. you might find a way to do it later.