Zettelkasten anti-patterns
When developing your Zettelkasten, your collection of linked notes, what have you learned not to do?
Mathematician Alex Nelson keeps a paper Zettelkasten, and has posted online about how he does it. He calls this Zettelkasten best practices.
But Nelson also lists some ‘worst practices’ to avoid, which he calls anti-patterns.
So I’m wondering, do you have any other examples of ‘Zettelkasten anti-patterns’ from your own experience?
For reference, here are the ‘anti-patterns’ Nelson identifies. I’m not going to explain these here, though, because you can read the post for yourself:
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Using the Zettelkasten (or Bibliography Apparatus) as a Database
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Collecting Reading Notes without writing Permanent Notes
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Treating Blank Reading Notes as “To Read” list
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Forgetting to write notes while reading
Are there any more Zettelkasten worst practices, and how have you avoided them?
💬 “Put something on the Web, and do it for free”.
Here’s one for the #Zettelkasten and #PKM tragics: a dive into the pre-history of ‘atomic notes’.
writingslowly.com/2024/11/2…
Atomic notes and the unit record principle
Thinking about atomic notes
Researcher Andy Matuschak talks about atomicity in notes, an idea also developed by the creators of the Archive note app, at zettelkasten.de.
To make a note ‘atomic’ is to emphasise a single idea rather than several. An atomic note is simplex rather than multiplex. And this form of simplicity relates to the idea of ‘separation of concerns’ in computer programming.
Back to the unit record principle
But the idea is much older than this. I found something very similar described in 1909, in The Story of Library Bureau.
How to write a better note without melting your brain
There’s a great line in Bob Doto’s book [A System for Writing][2] which goes like this:
“The note you just took has yet to realize its potential.”
Haven’t you ever looked at your notes and had the same thought? So much potential… yet so little actual 🫠.
Perhaps you jotted something down a couple of days or weeks ago and returning to it now you can’t remember what you meant to say, or what you were thinking of at the time.
Or perhaps you made a great note then, but now you can’t find it.
Or maybe you just know your note connects to another great thought… but you can’t for the life of you remember what.
Well I already make plenty of half-baked notes like these, but how can I make them better? It’s not something they teach in school, so most of us don’t even realize there’s untapped potential, if only we could access it.
So, how can I make worthwhile notes from my almost illegible scribbles on the fly? Well, here’s what works for me. Maybe it’ll work for you too.
When writing my notes, I just have a few simple rules that I mostly stick to:
In The Atlantic Arthur Brooks suggests three ways to become a deeper thinker. He also ‘solves’ a famous koan.
Meanwhile, my suggestion for deeper thought is simple: make notes.
I still can’t solve koans though.
#PKM #zettelkasten
TIL there’s a tracker for bogong moths! What? Yes, the iconic, endangered species that keeps the critically endangered Mountain Pygmy-possums fed. Thanks for asking. #australianwildlife
The future: They touted a slow race between 1984 and Brave New World. Instead it’s a sprint to the finish for The Handmaid’s Tale and Parable of the Sower. My money’s on Octavia. Came for the hope, stayed for the resistance.
Want to read: On Mysticism by Simon Critchley 📚 Having written about Julian of Norwich as a sci-fi author, I’m very interested in philosopher Simon Critchley’s angle. #philosophy #religion
🗨️ Keanu Heydari on the value of the #Zettelkasten.
“Maintaining a zettelkasten is, in itself, an exercise in Stoic care of the self (epimeleia heautou). This practice is not merely about external organization but about cultivating inner freedom through discipline, mindfulness, and deliberate engagement with knowledge.”