Atomic Notes
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my emphasis ↩︎
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Flanigan, A. E., Wheeler, J., Colliot, T., Lu, J., & Kiewra, K. A. (2024). Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 36(3), 78. <doi.org/10.1007/s…>
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Ose Askvik, E., Van Der Weel, F. R. (Ruud), & Van Der Meer, A. L. H. (2020). The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1810. <doi.org/10.3389/f…>
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Van Der Weel, F. R. (Ruud), & Van Der Meer, A. L. H. (2024). Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: A high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1219945. <doi.org/10.3389/f…>
- Richardson, L., & Lacroix, G. (2023). Which modality results in superior recall for students: Handwriting, typing, or drawing? Journal of Writing Research, 15(3), 519–540. <doi.org/10.17239/…>
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and it only took me 13 years to find this! ↩︎
- write atomic notes,
- write in Markdown syntax,
- link notes easily,
- re-combine notes by transclusion,
- easily search through all my notes without clutter; and
- export notes without stress.
- Plenty of clear and specific examples of notes of all sorts. People often ask ‘but what should a note look like?’ Here’s the answer, visually.
- Many helpful workflow diagrams. People also ask ‘how does the system operate as a whole?’ This book shows exactly how the Zettelkasten process works, and in what order.
- Clear references both to Niklas Luhmann’s process and to other relevant predecessors. If you want to refer back to the sources, there is a wealth of pointers here.
- At the end of each chapter, a checklist of specific activities to try, to implement the ideas just covered: what to do, what to remember and what to watch out for. If you’re wondering exactly what to do next with your notes, this book shows you (also, what not to do, especially in ch. 7).
- Helpful writing advice, which shows how to use your Zettelkasten to produce four different kinds of material: short-short items (i.e. social media posts), blog posts, articles and books.
- Overall, a clear, step-by-step, repeatable writing process to follow, from capturing your thoughts (ch. 1) right through to managing your writing workflow (ch. 9).
- What is the real work of serendipity?
- A library of good neighbours
- The Dewey Decimal System pigeonholes all knowledge, like cells in a prison
- How to think in writing, part 1: The thought behind the thought by Henrik Karlsson.
- Chase your reading by Robin Hanson.
- Learning by writing by Holden Karnovsky.
- How to make writing less hard by Oliver Burkeman.
- When to begin writing by Sheldon Richmond (it’s an old one but a good one).
- Plain text (Markdown) notes.
- Each note is a single idea with a unique ID.
- Each note deserves a clear title.
- Notes link meaningfully to other notes.
Not just notes: another meaning of 'Zettel'
In German, Zettelkasten, quite simply, means ‘note box’. But there’s another, more hidden meaning of the word Zettel (note) that even German-speakers may know nothing of.
All the same, it’s useful for thinking with.
Here’s Esther Yi in the New Yorker, writing about the epic task of translating Arno Schmidt’s monumental work of experimental fiction, ‘Zettels Traum’. Schmidt was one of several German authors strongly influenced by the Irish writer James Joyce (see this video).
“He compiled roughly a hundred and twenty thousand scraps of paper, or Zettel, in shallow wooden boxes, which he spread out on his desk. On each Zettel, there was written a bit of dialogue or sexual wordplay (“Im=pussy=bell’–!”) or a literary quote rerouted through his one-track mind (“the fleshy man=drake’s stem. / That shrieks, when torn at night”). After twenty-five thousand hours of knitting the pieces together, Schmidt handed the manuscript to his publisher in a large cardboard box tied with a curtain sash.
The title “Zettel’s Traum” is drawn from a German translation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The last name of the weaver, Nick Bottom, was changed to Zettel, which not only means a slip of paper but also the warp used in weaving1.”
A Great Translator Takes on One Final and Nearly Impossible Project.
Arno Schmidt’s Zettelkasten is an extraordinary sight to behold. You can see it in a short video (at 4:15). And you can see a short video of the book he made from it, too.
I’ve wondered in the past whether this second meaning of Zettel - the warp thread in weaving - might explain the German term ‘Verzetteln’, which apparently means to get lost in the detail. Etymologically, this is probably the case, since this version of the word comes from a verb meaning to scatter. This is quite different from the origin of Zettel as a note, which comes from the Italian cedola. Reference
But I suspect the entire composition process of Schmidt’s novel Zettels Traum might itself have been a double entendre, since the book is meticulously woven together from countless threads, each of which is a note. As the New Yorker article observes, “If “Zettel’s Traum” is a tapestry, then Zettels are its Zettel.”
In following these lines of thought I’m strongly influenced by anthropologist Tim Ingold, who views weaving as a fundamental mode of creativity (it has to do with German etymology again), and who sees weaving and writing as closely connected.
These musings led me further, to Latticework, a prototype knowledge interface (i.e. fancy notes app) from Matthew Siu and Andy Matuschak (of Andy’s Notes ‘fame’). I like how they also identify, at least in the word lattice, the warp and weft, in-and-out, texile-like nature of writing. It’s still very much a prototype, in the shape of an Obsidian plug-in, but it looks like a promising and intriguing start.
Image credits:
Photo of a weaver by Joel Heard on Unsplash.
Still of Zettels Traum pages from a video by Ralf Wasselowski.
Busybody, hunter, dancer - which is your curiosity style?
Are you curious about your world? If so, what does your curiosity look like? How does it feel, and how does it move? And could you expand your repertoire of curiosity?
In other words, could you practise curiousity differently?
Here’s political philosopher Perry Zurn on three kinesthetic modes of curiosity, the busybody, the hunter, and the dancer:
“If the busybody breaches the social world in order to collect novel bits of information, and if the hunter focuses intently on one piece of information that exceeds the knowledge network and yet already has social significance, the dancer may rupture knowledge and social networks by either jumping to a new idea or throwing existing ideas into a new frame. Driven neither by secrets nor by necessity, the dancer is an experimenter, breaking with traditional pathways of investigation. Their ideational sphere is characterized by discontinuity, the creation of new concepts, and by radically remodeling knowledge networks.” (Zurn 2019:40)
The first two modes, busybody and hunter, stem from time-honoured, traditional understandings of curiosity, which come from the classical Greeks and Romans onwards. The third mode, the dancer, is informed by the philosopher Nietzsche’s focus on dance as an analogy for the creative imagination.
For Nietzsche, life’s ultimate question was: ‘Does it dance?'
I’m intrigued by Zurn’s project of exploring the social and political implications of curiosity. It seems obvious that authoritarian regimes would discourage a curious public, but the connections between curiosity, creative freedom, and politics have hardly been examined in a rigorous manner.
Having read about Zurn et al.’s 2024 research on how Wikipedia users create and navigate knowledge networks, I’d now like to read Zurn’s book, 📚Curious Minds. The Power of Connection. This was co-written by Zurn’s identical twin, Dani S. Bassett.
Meanwhile, here’s a 🎙️podcast discussion about Zurn’s previous book, 📚Curiosity and Power. The Politics of Inquiry.
And my fall down this particular rabbit hole has led further down, to Lynn Borton’s excellent and encyclopedic podcast/radio show, 🎙️Choose to be Curious. OK, that’s my listening sorted for a little while.
I’m interested in all this, partly because I identify quite strongly with this ‘dancer’ mode of curiosity - making and pursuing links across otherwise disconnected fields.
Perhaps you might also find this perspective illuminating or useful.
And further, the typology of busybody, hunter and dancer also seems to have something to contribute to my understanding and practices of making notes. ‘Radically remodeling knowledge networks’, as Zurm puts it, is something I’m very interested in.
So if you too write notes, you might also get something of value from this discussion.
Curiosity: it might not be fatal
Three styles of curiosity - so which one is yours?
I’m interested in what it means to be curious. So I was intrigued by a new study about curiosity that I found via The Conversation.
The study examined the different ways nearly half a million Wikipedia users read their way through its massive network of articles. It turns out these can be characterised as three different styles of curiosity.
The authors write:
“By measuring the structure of knowledge networks constructed by readers weaving a thread through articles in Wikipedia, we replicate two styles of curiosity previously identified in laboratory studies: the nomadic “busybody” and the targeted “hunter.” Further, we find evidence for another style—the “dancer””.
And what are these different styles? In very brief summary:
“The busybody scouts for loose threads of novelty, the hunter pursues specific answers in a projectile path, and the dancer leaps in creative breaks with tradition across typically siloed areas of knowledge.”
I immediately identified with the ‘dancer’ style, though as the researchers' work reflects, it depends on the kind of information I’m looking for. Going deeper, I found the analysis of knowledge networks really interesting.
And the description of the ‘dancer’ style certainly resonated with what I’ve learned about note-making according to the Zettelkasten approach:
“This type of curiosity is described as a dance in which disparate concepts, typically conceived of as unrelated, are briefly linked in unique ways as the curious individual leaps and bounds across traditionally siloed areas of knowledge. Such brief linking fosters the generation or creation of new experiences, ideas, and thoughts.”
There’s a lot more to unpack from this article, and I’m going to be thinking about it for a while. For example, is there really a ‘goldilocks’ setting for curiosity - just enough to be useful, not so much as to overwhelm? I guess there must be, but I don’t know how you’d find it. For me the goldilocks setting isn’t to expand or else rein in my curiosity, but rather to find tools and especially techniques to enable me to make the most of my curiosity.
References:
Dale Zhou et al., Architectural styles of curiosity in global Wikipedia mobile app readership.Sci. Adv.10,eadn3268(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adn3268
Image: Giordano Dance Chicago. Wikimedia, [Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International](Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International).
Why not make notes by hand?
It’s often said that making notes by hand is good for learning. Here’s 🎬Notes on Biology, a nice stop-motion short about the benefits of doodling in class.1
There’s plenty of academic research on ‘the clear benefits of handwriting’:
But for a slightly different perspective, one that appreciates drawing, see:
Now read: Three worthwhile modes of note-making.
Don’t miss another post (because that would be tragic).
Put your email address here and I’ll write to you slowly. I mean weekly:
So many note-taking apps in the app graveyard - but not all are zombies
While clearing out my desk recently I found a USB thumb drive with a whole heap of old note-taking apps on it. This drive dates from 2017, not even seven years ago, but it seems like ancient history.
These note-taking apps come and go and the only ones worthwhile IMHO are the ones with a format you can keep using, or at least access. Several, I’m happy to say, had easily re-usable plain text files in a ‘data’ folder or similar.
So why am I mentioning this?
How to write an article from your notes - an example
In July 2024 educational technologist Andy Matuschak published a long article outlining his observations on the debate over discovery learning versus instructional learning, and how it relates to the Holy Grail of educational technology: “a wildly powerful learning environment”.
Exorcising us of the Primer is a great article, but it’s just as interesting to see how this piece of writing came into existence in the first place.
The shortest writing session that could possibly be useful
Here’s my perspective on ‘atomic notes’.
They’re atomic in time even before they’re atomic in any other dimension.
An atomic note, for me, is the shortest writing session that could possibly be useful.
I got this from computer game designers, who call the shortest viable unit of play an ‘atom’. A single life in Space Invaders (and yes, that shows my age). Just enough to make you desperate to keep going.
Enhanced markdown apps you can use for free to make effective notes
I’ve lost track of the ridiculous number of ‘Zettelkasten apps’ now on the loose on the wild wild web. When I checked the ChatGPT marketplace, for example, I had to stop counting at 50. I was losing the will to go on looking at them.
Everyone makes the apps, it seems, but who’s left to use them?
If you’re one of those sensible people who just want to make useful notes, plain text files with Markdown are simple, elegant, versatile and durable.
My favourite tool is this notebook I made
I couldn’t find a note-making app that really suited me so I made one myself.
OK, that’s a bit of a stretch. It’s really just a heavily modified version of TiddlyWiki but it feels tailor-made. And working with it fits me like a glove. It’s a great example of making a creative working environment. That’s important. You have to make your own environment. Some people hate TiddlyWiki[^1]. That’s fine too.
I wanted a notemaking environment that would let me:
Here’s how I made my personalised notemaking app.
Notemaking helps you remember - and helps you forget
Do we really need to remember everything?
This is the question posed by Lewis Hyde’s memorable book, A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past 📚
He says:
“Every act of memory is an act of forgetting. The tree of memory set its roots in blood. To secure an ideal, surround it with a moat of forgetfulness. To study the self is to forget the self. In forgetting lies the liquefaction of time. The Furies bloat the present with the undigested past. “Memory and oblivion, we call that imagination.” We dream in order to forget.” ― Lewis Hyde, A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past
Forgetting is the essence of what makes us human
The subtitle of Joshua Foer’s book, Moonwalking with Einstein, promotes the art and science of ‘remembering everything’. Yet Foer accepts that forgetting is an essential aspect of memory. He quotes the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges:
“It is forgetting, not remembering, that is the essence of what makes us human. To make sense of the world, we must filter it. “To think,” Borges writes, “is to forget.” – Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Making notes will aid your short-term memory, even when you haven't got one
This week I was making notes about a presentation when my colleague looked over and offered to just give me the slides. I said thanks, of course. But really I was making my notes to help me remember the key information. If I just referred to the slides, I’d never assimilate the presentation - I’d just listen then forget. Conversely, while I might never look at the notes again, since it was me that made them, some of it has now sunk in.
Many people make notes to help them remember things, but how do you do it?
A System for Writing by Bob Doto
“The note you just took has yet to realize its potential.” - Bob Doto
Another ‘Zettelkasten primer’ won’t be needed for some time, since this one is direct, concise, thorough and strongly practical.
📚A System for Writing by Bob Doto is out!
If you’ve become confused or cynical watching those endless videos in which an influencer who discovered the Zettelkasten five minutes ago is suddenly the expert; or if you’ve read Sönke Ahrens' book, How to Take Smart Notes and thought “now I know why I should make notes but I still don’t really know how”, well here’s the antidote: the only Zettelkasten book you’ll ever need.
My paperback copy of A System for Writing arrived just in time for weekend reading. It’s a deliberately useful book, with a clear three-part structure. It gets to the point quickly and stays there: how to write notes, how to connect them and how to use this system to produce finished written work.
Things I especially appreciate in A System for Writing:
Will anyone be disappointed? Well, if you’re only looking for a manual on a particular piece of software, this book won’t satisfy you. It tells almost nothing about whatever the popular app-of-the-day is. You are not going to be told here whether Obsidian is better than Obshmidian. Software comes and goes, while the underlying principles of the Zettelkasten approach, as presented here, can be applied in many different contexts.
What about those who aren’t all that interested in actually publishing anything, who instead just want their notes to help them remember stuff, perhaps for tests? Well, although this book focuses without apology on writing, it will still be really useful for anyone making notes as a ‘second memory’ (Luhmann’s term) because by reading this (especially the first two parts) they’ll soon be making clearer, more concise and more accessible notes, whatever they intend to use them for.
And what of those who have absolutely no interest in obscure terms like ‘Zettelkasten’, who recoil from any kind of dubious productivity fetish, and just want to get things written? This is where the book excels and where it really comes good on the promise of its title. Yes, this is a system for writing. The author, who has himself written several books, shows from his direct experience how an effective note-making practice can lead to a more natural, unforced, effective and consistent writing practice. The Zettelkasten as presented here is an approach to note-making that will simply aid writing, without wasting time or effort.
This has certainly been my experience. Before I implemented my own Zettelkasten approach I was struggling both with organising my notes and with producing coherent writing. Since then, it’s been a different story. But until now there hasn’t been a Zettelkasten guidebook I’d wholeheartedly recommend to others. Now there certainly is.
So if you want to learn quickly how to capture your ideas effectively and write productively, stress-free, then get hold of A System for Writing right now.
More about Bob Doto.
Read about the illusion of integrated thought, which is cited in chapter 7 of the book.
My take on starting a Zettelkasten: How to make a Zettelkasten from your existing deep experience.
Something from nothing is no fairy tale
As an adult, one of my favourite fairy tales is Puss in Boots.
I have immense respect for this talking cat. He has nothing going for him - not even a decent pair of shoes. And to make matters worse he finds himself lumbered with a pretty mediocre human owner.
Folklore academics have a way of classifying the tales they study. It’s called the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU). And in this index, Puss in Boots is Type 545: the cat as helper.
That’s completely wrong.
Read it for yourself. This story is not about the frankly lacklustre youngest son of the mill. No, it’s about the cat, a cat who has almost no help, who has to do practically everything himself, and who never gives up until finally he gets what he needs.
The great writer Angela Carter would have agreed with this. She observed the cat was “the servant so much the master already“[^1]. But this is hardly controversial. Perrault’s version of the story actually has the title “The Master Cat“.
So as you probably remember, the tale begins when the cat experiences an unexpected disaster. The old miller dies, leaving the mill to his eldest son.
But the mill’s cat he leaves to the youngest son.
Not only is the cat suddenly homeless, but to make things even worse his fate is now shackled to a penniless human without prospects.
So what’s a homeless cat to do?
Why not let your reading be a smorgasbord of serendipity?
Yes indeed, why not let your reading be a smorgasbord of serendipity?
Here’s Anna Funder, author of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, on working at the University of Melbourne English Department library as a student:
“It sounds prehistoric now, but I sat at the front desk, typing out index cards for new acquisitions or requests from staff for books or journals — anything from the latest novel, to psychoanalysis, poetry or medieval studies. I read things that had nothing to do with my studies: a smorgasbord of serendipity. Despite my time there, I have never understood the Dewey decimal system: how can numbers tell you what a book is, to a decimal point?” - Every book you could want and many more
My take on this?
HEAJ:Mundaneum by Marc Wathieu is licensed under CC BY 2.0
A minimal approach to making notes
I want a minimal approach to making notes.
I don’t want anything fancy, just enough structure to be useful.
When I see people’s souped-up Obsidian note-taking vaults my head spins (OK, I’m jealous). I also wonder, though, what extra result is achieved with a fantastically complex system. Having said that, I’m keen on people creating a working environment that works for them, and I do admire people’s creativity in this area.
I just can’t be bothered to do it myself.
When discussing the Zettelkasten approach to making notes, it seems there are a lot of different note types to consider, which confuses people. The extensive discussion about different types of notes caused by reading Sonke Ahrens’s book How to Take Smart Notes makes me think this multiple-note-types approach is just too complicated for me. So what do I do instead?
Five useful articles about writing
Here are five links with worthwhile writing advice. 🖋️
A forest of evergreen notes
Jon M Sterling, a computer scientist at Cambridge University, has created his own ‘mathematical Zettelkasten’, which he also calls ‘a forest of evergreen notes’.
He maintains a very interesting website, built using a tool he created, named, appropriately enough, Forester.
The implementation of his ideas raises all sorts of ideas and questions for me, almost all enthusiastic. Here are a few in no order at all:
Make your notes a creative working environment
“Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?”
This is a question Manuel Moreale regularly asks his guests on the People and Blogs newsletter. The answers are always fascinating and well worth a read.
This got me thinking about my own working environment and maybe I overthought it. It looks like I’ve totally ignored Barry Hess’s reminder that you’re a blogger not an essayist.[^1] Anyway, here goes.
Note: This post is part of the Indieweb Carnival on creative environments.
When it comes to writing notes, how much mess is just enough?
Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, likes to keep his notes messy1:
“‘Messiness’, in this context at least, is just the state of not being so hubristic as to imagine that you know, in advance, precisely what’s required in order to do or to create something worthwhile. Which, of course, nobody does.” - The life-changing magic of not tidying up
I really appreciate the benefits of serendipity, but I also need some structure, which is why I’m happy with making atomic notes, densely linked. You might call it a Zettelkasten. Burkeman says he tried a Zettelkasten approach to his notes, but found it too organised.
That’s not at all how I’ve experienced it.
The image that for me best sums up this process of making short notes to create longer pieces of writing is that of my little worm farm. All sorts of scraps get dumped in at the top. And mostly unseen, the worms turn everything into nourishing compost.
It’s almost magical.
So instead of being obsessive, I just have a few simple rules that I mostly stick to.
And while this little system might not result in much tidiness, it’s still really neat.
Don't make a Zitatsalat out of your writing
Zitatsalat? What does that even mean?
Yes, Zitatsalat. I found this lovely but rarely used German term in the title of a book by the journalist Stephan Maus. The book’s name is Zitatsalat von Hinz & Kunz.[^1]
I love the rhyming rhythm of this compound term, but what does Zitatsalat actually mean?
Well, Zitatsalat translates as Quote Salad. It’s not a compliment.
Zitatsalat, by Stephan Maus (2002).
But what’s wrong with quoting other writers?