About Christian
Hello, my name is Christian, I’m a programmer first, writer second, and I really like to work with my Zettelkasten to capture everything that can be written down!
Quickly jump to a sub-section of this page:
I Use My Zettelkasten to Write With Purpose
I love to type, and that in part drives my motivation to write. And when I write, I want to be writing to some purpose.
The Zettelkasten Method helps me maintain a purposeful writing practice. Piece by piece I work on something that can be published to help readers learn something.
The Zettelkasten is a tool to keep everything I learn in one place, and the Zettelkasten Method supports me in creating something new from that, deriving ideas from self-made structures of knowledge.
Over the past decade, this combination helped me to learn what I know about software development. Not only do I not forget the details anymore (well, I do forget, but I know what to look up in no time), I also produce articles and books based on this. These products almost appear out of thin air. Do you know how they say that the proverbial “overnight success” of startups is preceded by many years of hard work? The Zettelkasten Method makes putting in constant effort simple (albeit not easy), and that’s how I prepare complex projects as a by-product of my daily research and work.
My Zettelkasten & My Software Development
Even though I met Sascha through Philosophy seminars at University, I’m a software developer by trade and am responsible for progress on our app, The Archive. In my part-time I’m working on a grandiose “Theory and Practice of Independent Software Development” – that’s the tongue-in-cheek title of things I’ve learned and published about software development.
I don’t dedicate time to work with my Zettelkasten and advance writing projects since I’m too busy programming. But I use my Zettelkasten every day to solve problems and work on long-term projects.
Just three examples that are related to programming:
- Code snippets: I capture small pieces of code to illustrate something I learned. I comment on the code and its use and why I think it’s important.
- Facts, descriptions, and explanation: To learn about new technology (e.g. how to manage a web server, how Bitcoin works under the hood), I capture information the same way academics cite sources. I connect pieces to create an overview of topics, accompanied by aforementioned code snippets to show how it’s down.
- Higher-level concepts: Things like cognitive fallacies, planning techniques, modes of thinking, and how to live a good life as a software developer.
Recommendations
You get better by putting in the work.
Practice is the touchstone of all fancy ideas and theories. Some stuff I thought was useful didn’t survive contact with reality. No planning can prepare you for what helps you down the road. We’re all a bit different from each other in our approaches.
I think it’s useful to have a playful attitude and be open for making mistakes. All notes are malleable. When you revisit notes, improve them. That’s the boyscout rule of Zettelkasten. <!–ct: TODO: Meme/Bild posten–>
Experiment, revise, take note of your findings (and grow a department about your Zettelkasten inside your Zettelkasten!). The worst thing you is not to make mistakes along the way, it’s to never have started at all. Course corrections are inevitable.
Do get feedback to get unstock. Sascha’s coaching might be for you! And show the community what you’re up to and ask questions to learn from other people’s journeys.
Trivia & Statistics
Have a peek over my shoulder and look at my setup and current state of things. (As of 2020-12-27)
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Here’s a part of the note stats from my Zettelkasten:
Date # notes 2012-01-29 1463 2013-01-01 2471 2015-02-02 3457 2018-01-01 4692 2019-01-01 5101 2021-01-01 5924 I have at least 50 ongoing writing and research projects in my Zettelkasten. And that’s all side-projects.
One is about macOS text editor programming – I rank pretty high on Google when you look for anything related to text editing and macOS and programming. So even though I don’t have a publication (like a book) on the topic, I still benefit from the research by having more eyeballs-per-month on my website!
I might be peculiar with these things, but I moved journalling and task management and such things out of my Zettelkasten and into Emacs org-mode files to keep them organized. My Zettelkasten consists of atomic, reusable, composable pieces of text, plus notes to structure them.
And this is what my Zettelkasten environment in The Archive looks like:
Posts by Christian
Email Christian • Get his posts as an RSS Feed.
2024
2023
2022
- The Archive is Ready for macOS 13 Ventura (November)
- Analog vs. Digital Zettelkasten (August)
2021
- System Crafters Answered org-roam and Zettelkasten Questions in Livestream (August)
- org-roam (Emacs Zettelkasten Package) Version 2 Released (July)
- Create Image Previews for Your Notes From Links With This Tool (July)
- Insert a New Zettel Where You Are with Will’s Macro (May)
- Alternative The Archive App Icon Fan Art (April)
- The Archive: 3rd Anniversary (March)
- The Archive v1.6.0: Image Preview in Your Notes (February)
- Use Image Capturing to Couple Your Desk and Your Zettelkasten (February)
- Chinese Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method (January)
- How to Use Wiki Links for Saved Searches in The Archive (January)
2020
- The Archive v1.5.7 (October)
- Alfred Macro Collection for The Archive (October)
- Welcome Visitors from Jooble! (October)
- Video Demo: TextMate as a Zettelkasten App (August)
- Zettelkasten Method Online Video Course Announcement (June)
- Zettelkasten Chatrooms (May)
- The Archive Turns 2 Years Old (March)
- Make [[WikiLinks]] Clickable in Marked 2 (March)
- Emulate Automatic Link Suggestions in Your Note-Taking App and The Archive (January)
- You Should Read David B. Clear’s Summary of the Zettelkasten Method (January)
- Insert a List of Backlinks Into All Your Notes (January)
2019
- Beginnings of Bryan Kam’s Zettelkasten Journey (November)
- “Thinking Outside Experience” - David Epstein: “Range” - Book Processing Ep 06 (October)
- “Learning, Fast and Slow” - David Epstein: “Range” - Book Processing Ep 05 (October)
- David Epstein: “Range” - Book Processing Ep 04 (October)
- David Epstein: “Range” - Book Processing Ep 03 (October)
- David Epstein: “Range” - Book Processing Ep 02 (September)
- David Epstein: “Range” - Book Processing Ep 01 (September)
- The Archive (v1.4) Introduces Multi-Tabbing (August)
- The Archive (v1.3.0) Browser Navigation (June)
- Breadcrumbs in Your Archive (May)
- Zettelkasten and Personal Knowledge Management for Business Founders (March)
- The Archive Turns 1 Year Old! (March)
- Using The Archive to Teach Music (March)
- iA Writer as a Zettelkasten Note Archive (January)
- Zettelkasten & The Archive at The Appademic (January)
2018
- Zettelkasten Method and Tinderbox (macOS) (December)
- 1Writer 2.9.1 Adds [[Wiki Links]] (November)
- Sascha and Christian Talk about Structure in a Zettelkasten on MacMittwoch (German Podcast) (October)
- Sascha and Christian talk about All Things Zettelkasten at Der Ubercast (German Podcast) (May)
- The Archive Has Arrived. (March)
- The Archive: Available March 15th (March)
2017
- Reference Manager JabRef 4 Released (November)
- Sublime Text 3 Zettelkasten Plugin (November)
- Overview Notes and Clickable Links (October)
- Maybe Sublime Text Works Well for a Zettelkasten (September)
- Come and Visit the New Forum (August)
- Christian’s Impressions of Sascha’s Book’s 2nd Edition (July)
- Book Processing Workflow (Video) (June)
- The Archive App – Why We Chose the nv-Core (May)
- The Archive App – Introduction to the Introduction (May)
- Is Bear for macOS a Zettelkasten Archive Fit? (May)
- No Beta Invitation Video Today ☹️ (May)
- Writing Links (April)
- The Archive (Mac app) Beta Invitation (April)
- Displaying Flow Charts in nvALT’s Preview Window Using Mermaid.js (April)
- Zettelkasten Live Ep. 7: Visualizing Branching Off in your Archive (April)
- Note Archive for Music? (April)
- Zettelkasten Live Ep. 6: Automation, Dumbing-Down, Business, and 2 Idiots on the Balcony (March)
- Zettelkasten Live Ep. 5: Automation is Dangerous (March)
- Zettelkasten Live Ep. 4: Structure, Structure, Structure. Bringing Order to Your Archive (February)
- A Few Website Changes (February)
- Zettelkasten Live Ep. 3: Collaboration Using the Method, plus Zettel Extraction Demos (January)
- Next Zettelkasten Live Episode Today (January)
2016
- Zettelkasten Live Ep. 2: Limits of our Zettelkasten Archives (December)
- Reader Question: Why Not Use a Plain-Text Wiki? (December)
- This Week’s Episode Will be Delayed Until Next Week (December)
- Next Zettelkasten Live Episode on Thursday (December)
- Zettelkasten Live: the Intro Video (November)
- Where Should My Writing Ideas Go? (July)
- Luhmann’s Essays on Writing and Using a Zettelkasten are Back Online (July)
- Fixed Links (May)
- When Should You Start a New Note? (April)
- Tag Pages Fixed (March)
- Your First Note – Don’t Overthink It (February)
- Fake Progress (February)
- First Draft from Outline – a Compiler Script (January)
2015
- Different Kinds of Ties Between Notes (November)
- Zettelkasten Method in Robert Pirsig’s Lila (November)
- Minimal Writing on the Mac ebook (November)
- Daniel’s Follow-Up About Folgezettel (November)
- Zettelkasten Method – German Edition Now Available in Stores Worldwide (October)
- Why You Should Set Links Manually and Not Rely on Search Alone (October)
- Tinderbox Principles (September)
- Listen to Schopenhauer: Reading Is Only Part of Becoming a Thinker (September)
- From Reading to Zettel Notes: Dan Sheffler’s Workflow for a Doctoral Thesis in Philosophy (August)
- Keeping a Study Log and Extracting Zettel Notes From It (August)
- Getting Started Series (July)
- Should You Have One Zettelkasten or Many? (July)
- Take Notes on Paper (but Write at Your Computer) (July)
- Dominique Renauld on Fond Memories of Working on Paper (July)
- Challenge Report: Writing a Term Paper with Evernote as Zettel Archive (June)
- App SummerFest 2015: 25% Off of Mac Apps and Scrivener (June)
- Take Reading Notes – A Reminder (June)
- Tasks and Goals of my Daily Review (June)
- How a Daily Review Routine Improved My Life and Work (June)
- Alex Chamessian is Designing His Own Personal Knowledge Management App (May)
- Jump to Headings in 1Writer (May)
- Publicizing my Challenge Contribution – Plan of the Term Paper (May)
- Why Categories for Your Note Archive are a Bad Idea (May)
- RSS Feed Reading and Filing – Automatization on Mac and iOS (May)
- 1Writer — Access Your Zettelkasten On Your iPad and iPhone (May)
- Publish Iteratively (April)
- You Don’t Need a Wiki – Being Content with Your Software (March)
- Eco’s ‘How to Write a Thesis’ Available in English (March)
- Old Posts Moved to This Blog (March)
- My Collector’s Fallacy Confession (March)
- ConnectedText Review (and Other Multi-Purpose Info-Managers for Windows) (February)
- How to Program Yourself for Productivity and Stop Searching for the Ideal Software (January)
- 4 Months In (January)
2014
- Writing and Publishing an E-book on Leanpub Effortless and in no Time (December)
- Curio (Mac) 30% Off Until Dec 28th 2014 (December)
- Getting Started with DEVONthink 2 (December)
- Getting Up to Speed with Reading about Evernote (December)
- Use Idea Indexes for Journals and Fiction (November)
- The Frame of Mind and Routine to Tackle NaNoWriMo (November)
- Stop Relying on a Source and Have Faith in Your own Thoughts (October)
- Zettel Note Header Automation in nvALT (October)
- How I Prepare to Work on a Research and Writing Project (September)
- Dealing with Forgetfulness – Introducing Christian (September)
- Composing and Revising – The Two Modes of Writing (August)
- Challenge: Apply the Knowledge Cycle to Reading a Single Book (July)
- Use a Short Knowledge Cycle to Keep Your Cool (July)
- Make Writing a Part of Your Identity (July)
- How to Track Your Writing Progress (June)
- Include Images in nvALT for a Multi-Media Zettelkasten Experience (June)
- How I use Outlines to Write Any Text (May)
- Building Blocks of a Zettelkasten (May)
- The Zettelkasten Platform – 2 Ways You Can Contribute (May)
- SlipBox (Mac) Note Archive Review (April)
- Lessons Learned from Losing All Routine (April)
- Using nvALT as a Zettel Note Archive (April)
- Baseline for Zettelkasten Software Reviews (March)
- Reading Habits: Putting It All Together (March)
- You Only Find What You Have Identified (February)
- Learn Faster by Writing Zettel Notes (February)
- Editorially is Shutting Down. What About Alternatives? (February)
- Note-Taking when Reading the Web and RSS (February)
- The Collector’s Fallacy (January)
2013
- Preparing Fragments Helps You to Ease Into Writing (November)
- Extend Your Mind and Memory With a Zettelkasten (November)
- Announcing a Zettelkasten Info Product (October)
- Manage Citations for a Zettelkasten (October)
- Create Zettel from Reading Notes According to the Principle of Atomicity (September)
- Making Proper Marks in Books (August)
- Create a Zettelkasten for your Notes to Improve Thinking and Writing (June)