Share with us what is happening in your ZK this week. April 12, 2024

Will

Swimming with Ideas

This is yet another opportunity to share with your friends what you are working on. Add to this discussion by telling us about your zettelkasten journey. Share with us what you're learning. Sharing helps me and, hopefully, you, too. It helps us clarify our goals and visualize our thinking. And sometimes, a conversation sparks a magical moment where we can dive into an idea worth exploring. We'd love to hear more from you. 🫵🏼

Ideas I'm exploring with my ZK:

• A deep dive into time-slicing vs time-sinks. I'm looking at this from the perspective of creating a flourishing life in the present moment and not as much from a formal "time management" perspective. I see that incrementally working on strategies for maintaining continuity and interest over time is what will make time-slicing sustainable, where my rigid thinking has led me to drop this practice in the past.
• With the help of Matt Ellis at Grammarly Blog, I am studying the differences between summarizing and paraphrasing for academic research.

Books I'm reading:

• Sertillanges, A. G. and Ryan, Mary. The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. 1987. PDF [[202402140719]]
• Doty, M. (2010). The art of description: World into word. Graywolf Press. Kindle [[202403201942]]
• Inciting Joy. Ross Gay Everand Audio [[202403292012]]
• Bloor, Edward. Tangerine. 2006. Kindle [[202404051807]]
• Woodson, J. (2016). Brown girl dreaming. Puffin Books. Everand Ebook and Audio [[202404070523]]
• Saunders, G. (2017). Congratulations, by the way: Here are some thoughts on kindness. Bloomsbury. Kindle [[202404111709]]

Music I'm listening to:

• Peruvian Sergio Díaz De Rojas

A look at this week's ZK work themes:

1 zettel - meta zettelkasting
1 zettel - meta writing
0 zettel - advancing python
3 zettel - Ed-Curriculum & Instruction (EDCI445)
8 zettel - captured new and novel ideas
1 zettel - YAL Blindness Study

★★★★★

The "My rolling ten-day zettel production" is produced by a script for attachment to my daily journaling template. I do my journaling in Bear to keep personal journaling separate from my knowledge work.

Let me know if you would like to discuss any of these notes.

My ten day zettel production

RedShirt_TX

Hi Will,
This is my first day in this forum. I've been thinking a lot about 'Learning in Public', and am simultaneously creating my second Zettelkasten (in Obsidian) after so many lessons-learned with the first attempt.

Biggest lesson

Slow down to produce quality notes instead of perpetually collecting snippets of information from the world -- collecting led me to a mess of notes but no encoding.

What I'm working on: Creating a retention survey for my organization.

I'm using it as an opportunity to practice good habits of processing journal articles fully (producing cards of information in my own words). Historically, I've compiled huge lists and pdfs of viable journal articles, read/highlighted the top few.. and then either run out of steam or became paralyzed by so much reading left to be done.

So I selected three (and only three) journal articles today - and have about 10 good kettel cards from the effort.

GeoEng51

@RedShirt_TX said:
Hi Will,
This is my first day in this forum. I've been thinking a lot about 'Learning in Public', and am simultaneously creating my second Zettelkasten (in Obsidian) after so many lessons-learned with the first attempt.

Hey - welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing some of your lessons learned. We've all been there! Hope you enjoy the forum for many years to come.

Loni

Hi @RedShirt_TX, and welcome!

Slow down to produce quality notes instead of perpetually collecting snippets of information from the world -- collecting led me to a mess of notes but no encoding.

It seems like a valuable lesson for Zettelkasten, which can help you in any domain. Every worthy things take times. You have fallen into the collector fallacie, and hell, you were not the only one.

Thank you @Will for the discovery of Sergio Díaz De Rojas ! I don't want music with lyrics, but he wrote some beautiful piece without voice and I really appreciated them and add them to my playlists.

A deep dive into time-slicing vs time-sinks. I'm looking at this from the perspective of creating a flourishing life in the present moment and not as much from a formal "time management" perspective. I see that incrementally working on strategies for maintaining continuity and interest over time is what will make time-slicing sustainable, where my rigid thinking has led me to drop this practice in the past.

What do you call "time slicing"? I wish you the best in order to create a flourishing life

In Loni's ZK

I'm working on a new organisational system... Which means I let drop systems. In my physical paper Zettelkasten, I use timestamp on my note cards which helps me to order them. I use tags cards for the subject of the notes, people card or reference card when a note is about someone, or something I read/play/watch, and structure note when I asked myself questions which lead to the creation of zettels with link to every pertinent zettels.

For example, I've created several notes about the Black Company, written by Glen Cook.

• I use a Reference Card with handwritten links to every notes related to it. I stock it under the "B" of the alphabetic folders of this section into my box.
• I use a People Card about Glen Cook with a link to the reference card of the books.
• I use Tags Card and add link to the reference card, for example Fantasy
• I link related Tags Cards to the individual notes. For example, I wrote link to 230913123401 - The archives, the memory of the company and the heart of its identity into the Memory and Identity. This card mays later take part to a Structure Note about how memory and identity are related.

It's quite a streamlined process, really simple to use. It relies on the relevancy of my tagging and linking system.

I stopped using folgezettels or pre-numbering of my note cards.

Why timestamp? Why don't use a numbering system like folgezettel or a Dewey-like ordering system?

Because I was quite convinced by this post : Don't use categories, use tags instead and I have a physical archive.

Let me explain.

My notes have a timestamp. I use it like a physical address for my note. I will always find 230913123401 - The archives, the memory of the company and the heart of its identity after the 230913122401 - Glen Cook/ The Black Company - Presentation and before the 240410103949 Watercolor - The Bead technic.

If I used a Dewey like or a folgezettel number and I made a mistake or liked to change my system, I would have to re-write the stamp of every zettels and to update every notes. While timestamp allow me to physicaly classify my notes if I wish to by physical means, like dividers or putting them in a separate box for a project. Their links stay the same whatever they position is, their order into their new location - permanent or temporary - stay the same. 230913XXXXXX stays before 240410XXXXXX.

If I am not happy with my tagging system, I can throw the previous taggings cards and create new ones. It is so much easier than changin every cards numbers. It is so much easier than creating top-down hierarchy.

Folgezettel is an other subject. If I need a cluster or a narrative, I will create a new section with dividers and structure notes related to the narrative. I can't remember every course of thoughts I had through my notes, it is hard to remembers, later, which were the subject of the 1.223A cards or whatever. I want and need to ask myself "how this zettel relates to my archive", but I need my bandwidth for my notes, not the system.

The workflow

For now, I am quite happy with my worflow. Some notes are obvious to make, but others may need time to proceed. I write "fleeting notes" into my bullet journal and proceed everything I need to. For example, I wrote one entry about "Can we train ourselves to better thinking?" and write everything I can think about. Then, I connected some bullets, annotated further questions and so on, until I obtained a blueprint for the next zettels and a structure notes.

I begin to work with something I really appreciate.

ZettelDistraction

What's happening in my ZK? Brain fog: I'm coming off my first known case of COVID-19. I tested positive on Friday, March 29th, 2024. Ideas don't take. Certain types of mathematics, such as ends and coends, seem repulsive and forgettable to me. The solemn, unself-conscious seriousness accorded to specific basic mathematical constructions, such as the evaluation function, seems ludicrous. I won't reveal more than those feelings; I might offend someone. But other than that, I have nothing to report.

Sascha

@ZettelDistraction When I had Covid, I had the same. For quite some days, my focus was very limited.

What I do: A good multi-vitamin taken, triple the daily dose, but taken every two days. This pendulum between oversaturation and time to excrete eventual oversupply seems to accelerate the healing process.

Also: Vitamin D, Zinc, Magnesium (citrate), sunlight, walks

---

I am not a doctor. You might die if you just look at my non-recommendation above.

ZettelDistraction

@Sascha said:
@ZettelDistraction When I had Covid, I had the same. For quite some days, my focus was very limited.

Also: Vitamin D, Zinc, Magnesium (citrate), sunlight, walks

---

I am not a doctor. You might die if you just look at my non-recommendation above.

Thanks. I'll try this--I haven't been taking my vitamins. If I don't survive, I'll let you know.

Loni

@ZettelDistraction said:
What's happening in my ZK? Brain fog: I'm coming off my first known case of COVID-19. I tested positive on Friday, March 29th, 2024. Ideas don't take. Certain types of mathematics, such as ends and coends, seem repulsive and forgettable to me. The solemn, unself-conscious seriousness accorded to specific basic mathematical constructions, such as the evaluation function, seems ludicrous. I won't reveal more than those feelings; I might offend someone. But other than that, I have nothing to report.

You have all of my compassion here.

When I had COVID, I was awfully tired, like if my body weight had tripled. Short breath, short attention span, depression-like mood. I did'nt feel other flu like symptoms, I was lucky. It took me time to fully recover, two weeks to feel lighter, on month to see better energy levels. All COVIDs are not the same.

Like @Sascha, I made a vitamins cure and walk sessions.

I wish you a good healing and convalescence!

GeoEng51

@ZettelDistraction We'll miss your insightful comments for a while - hope you have a swift and full recovery!!