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Zettelkasten Method Explained - A Beginner’s Guide⚓︎

This is an overview video from [[Vicky Zhao]] explaining how she uses Zettelkasten.

There are 3 types of notes:

  1. Fleeting Notes
  2. Everyday thoughts, shower thoughts, walking, epiphany with friend
  3. Capture them quickly
  4. Literature Notes (Reference Notes)
  • Created when consuming content like books, articles, podcasts, YouTube, movies, songs.
  • Rules of a Literature note:
  • One atomic idea per note, 3-5 sentences (if possible)
  • Write them in your own words
  • Track your references
  1. Permanent Notes
  • Review what we wrote in fleeting and literature and create these “The productivity of a knowledge worker should be tracked by how many permanent notes you produce in a day” - [[Sonke Ahrens]] 1. One atomic idea per note 2. Write assuming reader has no context, make it clear 3. Connect the permanent ideas with other notes

[[Niklas Luhmann]] only had two boxes

1) References which had all the literature notes categorized with a unique ID 2) Ideas which had all the permanent notes

Fleeting notes weren’t a part of his system. He would review them often and promote them to a permanent note if appropriate.

Some people mix all boxes in to one digital box, some do it by date, and some by using three boxes. There is no right or wrong ways, do what works best for you.

Source⚓︎

Zettelkasten Method Explained - A Beginner’s Guide - Vicky Zhao