Zettelkasten

“One cannot think without writing” Niklas Luhmann

A Smart Note Taking method for producing high volumes of high quality work at a natural pace with relatively low effort.

Named after "zettel" = slip & kasten = box, Slip-box

Zettels are permanent notes that get threaded into slipboxes and linked to other notes via their unique reference ID.

Literature Notes are used to index Sources to track attribution.

Digital systems, like Obsidian, make unique identification and "threading" much easier.

Zettelkasten Overview

There are three major elements of a Zettelkasten system:

1. Fleeting Notes
2. Literature Notes
3. Permanent Notes - Zettels

Fleeting notes are used for capturing quick thoughts & ideas.

Literature notes are used for distilling source material into your own words with reference to the original source, leveraging the Generation Effect.

Permanent notes are "crystallized insights", connections between fleeting notes & literature notes to produce encapsulations of knowledge. Quality permanent notes are the key mark of a good zettelkasten system.

Molecular Zettelkasten

Molecular Zettelkasten is my digital enhancement of the traditional zettelkasten system, inspired by Molecular Notes.

In my system:

1. Fleeting Notes = fleeting notes (unchanged, leveraging Daily Notes, Source Notes, and new notes)
2. Literature Notes = Atoms
3. Permanent Notes = Molecules
4. Publishable Notes = Alloys

Fleeting Notes

Atoms (Literature Notes)

Molecules (Permanent Notes)

Alloys (Publishable Notes)

Writing Flow

I explain more in Mind Garden Legend (how this system works) and in the videos below.