What is a Zettelkasten?

In essence, a Zettelkasten is a living and breathing network of notes.

The problem with traditional note-taking is that it leads to fragmented and cluttered information. You box in ideas (folders) and eventually acquire more boxes than you can handle! The reality is that concepts aren't easily categorized in just one way and don't easily overlap. In fact, our brains don't comprehend information that way; rather, our brains learn concepts by forming meaningful connections. Niklas Luhmann believed that to truly understand complex subjects, you needed a system that encouraged an interplay of ideas-- Introducing, the Zettelkasten Method:

Each note can be linked to others, allowing for the emergence of unexpected connections, patterns, and insights. This makes it invaluable for research, writing, and personal growth. You can take notes however you want, but ideally, each note is atomic-- meaning there is one idea being expressed per note; the note can't be broken down any further, like an atom. This makes each note complete in and of itself, and easy to understand without context. Such notes then serve as the foundation for complex ideas. The beauty is that this system of note-taking grows organically because

1. Each note exists on its own without a need for an over-arching context.
2. Notes that are linked often will continue to come up. Those are worth remembering.
3. Notes that are linked infrequently are lost in the Zettelkasten. Those are worth forgetting.

If you've never heard of a Zettelkasten before, I hope you now understand its power and are amped to try it! (check out Obsidian.md)

Feel free to traverse my second brain up above by searching a tag :).

With curiosity,

Eliot