Building physical zettelkasten from scratch

ktkthakre

Hey everyone!
I discovered Niklas Luhhman and about zettelkasten a few months ago and I am totally fascinated by it. I cannot get it out of my head. So, I decided to build one, a physical one, from scratch using 4*6 index cards I made from A4 size paper and also a hand made cardboard container to hold the cards. I started blogging from this year and I struggled to put together similar concepts and explain their depth in a blog post. So by starting a zettelkasten, I might have a chance at going deeper and increase my knowledge base, and also hand writing notes is a good way to remember stuff. I will mainly be taking notes and ideas from sources like articles, podcasts, books, documentaries and etc.Now, I have following problems:
1. Should I start making references and link notes from the first note?
2. How do I keep track of title of notes? By making table of contents?
3. Niklas Luhhman had different box for bibliography. How does that work?
4. Sould I use keywords or categories or both?
5. How do I handle quotes?

Please help me. This concept is really intriguing and I need to start it ASAFP. I have a plethora of notes to make and blog post ideas to publish, and I need this system to work properly. It shouldn't happen that I have a few dozen notes and they don't have shit to do with one another(if that makes sense).

If you can, please show me images of how to tackle above problems.

Thank you.

Yours truly,
A zettler newbie.

Will

@ktkthakre said:

Welcome to the forum.

I love your enthusiasm and sense of urgency, "ASAFP"!

1. Should I start making references and link notes from the first note?
2. How do I keep track of title of notes? By making table of contents?
3. Niklas Luhhman had different box for bibliography. How does that work?
4. Sould I use keywords or categories or both?
5. How do I handle quotes?

Please help me.

1. Yes.
2. With physical zettel, forget titles and focus on ID's. See Understanding Zettelkasten Method: How to make the most out of your slip-box and @prometheanhindsight's comment and The Folgezettel Conundrum 2.a Yes to a table of contents. These are your entry points into the zettelkasten.
3. Each bibliography card has an ID and that ID is placed on each zettel that references the bibliography entry.
4. Yes.
5. Clearly mark quotes with appropriate bibliography annotations.

YMMV, I use digital tools because of there speed, redundancy, and portability.

Nick

You might also find this helpful for first starting out, https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/

ktkthakre

@Will

With physical zettel, forget titles and focus on ID's

I like this!

Yes to a table of contents. These are your entry points into the zettelkasten.

Can you show me an example of this? Like... a picture or something... of your own zettelkasten

Each bibliography card has an ID and that ID is placed on each zettel that references the bibliography entry.

And an example of this too! I would really appreciate it.

Sascha

1. Read the original: http://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes
2. The register/table of contents: I recommend a mini container for very small slip cards. Each containing one keyword. That is the most practical way to maintain it I know.

Will

Here is a picture of what I call a HUB note, a structure note that is an entry point into my zettelkasten. When I feed my zettelkasten I add to a HUB note.
This one is about Haiku.

Here is a picture of how I use bibliography references. My reference manager is BibDesk.
In this particular case, I linked a quote with the bibliography citation but the citation often is just appended to the bottom of the note.

Here is what the reference manager entry looks like. With a physical zettelkasten, you'd have this information on a card with a reference ID on it and then use the reference ID on each card that referenced the book or paper.

I hope this helps.