Introducing ...

bobbiandjack

It's me, bobbiandjack. I'm very new to the method as well as the app, and I'm looking forward to using both as a knowledge base of everything I read from now on. I'll be grateful for tips and encouragement from any who are trying to do the same.

Splattack

Hi there, hope you enjoy the forum.

My advice is,

• Have fun building your zettelkasten and use it more than fiddling around "the method".
• Be hesitant in adding new notes. Add only those that are crucial to your goals, otherwise you'll end up "collecting".
• (Usually notes are atomic, that means, brief and to the point but well-written so that your future-self can understand them again. The effort is in writing them concisely and not in length).

In reading, avoid adding every interesting quote you come across. Add notes about big ideas you read, and support them with other specific brief notes.

GeoEng51

@bobbiandjack said:
It's me, bobbiandjack. I'm very new to the method as well as the app, and I'm looking forward to using both as a knowledge base of everything I read from now on. I'll be grateful for tips and encouragement from any who are trying to do the same.

Hi and welcome to the forum!! This may sound obvious, but have you checked the "Getting Started" section of this web site? You can access it at: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/

Otherwise, read (info on this site, especially the forum) and do (create zettels). Knowledge comes with practice

ctietze

Welcome aboard!

My word of encouragement is borrowed (without consent ) from @Will: All notes are malleable. Strive for permanently useful notes, not permanently unchanging notes.

I hope that takes a bit of the harshness off of @Splattak's suggestion to be careful about creating notes: you can always make things better, eventually. I fare better creating and editing with the intention to keep.

Vinho

Hi and welcome!

I second @ctietze's suggestion, I consider none of the notes in my zettelkasten as finished, they are all work in progress...

Whilst @Splattack's suggestion to spend more time with adding content to the zettelkasten than fiddling with the method certainly makes sense, I would still encourage you to fiddle with the method if you feel the need to. In my case, not having clear and future-proof systems in place often keeps me from feeding the zettelkasten with content – productivity flows often occur after such blockages are dissolved by introducing new kinds of notes or links, naming conventions, editors, Keyboard Maestro macros, etc. That is another suggestion by the way: Use Keyboard Maestro macros together with The Archive – it makes entering stuff into the zettelkasten a lot easier and frictionless!

Having discovered the digital zettelkasten method after about a decade of trying and developing different note-taking methods has been a revelation – I wish you a similarly positive experience with it!

Phil

Welcome @bobbiandjack! Not much to add to the great advice offered above, other than to counsel patience and a willingness to the play 'the long game.'

Fiddling with the method, as @vinho points out, is as important as feeding your ZK with new content: don't be afraid to make mistakes, tinker with the systems you set up, with note conventions, naming, tags, etc. But do so with the larger knowledge-building outcomes in mind (don't be like that kid I knew in high school who obsessed over audio gear but never actually listened to music). I've just spent over a month revisiting and rewriting/linking two year old notes in order to 'future proof' the insights they contain. Oh, and establish a clear understanding of structure notes and their uses, and browse the forum on a daily basis. There's a wealth of helpful tips and advice here from what is a helpful and resourceful community.

Back to that 'long game.' It's honestly taken me over two years to finally stumble into a workflow and structure that makes all the parts and processes of my ZK--feeding and writing, linking, organizing--work together in a way that makes sense for me. Lots of false starts, mistakes, naive assumptions, but each one helped me learn.