Zettelkasten

Leave Breadcrumbs on Bookmarks for Your Future Self

A little trick from my desk: You can rarely process a book in one session. The question is how to continue from where you stopped the next time you pick up the book. If you use a slip card as a bookmark, there is a neat solution for you: Just write a hint on the slip card.

Take a look at this example (annotated because most of you neither speak German nor can read my scribbles comfortably):

Example of 4 "breadcrumbs" to pick up where I left off
  1. At the end of the first session, I planned to continue with the structure notes on rationality, reason and intellect. (Rationalität, Vernunft, Verstand)
  2. At the end of the second session, I planned to build the structure note on emotionality (as opposed to rationality). I didn’t screen my Zettelkasten for already existing notes on this topic. The “qq2” is a reminder that I already created this structure note and attached it to a saved search.
  3. At the end of the third session, I planned to review the sources “Schäfer2002” and “Bechara1995” in the next session.
  4. At the end of the fourth session, I planned to review the source “Berridge2007” and continue to work on note “201811081615” which I marked with a “qqq”

The process is super easy:

  1. Use a slip card as the bookmark for the book you process.
  2. Write at the end of each session what you want to do the next session.
  3. Continue the next session as previously planned.