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. -
What is the nature of a good note?
One of the core ideas of the Zettelkasten Method is to ask this
question. There are two parts external, such as the title, tags,
etc., and internal, which is the actual content. I put a heavy
emphasis on this issue because of experience. All too often, I felt
betrayed by my past self, creating a bad note. A more
meta-perspective on the difference between bad and good notes is
that a bad note is a task for your future self. A good note is an
accomplished task that your future self can then build on. -
What are the tools you want to create within your system?
In my opinion, there is too much emphasis on retrieval in the domain
of personal knowledge management. Yes, sometimes you need to
retrieve a piece of information from your system. But the bigger and
more complex your system is, the less you know what you retrieve.
Imagine you are searching for a new pair of hiking shoes because
your old ones are giving up. You cannot retrieve information. You
also shouldn’t just search for shoes and filter through a big list
of all shoes or all hiking shoes. The best way is to find a page
that explains what makes a good hiking shoe, then offers you a
limited number of options. So, you want an entry point that offers a
limited number of options, guided by concise information. When I,
for example, want to think about the hero’s journey, I don’t just
want to retrieve my notes about the hero’s journey. I want an entry
point that informs me, at the same time, about the most important
lines of thinking. The Zettelkasten shouldn’t just offer a set of
notes but provide a space for notes (mathematically speaking). Why?
Because it is way more valuable and scales to large sets of notes.
That is why I ask myself when processing notes into my Zettelkasten:
What structures can I build that serve as tools for my future self?
I don’t just store notes but create entry points to topics, thinking
canvases, and spines for later lines of thinking. -
What am I doing that is scaling to an infinite number of notes?
This is a critical question, since the number of notes will be huge
if you stick to one system for the rest of your life. Using tags to
create connections, for example, doesn’t scale. The more you use a
specific tag, the more you dilute already existing connections.
Connections through tags are basically pointers from a particular
note to a growing tag cloud. Direct links are not changing. However,
if you make it a habit to leave the links unexplained, you burden
your future self with the explanation. You will forget why you
connected these notes, and your future self will always have to put
in the additional work of (re-) understanding the connection when it
follows a link. Therefore, to manage uncertainty, you should create
direct links with a diligent explanation/description of the
connection of the ideas/thoughts in the notes.
Live long and prosper
Sascha