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You see there are multiple links to other notes that provide more details on the summarized list items: 201910091746 points to the note “Savants excel at their skill without innovating”. The body text consists of the first introductory sentence, and the list of details.The identifier is 201910091801, which stands for the at 18:01.In this example, the note is partitioned as follows: To ensure that you and I talk about the same stuff when we use these terms, take a look at this example note of mine called 201910091801 Struggling when you acquire a skill could be important to become great in your field: Anatomy of a Zettel: a partitioned example note

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Update : I’ve updated the note format and replaced the screenshot with a more recent example.Įvery note consists of various parts: it needs to have an identifier for linking, it needs to have body text or content to actually say something, and it may have some front matter and back matter to provide more info about the note or its sources. After all, the Zettelkasten method works with paper, so why worry about the latest fad in computing? I think it’s more suitable to begin with the lowest hurdle possible, see which applications outreach the expectations, then allow to be surprised. Instead of searching for the perfect app for an ideal note, we should focus on the content and the data, the note text and the note’s attributes. I consider these things interesting, but not mandatory. Some will even support links to other notes you can click on. Some editors will support emboldening and italicizing of text like Microsoft Word does. So how will notes look like? How will I compare?Īt first, let’s pretend that there’s no such thing as rich text.

I will evaluate these individual properties too, of course, but only in respect to their usefulness for managing a Zettelkasten note archive.

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Wiki-like software makes linking painless, while others provide sophisticated search mechanisms. How does the application manage to get everything out without losing information? How does it manage to get stuff in?Įvery software has its own features and limitations, of course.

Data export: nobody wants to be locked into a data silo.

Also, I’m going to cheat a bit: if full-text search works, manually linking notes will work, too: just put the target’s identifier somewhere, copy it, search for the identifier, and open the resulting note. I know of various ways different applications deal with this problem.

Note connections: which mechanisms does the app support to create connections? I’m leaving this point pretty vague intentionally.

Note creation: does it take many clicks or keystrokes to create a new Zettel note?.

Note retrieval: for example, how fast and easy is full-text search?.

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When these tasks were slow, you probably wouldn’t use the note archive enough. To get knowledge out of the Zettelkasten, it has to be fast at retrieving notes, too. The software has to make it effortless to add new notes and to connect them. There should be no obstacles when it comes to writing notes. After that, your information retrieval will change. There’s an estimate threshold which people assume to be at around 1000 notes. With time you will be surprised by the wealth and interconnectedness of information.

Write a lot: Feed your Zettelkasten and make it grow.

Use hyper-textual notes: Notes should both link to one another directly to create a web and use keywords to form clusters with indirect relationships.

To find out, recall the essentials you have to adhere to when you want to create a Zettelkasten to be your second brain: What does any note archive software has to achieve to be useful? Criteria I Will Considerįirst, we’ll see what the bare minimum features are. In the comments, you can contribute to this list.

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Therefore, we have to chose how to implement the note archive with great care. While reference managers can be switched pretty easily, migrating a database of notes is far from being a trivial task, depending on the software you used in the past. I already talked about reference managers. I’m going to take a close look at applications to find out which are suitable to implement the Zettelkasten note archive.

The all-purpose, one-size-fits-all note.

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