Posts tagged “scale”
The Friction Fallacy
TL;DR: Friction that increases with system size is an existential threat. Any note-taking or knowledge system whose marginal cost per note rises as the system grows will eventually become unusable, regardless of how beneficial it feels early on. A Zettelkasten must be scale-indifferent. It should remain usable even if flooded with massive amounts of low-quality notes. The “one-million bad notes” thought experiment is a stress test for this requirement.
Universal Questions for Any Note-Taking System
Dear Zettlers, Here are some universal questions for any note-taking system.
What do you want to build for your future self?
The ability to store a note quickly, for example, benefits your
present self. Possessing a valuable note is what your future self
will be grateful for. Since the Zettelkasten aims to be a lifelong
partner, it is a future-oriented tool. This orientation is
methodologically correct, since you are not keeping notes for
yourself, but for your future self. Your actions should therefore
not be aimed at making it easy now, but valuable, and first and
foremost, to create value in the future.
The Iceberg Theory of the Zettelkasten Method — Exploring the Depths
The Zettelkasten Method is not only a method of knowledge work. It is also a diagnostic tool. To demonstrate this, I would like to start with a short story from my work as a health and fitness trainer: A client contacted me because she wanted to lose weight. We discussed her situation and I sent her the first steps. One month later, she reported failure. She was unable to implement the program that we had discussed together. We reduced the program because my client said she was unable to implement it as planned due to time constraints and stress. The pattern repeated the next month. So we looked more closely for the causes. A surprising problem came to light:
How to Improve Your Zettelkasten by Learning from Athletic Training
The benefits of your Zettelkasten highly depend on the longevity of each note. Since the Zettelkasten as life-long companion and comrade in the battle for and against knowledge is a long-term endeavor, it is crucial that you create notes and structures that will last a long time. The minimum goal should be that they last a lifetime, so they are optimally designed for yourself. Ideally, they last forever, so future generations can benefit from your work as well.