Zettelkasten

Announcing: the First Draft of the Zettelkasten Method Book in German

Hi folks,

I am happy to announce that I finished the first draft of the Zettelkasten Method Book in German. It turned out to be shorter than I thought. At this moment, I have no clue what the word count is, but did turn out not to be the behemoth I expected it to be.

Here is the preliminary table of contents (translated):

  • Introduction – Why use a Zettelkasten?
    1. Benefit from a Secondary Memory
    2. Improves Thinking and Reasoning
    3. Structures Your Workflow
    4. Trains Your Writing Ability
    5. Improves Your Reading Technique
    6. Relieve Your Mind
    7. Gives Your Notes a Long Term Purpose
  • User Manual – Quick n’dirty
  • Building Blocks
    • Archive
      1. The Archive. Kernel of your Zettelkasten
      2. The Header
      3. The Unique ID
      4. The Tags
      5. The Content
      6. The Links
      7. The Reference
    • Inbox
    • Reference Management
  • Step by Step Manual – The Installation of Your Zettelkasten
  • The Two Step Process
    • Collect
      1. Reading
      2. Prepare the Texts
      3. Making Notes
      4. Typical Mistakes while Collecting
    • Process
      1. Write a Zettel
      2. Tags and References
      3. Link the Zettel
  • The Workflow
    • Two Phases of Your Zettelkasten
    • Short or Long Cycle?
  • Writing with Your Zettelkasten

It is a very rough first draft and Christian will have to proof-read it in the upcoming weeks. I need to edit it at least two more times. Then we’ll decide if we can publish it already. The first edition of the Zettelkasten Method will be published in German.

Afterwards, we will translate it to English.

  • Do you have any questions?
  • Do you see missing pieces?

Christian’s Comment: I’m so glad Sascha took the initiative here. The English manuscript is still unfinished and I’m way too busy with other creative work to finish it in between. Still, there’s a lot of stuff prepared in English already. Instead of a literal translation, I expect to do a re-write of Sascha’s manuscript in English instead. I think this will work out well since he’s good at creating solid structures, so I don’t have to. I’m excited to see the first publication on this website. Our baby grows up!