Three apps that made me more productive this year by [[Casey Newton]]

Casey Newton is using a Zettelkasten note taking approach based on zettelkasten.de to cover his beat

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/side-profile-of-traditional-wooden-library-card-royalty-free-image/1374216041?searchscope=image%2Cfilm

Another fun photo of "linked" strings wrapped around a library card catalog representing the links between ideas within a paper database.

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/traditional-wooden-library-card-catalog-cabinet-royalty-free-image/1379469553?searchscope=image%2Cfilm

fun photo of "linked" strings wrapped around a library card catalog representing the links between ideas within a paper database.

reply to u/atomicnotes at https://old.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1fa0240/early_1900s_3_x_5_inch_card_index_filing_cabinet/

This is an excellent question. I strongly suspect you won't find a booklet or book from Macey after 1906 that does this, though there may have been something before that.

You'll notice that on page 9, the 1906 Macy Catalog takes what I consider to be a pot shot at their Shaw-Walker competition in the section "Not a kindergarten". Shaw-Walker was selling not just furniture, but a more specific system, as well as a magazine. Since there's something to be learned for current knowledge managers and zettel-casters in the historical experience of these companies and the systems and methods they were selling, I'll quote that section here (substitute references to enterprise and business for yourself):

Not a Kindergarten

Every successful enterprise knows its own requirements best, and develops the best system for its own purpose. We manufacture business machinery. Our appliances and supplies are boiled down to a few parts, and simple forms, and will accommodate any system in any business. The office boy can understand and use them. If we undertook to teach the whole world how to run its business, we would have to saddle the cost on those who buy for what we tried to teach those who do not.

System in business is desirable, but no system can make a business successful, where the management is deficient. So called ‘Systems’ often result in useless expense and disappointment. We retain what experience proves useful and practical; so far as possible, eliminating all complicated and useless features. This explains how we can employ the best workmanship and material, combined with pleasing designs, and sell our goods with profit at lower prices than the inferior articles offered by others.

There may have been some booklets at some point, but I've not run across them for any of the major manufacturers of the time. (I've only loosely searched this area.) Some of the general principles were covered in various articles in System Magazine which was published by Shaw-Walker, a filing cabinet manufacturer, in the early century. System Magazine was sold to McGraw-Hill which renamed it Business Week, but it is now better known as Bloomberg Business Week. In the December 1906 issue of System, W. K. Kellogg, the President of the Toasted Corn Flake Company, is quoted touting the invaluable nature of the Shaw-Walker filing system at a time when his company was using 640 drawers of their system.

To some extent the smaller discrete "system" was really a part of a broader range of information and knowledge of business and competition. This can be seen in the fact that System Magazine still exists, just under an alternate name, along with a much broader area of business schools and business systems. We've just "forgotten" (or take for granted) the art of the smaller systems and processes which seemed new in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Other companies had "systems" they sold or taught, much like Tiago Forte teaches his "Second Brain" method or Nick Milo teaches "Linking Your Thinking". However, most of them were really in the business of selling goods: furniture, filing cabinets, desks, index cards, card dividers, etc. and this was where the real money was to be found at the time.

A similar example in the space is the Memindex System booklet that came with their box and index cards. The broad principles of the system can be described in a few paragraphs so that the average person can read it and modify it to their particular needs or use case. The company never felt the need to write an entire book along the lines of David Allen's Getting Things Done or Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal Method. Allen and Carroll are selling systems by way of books or classes. Admittedly, Carroll does have custom printed notebooks for using his methods, but I suspect these are a tiny fraction of the overall notebook sales for those who use his method.

Here's evidence of a correspondence course from the Library Bureau some time after 1927, which was when they'd been purchased by Remington Rand: https://www.ebay.com/itm/335534180049 . Library Bureau had an easier time as their system was standardized for libraries, though they did have efforts to cater to business concerns the way Shaw-Walker, The Macey Company, Globe-Wernicke and others certainly did.

I think the best examples in broader book form from that time period are Kaiser's two books which still stand up pretty well today for those creating knowledge management systems, zettelkasten, commonplace books, getting things done/productivity systems, second brains, etc.

Kaiser, J. Card System at the Office. The Card System Series 1. London: Vacher and Sons, 1908. http://archive.org/details/cardsystematoffi00kaisrich.

———. Systematic Indexing. The Card System Series 2. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1911. http://archive.org/details/systematicindexi00kaisuoft.

via Season 2 Episode 8: “Performance Review” - The Office<br /> https://genius.com/The-office-usa-season-2-episode-8-performance-review-annotated

Here we see in Michael Scott's incompetence the potential value of writing down our ideas as we go. Had he written down his ideas, his upcoming meeting with his boss would have gone better.

Isn't it telling that he hits on the idea of leveraging a commonly used communal zettelkasten structure (the suggestion box) to dig himself out?

The atomic nature of notes within a zettelkasten provides a thinking advantage in that it: - systematically remembers the ideas you've had before so that you can free up cognitive space for the future, never worrying about that great idea you "once had" but now can't get back - encourages you to get down enough context that your future self will understand what you were writing and what you meant and not much more - it encourages the "just good enough" which helps suppress the need to get something perfect. For those who are perfectionists, it helps them lock in something and then move onto the next thing more efficiently without getting bogged down into the mud. - give you something as a future base from which to add additional material and ideas or alternately a base from which you can edit, rewrite, or hone the idea further

OTR: suggested by mrtnj at https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992400632776507447/1274393371984662691

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview

The daily cards and journal entries are obviously indexed by chronological date and then within tabbed sections by month and year.

The rest of the other cards with notes are given individual (decimal) numbers and and then are put into numerical order. These numbered cards are then indexed by putting related subject/topic/category words from them onto a separate index card which cross references either a dated card or the numbered card to which it corresponds. These index cards with topical words/phrases are then filed alphabetically into a tabbed alphabetical section (A-Z).

As an example with the card in this post, if I wanted to remember all the books I buy from Octavia's Bookshelf, then I'd create a card titled "Octavia's Bookshelf" and list the title along with the date 2024-08-13 and file it alphabetically within the "O" tab section of the index. Obviously this might be more useful if I had more extensive notes about the book or its purchase on the 2024-08-13 card. I did create a short journal card entry about the bookstore on 08-13 because it was the first time I visited the bookstore in it's new location and decor, so there are some scant notes about my impressions of that which are cross-indexed to that Octavia's Bookshelf card. Thus my Octavia's Bookshelf card has an entry with "The Book Title, 2024-08-13 (J)(R)" where the '(J)' indicates there's a separate journal entry for that day and the '(R)' indicates there's also a receipt filed next to that day's card.

I also created an "Author Card" with the author of the book's name, the title, publication date, etc. I included the purchase date and the reason why I was interested in the book. I'll use that same card to write notes on that particular book as I read it. These author cards are filed in a separate A-Z tabbed 'Bibliography' section for easily finding them as well. (I suppose I could just put them into the primary A-Z index, but I prefer having all the authors/books (I have thousands) in the same section.)

I also have a rolodex section of people filed alphabetically, so I can easily look up Steve and Sonia separately and see what I might have gotten them on prior birthdays as well as notes about potential future gift ideas. I had tickler cards with their names on them filed in early August and now that they're in my to do list, I've moved those cards to August 2025, ready for next year's reminder. Compared to a typical Future Log I don't do nearly as much writing and rewriting when migrating. I just migrate a card forward until it's done or I don't need it anymore.

If you've used a library card index before, the general idea is roughly the same, you're just cross-indexing more than books by title, author and subject. You can index by day, idea, project, or any other thing you like. My card index cabinet is really just a large personal database made out of paper and metal.

The secret isn't to index everything—just the things you either want to remember or know you'll want to look up later and use/re-use.

For true deep processing and learning, intellectualism, one must think beyond the single source they are consuming and think about everything they know. Although keep in mind selective attention for true learning and thinking.

This process is habitualized by means of Zettelkasten and further aided in tool like hypothes.is

When switching, do this only at the end of a chapter, not in media res (in the middle of action).

Also summarize the last thing that happened/got explained for an easy refresher the next time you get back.

Bib-Card? Potentially Marginaelia? Feeling more like a dedicated notebook for this. Need to work out.

Vashik does this summary of a chapter on index cards... Useful to do in a Zettelkasten, or too much effort?

Reply to Kathleen Spracklen's video

Useful line of thought about the use of Folgezettel in Zettelkasten.

KS keeps a bibliography section for her own works... Interesting, very useful.

Kathleen Spracklen keeps an index specific to the bibliography, detailing all the works in the bib-box. This is quite useful, and an index card is not too big to need alphabetical sorting, which would be cumbersome on paper.

I will adopt this practice most likely.

The additional benefit is that you can see which bib-card IDs you have already used, preventing duplicate entries.

The people box is used to: - Keep collections of authors and their works located within the bib-box - Keep cards on other people than sources in the book Such as friends and contacts.

Useful to see at a glance how many sources you have read from an author and what the author writes a lot about.

Also useful to find the bib-card codes for any particular work by an author.

Doing commonplace books using index cards (Zettelkasten) also bypasses a page limit, no need to think about amount of pages to leave free.

Of course if you write the quotes/sayings in your Zettelkasten you can have both the treasury & manuscript style commonplace book at the same time. For treasury you just look through the sayings, but for manuscripting, you reference the notes and then write about it. Ideal situation.

Useful tip to collect wise sayings; mark them in the book and write "Proverb" next to them, or a symbol...

Can also then write the page number on your bib card, or perhaps a dedicated index card to proverbs per book.

Those different types of commonplace books can be integrated into a notebox as well instead of a notebook... Give them all a unique ID and integrate them into a ZK.

Especially the wise sayings "Pocket Proverbs" one this would be cool.

(~1:20)

Apparently Markus Krajewski is the one with "perhaps the most intimate knowledge of the Zettelkasten process alive"...

Why?

( ~8:00 )

This explanation of why to read books in a certain order in dependency of each other is analogous to why a Zettelkasten (in Luhmannian sense) cannot be used collaboratively.

In order for someone else to understand your notes (not meant to be published), they would have to understand both the source text you are referencing and the implicit references you make. Things you understand instinctively and do not need to write down.

Because others do not have your experiences and worldview, it is more difficult for them, perhaps impossible, to completely comprehend your Zettels, your notes.

( ~11:00 )

Another misconception, for sure because of Ahrens, namely that a Zettel should be able to stand on its own, Atomic thought... Explain without context.

This is not what Luhmann did at all.

In fact, it is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.

Luhmann quite literally said that the value of a note is ONLY with regards to the other notes in the system. He wrote in thought sequences, and more often than not, a single note was not intelligible without the context of the other notes.

PLEASE PEOPLE, LEARN FROM MULTIPLE PRIMARY SOURCES, NOT JUST AHRENS :(

( ~4:40)

Where the peep did he get the idea of writing dates as part of the alphanumeric ID? Ahrens?

It's a bad habit, it has nearly no value and when writing a lot of cards in a day this quickly becomes cumbersome.

Stick to the normal alphanumeric IDs.

( ~ 2:57)

False overview of how a ZK would look visually. A ZK is more interlinked, and at the same time more "linear". It's trains of thought.

This is closer to the Bubblegraphboiz

I have always misinterpreted this idea.

I thought it referred to the rumination of ideas... Don't put notes you just made in it (from any source, like reading a book), instead let it ruminate.

I was wrong. I realized this when chatting with Gemini Advanced.

But either way, the DeepL translation of this paragraph: "Slip box as a clarification pit - don't just put clarified notes in it. Postponing reviewing and deciding - also a question of speed."

It is moreso related to the idea of fleeting notes and unprocessed ideas. Have to think a bit more about what Luhmann meant. Maybe @chrisaldrich knows something.

[[Chris Aldrich]] is enthousiast over [[A System for Writing by Bob Doto]] bij publicatie want hij las een preprint versie.

Quick glance at Amazon shows Doto adds in illustrations of his processes, might be interesting.

https://www.jonmsterling.com/index.xml

ᔥRichard in A forest of evergreen notes at 2024-06-02<br /> (accessed:: 2024-06-07 11:14:53)

9/8g The card index technique is based on the experience that one cannot think without writing – at least not in demanding, selectively accessing memory-based contexts.

This also means that one cannot think without making allowances for differences.

I like this slightly more differentiated instantiation for thinking better than Ahren's assertion that one can't think without writing. Luhmann qualifies it over and above Ahrens who elides meaning if this was the source he may have been tangentially referencing. (Was it an explicit reference? check...)

https://www.printables.com/model/919349-a6-dividers-with-labelled-index-tabs

via r/antinet

Theatres of Memory (1994) sounds like it's taking lots of examples from a zettelkasten and tying them together.

It's also interesting to note that he published several books posthumously. Was this accomplished in part due to his zettelkasten notes the way others like Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Historian Raphael Samuel used a zettelkasten-like note taking method which he adopted from Beatrice and Sidney Webb.

Comment by chrisaldrich: I personally identify with this since I'm porting my annotations and thoughts to a notebook as part of a process for active thinking, revision, writing, and eventual publication.

What Obsidian gurus get wrong about Zettelkasten by [[Tony Ramella]]

generally meh... nothing I don't already know

I do like his focus on simplicity.

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/nabokov.jpeg via https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

This photo, similar to others in the Carl Mydans series for LIFE Magazine is surely from his September 1958 photo series, though I couldn't find an original from the LIFE archive.

Nabokov, reading off of index cards in his zettelkasten, dictates to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

Notice metal strip on the back of the typewriter with small rectangular blocks. This is the Royal's tabulator set up which distinguishes the Quiet De Luxe model from the Arrow model.

The body styling of this typewriter changed in 1950 from Dreyfuss' original 1948 design. Because it's light gray it has to be from '49 or '50 as the '48 original was a black body with dark gray highlights and didn't have chrome across the front as this one does in an alternate angle.

I've always wondered if Luhmann's jokerzettel was inspired by Claude Shannon's Ultimate Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rJJgt_5mg

Luhmann couldn't have worked in systems theory and information for so long without being intimately familiar with Shannon's work. There's direct evidence that he read at least his seminal work: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/literatur/item/shannon_weaver_1949_communication

While we're on about the "Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten" and Claude Shannon, his short essay "The Bandwagon" is an infamous article he wrote about the cargo cult of information theory applications in 1956.

Shannon, Claude Elwood. “The Bandwagon.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2, no. 1 (March 1956): 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1956.1056774. .pdf copy at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=1056774

Finally, too many Zettelkasten adherents of the Luhmann-artig sort seem to want to forget that Luhmann's system was far from new and that thousands upon thousands had used similar systems for several hundreds of years before him. Many thousands of them also wrote huge amounts of material, many of them producing work far more consequential than anything Luhman wrote.

reply to u/taurusnoises and u/Filion_Alexandrian at I've always wondered if Luhmann's jokerzettel was inspired by Claude Shannon's Ultimate Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rJJgt_5mg

Luhmann couldn't have worked in systems theory and information for so long without being intimately familiar with Shannon's work. There's direct evidence that he read at least his seminal work: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/literatur/item/shannon_weaver_1949_communication

While we're on about the "Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten" and Claude Shannon, his short essay "The Bandwagon" is an infamous article he wrote about the cargo cult of information theory applications in 1956.

Shannon, Claude Elwood. “The Bandwagon.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2, no. 1 (March 1956): 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1956.1056774. .pdf copy at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=1056774

Finally, too many Zettelkasten adherents of the Luhmann-artig sort seem to want to forget that Luhmann's system was far from new and that thousands upon thousands had used similar systems for several hundreds of years before him. Many thousands of them also wrote huge amounts of material, many of them producing work far more consequential than anything Luhman wrote.

I only have a few very specific memes indexed in my box: https://boffosocko.com/tag/zettelkasten-memes/ and a few more at https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=zettelkasten+meme

Historically, Aby Warburg had a large image-based zettelkasten for his work on art which predated Richard Dawkins' conception of meme, but I think qualifies. See: https://boffosocko.com/tag/aby-warburg/ or his Bilderatlas Mnemosyne project: https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/archive/bilderatlas-mnemosyne

It's digital in nature, but Shawn Gilmore has a large collection of images of string walls, Anacapa charts, walls and floors littered with paperwork by obsessives, etc. for his cultural research. It also includes some popular memes. https://www.vaultofculture.com/nst

replyy to u/a2jc4life at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ddhn9n/memes/

Let's turn your question around: What exactly are you hoping to get out of it for yourself? Do you have specific goals for your own use?

You may like the idea of having and using a hammer, but if you don't have a project that requires a hammer, then owning and trying to hammer on random things in an unfocused way is probably not the right tool for your needs.

reply to u/arealnamestakenreal at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1dko10r/success_histories_4_years_into_zettelkasten_and/

A forest of evergreen notes by Richard

See also comments at cross-posting at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1d69inw/a_forest_of_evergreen_notes/

@Andy

Perhaps Wikipedia's underlying zettelkasten nature is hiding in the more narrative nature of the ultimate pages, but it's definitely there. The "standard" web user interface view of Wikipedia pages makes it less obvious that the added pieces are atomic in nature, and that Wikipedia in fact is a group zettelkasten being built in the public/commons. However, if you've customized your own specific view of Wikipedia; are using an Atom Subscription (and yes, it's actually called this!); watching recent changes; or are using the history functionality (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zettelkasten&action=history), then you're getting closer to the sorts of views of atomic additions I was speaking of. Some of this is also the reason that there is a checkbox for "minor edits" to take account of typos and minutiae which are sub-atomic and filters out or cleans up the stream of the updates one could receive.

Viewed from this perspective, Wikipedia is a distributed zettelkasten of the highest order. Intellectually all this traces back to the original zettelkasten of Konrad Gessner, who uncoincidentally is one of the most famous and prolific encyclopedists in history.

One could easily take small notes made in their own zettelkasten and add them on a 1-1 corresponding basis (including the note, the references, and even a unique identifier chosen and applied by Wikipedia; here's an example with the identifier 1118181304 as a demonstration) to a variety of Wikipedia articles. For certain topics I'm interested in watching, this can be a great boon to my own zettelkasten as I can reverse this process and subscribe to/watch additions at the smallest level and not only excerpt them directly into my zettelkasten, but I can usually locate the original source and excerpt directly from it as a means of verification/fact checking. As a result this zettelkasten being built in the commons on a daily basis can be imminently more useful to me. (Sadly, I don't think that many others are using it the same way or if they are, they're not doing so at the rate/speed/facility that I am.)

A similar example can be seen in the topically arranged group zettelkasten created for The Great Books of the Western World which was lightly edited into the book form of The Syntopicon (volumes 2 and 3 of the 54 book series). One could certainly try to argue that The Syntopicon isn't a zettelkasten because it is in edited book form, but in fact, it's just an easier published and more portable form for me to have a copy of Adler and Company's physical zettelkasten as the end product is a 1-1 version of their card index with some introductory material added for readability and direction. The sad part here is that Adler's zettelkasten has ceased updating in 1952 while Wikipedia continues apace.

For the "fans", one might say Wikipedia is even more closely related to Luhmann's variation of a zettelkasten as the user adding a particular idea doesn't need to add explicit links to other external ideas (though they certainly could), but by placing it on a particular page in a particular paragraph, they're juxtaposing it to a specific location that closely relates it to nearby ideas which already exist in that particular page (train of though/folgezettel).

Certainly Wikipedia has a hypertextual nature as well as a text and document editing capabilities and dozens of other interesting and useful affordances, but at it's core, it's true soul is that of a (digital) zettelkasten.

Reply to @andy at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/20462/#Comment_20462

Contact Schreyer about existence of archived version of Syntopicon...

the word "dreams" here along with great books and classical education reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s education on the classics as seen in his zettelkasten.

Surely his cultural up brining along with his religious training and his great books education empowered him to critically eye and change the culture around him.

https://github.com/terrychenzw/obsidian-zettelkasten-navigation

(~6:30)

I think the major point here is that Adler points out our minds, and thus our thinking, changes over time. Therefore, when a book is read at a later point in time, our notes are different.

Perhaps his argument to "think again as to make the thought more current" is antithetical to Luhmann's Zettelkasten, which principles upon continuing previous lines of thought, even decades later.

(future note, about half an hour later)... I think in the Zettelkasten the problem is dealt with adequately, since you actually can make new notes expressing why your thought changes... So in this sense it is even more expanded upon the point that Adler makes even though at first sight it seems the complete opposite.

https://scottscheper.com/vanbillemont/

archive copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20230212131135/https://scottscheper.com/vanbillemont/

I've looked and looked for such a template and printer method to no avail myself. Your best bet here is probably either Avery Multi-use labels (maybe 5418 or 5428 depending on your card tabs) which have templates you can print a sheet at a time, or buying a labeler like the Brother P-touch which has a variety of different colored labels available. A third method is to line up multiple tabbed cards in your typewriter and do 3-4 at a time.

Tabbed cards are significantly more expensive than standard index cards, so if you're all in on this, I'd recommend contacting one of the manufacturers directly and buying in bulk to drive the price down. Alibaba can also be your friend here for a bulk order too. Last year I got a bulk order of 15,000 4x6" index cards for well under $0.005 per card, while the current going rate on Amazon or most office supply stores is $0.02 - $0.03/card.

Let me know if you find someone manufacturing inexpensive tabbed dividers in 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, or even 1/8 cut tabs. I'd love to buy a couple thousand of these in bulk as well.

Knowing the extra work involved in this method, I HIGHLY recommend you try it out by hand for a bit to see if it's something you'll do for more than a few months before going all-in. I've read some of Joseph Voros' work, which I understood to be theoretical only. Did he ever fully implement it himself? Before you try, you might want to read up on others' earlier work like that of Paul Otlet, Mortimer J. Adler, et al. Many here will lionize Luhmann's method, but recall that S. D. Goitein managed to take a 1/3 of the notes that Luhmann did while creating a published output a 1/3 larger than Luhmann all while using a method similar to that of Adler and company which is also very close to the method recommended by almost all academics from Jacques Barzun to Umberto Eco.

Definitely think about what you're hoping to accomplish before going straight down the rabbit hole too far.

If you do go all-in, then buying a big storage box upfront can save you a lot of time and expense, try https://boffosocko.com/2022/12/26/the-ultimate-guide-to-zettelkasten-index-card-storage/ for some ideas. My daily driver now is a 60,000+ card index from Steelcase that I picked up on the used market for $125.

LIFE. “The 102 Great Ideas: Scholars Complete a Monumental Catalog.” January 26, 1948.

Eco, Umberto. How to Write a Thesis. Translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina. 1977. Reprint, Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2015.

Barzun, Jacques, and Henry F. Graff. The Modern Researcher. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004.

Reply to u/SpacePatrician at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ctsu78/blank_tabbed_4x6_cards/

I will start doing this too, but on the associated bib-card.

I might actually use a system similar to this myself to aid with the dissection of a book in its fullest; to keep track of arguments and points, I am in need of this. Combine the bib-card with the Marginalia to enhance my reading process.

This is the entire point of an Antinet or Zettelkasten, and it is far more advanced/useful for this purpose than just Marginalia. Sorry Adler, but you should have spoken to Luhmann in this regard. Both of you are heroes of mine, but in this round, Luhmann takes the crown.

I need to do this more often myself. Too often, at least when reading physical books, I am doing the thinking in my head instead of writing on my bib-card what I actually think.

I agree on these three points, which I usually do through the bib-card method or annotating on hypothes.is if I read digitally. I keep the physical book mostly clean.

However, I am looking for a way to keep track of points and arguments in works, and I hypothesize that marginalia are the way to do this the best.

Apparently, the real ownership of a book, to make it a part of oneself, you need to mark it up. To make use of marginalia, according to Adler that is.

I personally don't like Marginalia, as I want to keep my books clean, which is why I use Luhmann's bibliography card method, but perhaps Adler can convince me of the opposite. We shall see.

Adler makes a valid point here, books in its own have no worth. Owning a book, or even having "read" it don't serve any purpose. One must read properly in order to this, analytically or syntopically as Adler would call it.

What he is wrong at, in my opinion, that Marginalia are the key to doing this... Yes, they might be helpful, but other techniques, such as Luhmann's bib-card method and learning methodologies like GRINDEmapping could perhaps be even more useful for this purpose.

David Lynch Interview supposedly... source? (asking mrtnj at https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992400632776507447)

Interesting with respect to orality almost more than literacy.

I very much like this idea! I have years of journals that I sometimes peruse, and have lamented that so many "good ideas" live in there, but I never use them, or much see them. This has me wondering if I can incorporate them into my zettelkasten.

That said, I have had some pretty amazing conversations with ChatGPT-4. I've found it to be useful, too, for brainstorming. In one recent case (which I blogged about on my personal blog), the AI helped me through figuring out a structural issue with my zettelkasten.

Rolodex Item #67380 https://www.ebay.com/itm/166733559184

You have to appreciate the way that this zettelkasten is designed to be decorative and include personal family photos almost as a representation of what it directly contains.

Caption: A small rolodex file in grey and black plastic with a picture frame on the front with space for a small photo, in this case either a picture of a young child or a family dog

00:26 Zettelkasten wasn't conceived by Niklas Luhmann; this is a myth (which the person in the video puts forward). Zettelkasten has a long history, and, Niklas Luhmann had a specific taste and version of it.

1:09 He puts the question forward: "why is the material on zettelkasten so divergent?" Well, it has been, historically speaking. There is no one way to keep a zettelkasten. What the person is pointing at, I think, is why are practices so divergent from Niklas Luhmann?

reply to u/Lauchpferd at https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1c6ydzp/how_much_googleable_information_do_you_have_in/

This is the wrong question to be asking. If it were useful, then Google has everything already, so why bother? Let them do all the work for you.

Most note taking methods were evolved to not only aid in sensemaking, but to help people with the exponentially growing "information overload" problem. Sure you can Google many things, but doing so usually provides "facts" and rarely ever actual insight. Thus: discover, collect, index, link, build.

If you had to search every time to use a thing, you'd lose out most of your effort to the scourge of time when you've probably seen it before and could find it internally among your own collection of millions of things (with greater accuracy as well as reliability of the information you've previously vetted) versus Google's quadrillions of things which would all need to be vetted for relevancy, accuracy, and then placement among the thread of ideas you were attempting to potentially build toward. And once you've found it to place where you need it to make an argument or complete an argument, where will you put it? in your notes? And now you've come full circle.

Save yourself the time and only do the job once.

No piece of information is superior to any other. Power lies in having them all on file and then finding the connections. There are always connections; you have only to want to find them. —Umberto Eco

reply to https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1c4kaps/giving_you_notes_a_unique_id_the_debate_continues/kzop2yh/

I'm with you on some of this, but let me play devil's advocate for a moment, so that we might hew closer to the question u/atomicnotes has posed:

If a Dewey Decimal Number is equivalent to a topic heading or subject, then what is the difference between using these subject/category/tag headings and forgoing the work of translating into a DC number (a task which is far less straightforward for those without a library science). If there is a onto to one and onto correspondence there should mathematically be no difference.

And how does one treat insightful material on geometry (516), for example, which comes from a book classified about political science (320-329)?

In a similar vein, why not use Otlet's Universal Decimal Classification which more easily allows for the admixture of topics as well as time periods?

Separately, I'll echo your valuable statement:

"I think everyone stumbles into a system of their own. I suspect the best practice here is the one that works for you!"

This is the first time I've seen a mention of a Cutter number in the zettelkasten space.

https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Obsidian-Beginner-Advance-Techniques-ebook/dp/B0BZ11C7KY

What is their specific definition of a digital zettelkasten? (Is it more Luhmann-artig or commonplace book?)

A sequence of notes, also known as a "folgezettel", is a train of thought. A hierarchical structure like a folgezettel can help establish a sequence of notes by placing similar notes close together. It can also provide a quick view of first-level connections between notes.

I am not sure what "topics" or "categories" means here and why they should be decided first. I thought Zettelkasten by design accommodates any number of subject matter.

you write the notes on it and you're faced with a dilemma because you don't know which folder to use it's problems like these that makes the use of the system cumbersome and makes the users eventually abandon their system altogether. On the contrary zedl casting is bottom up you start with a hodgepodge of nodes each indicating an idea and you link them with each other there are no folders nothing but as you keep adding more and more notes into the system into this primary soup you can see the emergent structure you'll see that some nodes form clusters like they become the central hubs around which many other ideas and concepts revolve so they must be crucial and over time the system becomes more structured despite the initial thought that it will just turn into a confusing hairball of notes

I should start collecting quotes about Luhmann's prodigiousness. I've read variously that he published 40 books, 50 books, 60 books, 70+ books, as well as 400, 600 articles. I'm just curious to know 1) what the real number is, and 2) why so many people are using different numbers.

Fascinating that within a section or prose about indexing within MiddleMarch (set in 1829 to 1832 and published in 1871-1872), George Eliot compares a character's distinguished appearance to that of John Locke!

Mr. Brooke asks for advice about arranging notes as he has tried pigeon holes but has the common issue of multiple storage and can't remember under which letter he's filed his particular note. Mr. Casaubon indicates that he uses pigeon-holes.

Dorothea Brooke mentions that she knows how to properly index papers so that they might be searched for and found later. She is likely aware of John Locke's indexing method from 1685 (or in English in 1706) and in the same scene compares Mr. Casaubon's appearance to Locke.

RE: Thinking about Luhmann's ZKI and ZKII at https://hypothes.is/a/nEPjVPN3Ee6EheNfkl3DfA

I have to wonder if there's an explicit nod to both ZKI and ZKII in Daniel Lüdecke's naming of ZKN3 here? or had he simply gone through prior iterations of the software himself?

Given his experience in the space, the work of creating a second index (card index/zettelkasten), marks an important change or shift in perspective.

This may shed light on Niklas Luhmann's practices between ZKI and ZKII. What were the important differences between the two? Presumably closer focus was important for ZKII.

Substituting what Kaiser calls "superior for inferior control" which he defines as "reorganization" is a path which allows for the ideas behind the progressive enhancement of raw (fleeting) notes to commonplacing, to indexing, to a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten to work for a broad variety of people. Not everyone will require the same level of organization.

This is the reasoning for why we'll want an indexed system. The vast wealth of information may be overwhelming, but with the ability to organize and control it (by writing it down and indexing it) we can turn it into something useful.

Even in writing his book, which takes the form of a numbered and indexed card index, he's making explicit links to the similar card index which he made in volume 1 of the book. It's as if he's created his own hypertext of linked material between the two volumes.

Julius Kaiser built a card index (zettelkasten) of 50,000 index cards based on a system he says he worked out between 1896-7 when he was Librarian of the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. In following years he applied the system to three additional card indexes (of unmentioned sizes).

His experience in doing this provides significant ethos for his coming arguments and discussion.

Part of Luhmann's practice in looking up ideas to place in his zettelkasten first was a means of preventing duplication of ideas. If an idea is repeated, that can be noted on the extant card as evidence that others see the idea too or one can compare the potential subtle differences as a means of expanding the space.

Eliminating duplication also assists in the ratchet effect of collecting information and connecting it.

I appreciate his emphasis on "always" here. Though given our current rise of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, this is obviously a problem which people are attempting to overcome.

Sadly, AI seem to be designed for the commercial masses in the same way that Google Search is (cross reference: https://hypothes.is/a/jx6MYvETEe6Ip2OnCJnJbg), so without a large enough model of your own interests, can AI solve your personal problems? And if this is the case, how much data will it really need? To solve this problem, you need your own storehouse of personally curated data to teach an AI. Even if you have such a store for an AI, will the AI still proceed in the direction you would in reality or will it represent some stochastic or random process from the point it leaves your personal data set?

How do we get around the chicken-and-egg problem here? What else might the solution space look like outside of this sketch?

Kaiser's argument for why building a personal index of notes is more valuable than relying on the indexes of others.

Note that this is answer still stands firmly even after the advent of both the Mundaneum, Google, and other digital search methods (not to mention his statement about ignoring advertising, which obviously had irksome aspects even in 1911.) Our needs and desires are idiosyncratic, so our personal indexes are going to be imminently more valuable to us over time because of these idiosyncrasies. Sure, you could just Google it, but Google answers stand alone and don't build you toward insight without the added work of creating your own index.

Some of this is bound up in the idea that your own personal notes are far more valuable than the notes someone else may have taken and passed along to you.

https://fromm-online.org/mediathek-und-download/exzerpte-sammlung-erich-fromms/<br /> Exzerpte Sammlung Erich Fromms

Excerpts as .pdf: https://fromm-online.org/wp-content/uploads/lists/4.04%20Excerpts%20collection%20of%20Erich%20Fromm.pdf

What great advice this is in general, but especially for those who are attempting to copy or recreate Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten for themselves.

Regular note taking practice will be the best indicator of when potential improvements are worthwhile. Though you may see someone else's advice, workflows, or potential improvements, they may be just as likely not to work for you and your particular needs. Adopting changes without thinking them through or even practicing them for a while are more likely to cause harm, regret, or additional work without any value added to the system.

While many will be interested in improving, expanding, or constantly changing their note taking systems, centuries of practice and experience indicate as Julius Kaiser says that they "must eventually prove fatal" (¶361). Allow simplicity, consistency, and continuity to be your watchwords and put your creativity into your reading and writing rather than into the system and workflows themselves. Additional rules and workflows will result in extra work which doesn't produce results in the long term. These will make your work more complicated, less likely to be consistent, and generally will destroy your ability to create continuity.

This advice also generally applies to one's one personal zettelkasten, much less a group version.

we have forbidden what we wish to enforce in another in however small a degree it may be ; or very probably we shall find that cases or conditions arise, when our rules are inapplicable, our wording is faulty or our meaning ambiguous.

Placing call numbers or location numbers on items to be filed allows them to be separated from other items while placing cross-references or links allows them to be brought back together again. These two affordances allow for divergence as well as convergence of items or ideas.

While some sources (which? Kaiser implies that there are some, though they may have been based on anecdotal evidence) apparently recommend to use one number for each firm, Kaiser admonishes users to stay away from this rule as not all firms will also take up space within each particular category. He recommends using consecutive numbering within each category so that there are no gaps. This lack of any gaps will reveal in the future when things may be missing from one's system.

In describing classification schemes for card index-based business uses, Julius Kaiser indicated in 1908 that "elaborate library classifications were either inapplicable or much too complicated and therefore unmanageable." This is in part because of the standardization of the Dewey Decimal System, which may have provided efficiencies for library systems, but proved too rigid for the idiosyncrasies of a variety of businesses. Instead he describes an alpha-numeric system in which numbers provide simple means of finding while the initial alphabetic codes assign specific office-related classes (correspondence, press cuttings, catalogs, etc.) to the indexed materials.

This quote is broadly recognized in economic settings as true, but few in the knowledge management space place emphasis or focus on designing both simple systems which are easy to master and use on a regular, ongoing basis. This allows the knowledge worker the ability to more quickly (almost blindly) handle their indexing and filing operations so that things are precisely where they need them when required for use.

Poor design will not only decrease the ease of use, but also discourage the user from both efficiently using and benefiting from their systems.

Even simple and efficient filing systems require familiarity and expertise for them to effect useful gains to their users, and prove their effectiveness over time. If a user can't get to a basic level of functionality in short time, they're likely to give up on it and never see the ultimate benefits.

Index card quality can be important for cards that are repeatedly used.

This admonition was more frequently attended to with respect to library card catalogs, but potentially less followed in personal use—Niklas Luhmann's self-cut paper slips which wore ragged over time come quickly to mind here.

¶5

The book is ostensibly in the form of a card index with numbers laid out in running order to create a book. The index is also done keyed to these paragraph numbers rather than by page as has traditionally been done.

As a result, one could cut up the book (or two copies to get both sides) and turn it back into a card index with very little work.

companion volumes treated the topics of "analysing literature" and the application of tabulated cards to practical business "at the Factory".

see: Kaiser, J. Systematic Indexing. The Card System Series 2. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1911. http://archive.org/details/systematicindexi00kaisuoft.

https://archive.org/details/run-de-1986-10/page/120/mode/2up

"RUN – Unabhängiges Commodore Computermagazin", Ausgabe 10/Oktober 1986, which has a hexdump code listing of a C64 Zettelkasten

ᔥ[Michael Gisiger[]] in mastodon: (@gisiger@nerdculture.de)

Lust auf #Retrocomputing und #PKM mit einem #Zettelkasten? Bitte schön, in der Oktober-Ausgabe 1986 des #Commodore Magazins RUN findet sich ein Listing für den #C64 dazu. Viel Spass beim Abtippen 😅

https://archive.org/details/run-de-1986-10/page/120/mode/2up

See additional conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/c64/comments/1bg0ja1/does_anyone_have_the_zettelkasten_program_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://pipdecks.com/

Also targeting business executives (via YouTube) as a storytelling deck: https://pipdecks.com/pages/storyteller-tactics-card-deck

Described as "expert knowledge in your back pocket", and sold as a "toolkit" with "practical step-by-step recipes", and "templates."

They offer 7 decks of tactics for Brand, Team, Storytelling, Innovation, Productivity, Team, Workshop, Strategy.

/reply at Digital Fitness in response to Agnes Lausen about folgezettel

Hey Agnes, thanks a lot for attending. I rlly loved the energy and loved doing the workshop. As to your question, yes I do use obsidian for my zettelkasten. As to the numbering, it gives me a few benefits. Firstly, it forces me to make a link. If I am going to import a new note, I will have to link the note to another note, because I have to give an ID (number). This prevents orphan notes. And, it gives me a visual sense of what is going on in my zettelkasten. I can see at a glance if a section has more notes than others (my section 4, for example, has more notes.) Both the ID and the statement title, for me, gives me so much context just seeing the title without looking at the contents.

This is a useful frame with respect to any process.

How would one apply it to zettelkasten for those having issues in their workflows?

One could consider the simplicity of ars excerpendi/zettelkasten against the phrase "trust the process", and this is fine for some of the lower level collecting methods, but one needs to be careful not to fall trap to the complacency of only collecting and not using the collection to actively create.

Many people rely too much on the collection portion of the process and don't put any work into the use or creation portions. They may be left wondering what the ultimate value is of their unused collection of treasure.

Indexing the world into a commonplace book, zettelkasten, or other means can create new perspectives on the world in which we live. It thereby helps to prevent the sorts of cognitive bias which we might otherwise fall trap to.

This example of Homes indexing crime gives him a dramatically different perspective on crime in the countryside to Watson who only sees the beauty in the story of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1bdpe68/is_the_zettelkasten_just_for_organised_people/

This could be used as a stand alone app for viewing and arranging "index cards" as a digital outliner for organizing ideas.

https://blyt.net/phxslides/

A slideshow could be thought of as an individual playlist or outline for a particular article, chapter, or book.

Phoenix Slides https://blyt.net/phxslides/

via Peter Kaminski:

A fast, free image viewer I use for sifting through thousands of images:

I love the tying together of the "aliveness" of a zettelkasten with the "soul" of the phonograph here.

https://qnnnp.medium.com/is-a-second-brain-superior-to-no-brainer-writing-c494dc86d429

Obsidian templates via Edmund Gröpl<br /> https://github.com/groepl/Obsidian-Templates

aka u/International_Bed897 and also on forum.zettelkasten.de

Listened to [[Jorge Arango]] in Beck Tench on Tinderbox

https://web.archive.org/web/20240305193114/https://writing.bobdoto.computer/how-to-use-folgezettel-in-your-zettelkasten-everything-you-need-to-know-to-get-started/

I regularly come across posts wrt to use Folgezettel or not, and whether there's a role for them outside 'Luhmann purism'. Bob Doto is vocal about it, or has been over the yrs. I get three elements from this: 1. The numerical branches and numbers are emergent, not preplanned like Johnny Decimal or as people once suggested for common placing 1. It forces a first link. Which also serves as a mental anchor. This is something that can work regardless of Folgezettel. I also always add at least one link. The thing is I do not fixate that link by marking them as the original or something like that. I could however do that in some way. The same is true for exploring the collection. It might help as an entry point (and you may have a mental map of the main numbered branches) but that works without numbering too: I know from the graph where main sections of my notes are and use that as starting point. 1. Luhmann and Doto remarked it helps preserve original lines of reasoning /argumentation from a source text or their thinking session. This is something I currently don't really have, and do miss. I do at times create an overview note for such things, and I sometimes add 'link trains' to a note, linking to an overarching concept and following concept and an example. I am not sure that introducing numbering is key in keeping lines of argumentation visible/traceable. This is one of the things to think about n:: numbering systems allow keeping lines of reasoning

https://chat.openai.com/g/g-z5XcnT7cQ-zettel-critique-assistant

Zettel Critique Assistant<br /> By Florian Lengyel<br /> Critique Zettels following three rules: Zettels should have a single focus, WikiLinks indicate a shift in focus, Zettels should be written for your future self. The GPT will suggest how to split multi-focused notes into separate notes. Create structure note from a list of note titles and abstracts.

ᔥ[[ZettelDistraction]] in Share with us what is happening in your ZK this week. February 20, 2024

https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1avz21q/what_to_teach_in_an_obsidian_workshop_at/

Fleeting notes aren't permanently stored in the zettelkasten

Duncan, Dennis. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age. 1st ed. London: Allen Lane, 2021. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324002543.

annotation link: urn:x-pdf:a4bd1877f0712efcc681d33d58777e55

https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3Aa4bd1877f0712efcc681d33d58777e55

I'm curious if anyone frames their zettelkasten practice in terms of disputation via the scholastic tradition? <br /> context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vhEmiHodUU How to Automatically Be More Creative by Morganeua

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1aquhwp/the_problem_of_zettelkasen_transparency/

One of the more philosophical posts in the r/zettelkasten space....

Able to see lots of cards at once.

ZK practice inspired by Ahrens, but had practice based on Umberto Eco's book before that.

Broad subjects for his Ph.D. studies: Ecology in architecture / environmentalism

3 parts: - zk main cards - bibliography / keywords - chronological section (history of ecology)

Four "drawers" and space for blank cards and supplies. Built on wheels to allow movement. Has a foldable cover.

He has analog practice because he worries about companies closing and taking notes with them.

Watched TheNoPoet's How I use my analog Zettelkasten.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheIdiotPoet

Bought a photo printer so he could include images and photos in his zettelkasten

Watched [[The Unenlightened Generalists]] in Linked Notes: An Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method

A 28:30 intro to zettelkasten. I could only make it about 10 minutes in. Fine, but nothing more than yet another "one pager" on method with a modified version of the Luhmann myth as motivation.

reference for this?

definition: syndetic structure is one of coherency and resolution made up by referential links.

Why is no one using this word in the zettelkasten space?

The adjective "syndetic" means "serving to connect" or "to be connected by a conjunction". (A conjunction being a word used to connect words, phrases and clauses, for example: and, but, if). The antonym is "asyndetic" (connections made without conjoins)

List of names for computerized library card catalogs at various libraries.

https://www.amazon.com/Knape-Vogt-Card-Size-Follower-Anochrome/dp/B0006FKQJ4

https://www.wwhardware.com/catalog/product/view/_ignore_category/1/id/3588/s/kv-index-follower-and-track-kv047/

https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/hardware/storage-and-organization/files/69118-index-followers

Listed as an "Index Follower". Looks to be the same model as https://www.wwhardware.com/catalog/product/view/_ignore_category/1/id/3588/s/kv-index-follower-and-track-kv047/

by u/osservazione at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/1anwrez/zauberkasten_work_in_progress/

Mr Collier had a special technique. He cut out the quotations and, dipping a brush in sweet-smelling Perkins Paste glue, he stuck the quotation onto the slip. It was quick, and some nights he could get through 100 slips. Just him and the sound of his scissors, the incessant croak of cicadas, and the greasy smell of the neighbour’s lamb chops hanging in the close air. Around midnight, he would stop work, gather up the scraps of paper, clear the table,

zettelkasten and nudity!!!

The first edition of the Oxford English dictionary was published in 1928 in 10 volumes containing 414,825 entries and 1,827,306 quotations.

One of the longest serving OED contributors, Edward Peacock wrote 24,806 slips over 54 years which comes to approximately 1.25 notes per day.

over how long a period?

Job Pierson 43,055 slips over 11 years<br /> 10.7 notes per day

compare with scrap heaps or even the method of Eminem's zettelkasten (Eminem's gloryhole ???). rofl...