New overview/structure notes Q4 2021 / project material inception
Since structure notes and conceptual overviews can quickly become the foundation of actual projects, I thought we might all enjoy taking inventory of the past 3 months in terms of which structure notes we've tended to.
Since "tending to" isn't trivial to figure out (without at least modification date sorting), might as well kick this off with new notes.
So in reverse order, here's mine:
202112061117 § Emacs debugging tips: I had 3 notes about how to find out why Emacs is slow at times, and error debugging, and grouped them that day.202111241304 § Drag and drop in macOS apps: Stuff I researched in 2017 just ... existed. So I created an overview and outlines topics a bit more orderly. Unlike the Emacs debugging tips above, this is not a mere collection of tips, but becomes more and more of an overview of various related things with commentary and questions.202111231036 § DeviceCheck API: New API (to me) that can be useful to (un)lock apps per-device, e.g. for copy protection.202111062022 § Emacs widget UI libraries: collections of button libraries, tree/hierarchical outputs, interactive forms202110291444 § JS Boilerplate to start simple projects: I don't need a JavaScript library for my web projects, and this is a beginning collection of stuff I think are useful right away to get started, and to remind myself how to do them.202110250932 § Elisp coding tips: the name's a WIP; intended to get a user started modifying the very editor under their feet202110211548 § Maintenance of remote computers: "Checklist of things to do when deploying e.g. a Raspberry Pi to a remote location where you don't have remote/internet access to." The intro paragraph says it all. Most prominent tip: "If in doubt, schedule a daily reboot as cron job" to fix hangups and service failures.202110190921 § reTerminal: usage overview of a gadget. I have similar notes for development on the M5Stack and Pi Pico, e.g. when kids in the family are old enough to want to tinker with this, so I don't have to find all the tutorials again.202110151642 § Text folding in TextKit: high-level, conceptual overview of what it means to fold text in an editor. Also starts with a note from 2017. Back then, during the inception of The Archive, I didn't think of grouping my findings strategically.202110151031 § CoreAnimation: high-level API overview to animate stuff in apps. Tons of links to details (e.g. each component involved, animation timings, and effects I liked)202110141809 § Raspberry Pi project ideas: Similar to the note above about reTerminal, but less about how to boot the device for the first time, and more about what a Pi could be useful for. Home automation is an obvious example, but I'm so much not interested in that, I don't even list this
202110141807 § Raspberry Pi maintenance: This is more technical. How to backup, how to flash the operating system, how to check performance.202110130834 § Docker containerized software: title is WIP; is an overview of things I know Docker could be useful for in my life. Currently I do use it on our home server for e.g. Nextcloud.202110121142 § NSView hierarchy control: another new collection of very old knowledge. Meant to provide a beginner-friendly overview.202110120827 § Typisch Opa, Sprüche: list of things my grandfather used to say. Quirks I fondly remember. And from which I try to extract wisdom.202109271033 § SwiftUI Text component: SwiftUI is weird, and new, and I don't know how to work with it. This is one component's overview.202108270840 § Learn programming the hard way for children: trying to make sense of how I picked this up, and which pieces of that journey might be useful. For example, working in the QBasic DOS editor on a very old x86 instead of having the luxury of an always-online computer + its distractions.
And from these, I think the following could be (obvious) candidates for writing projects beyond the length of a tutorial/article:
202110250932 § Elisp coding tips: could be an interactive guide of sorts if enough material pops up.202110151642 § Text folding in TextKit: could be a very long article or a very short ebook. Text folding is just on interesting use case for editor customizations on Mac and iOS. To do it, you need to understand all the components involved for typesetting. So this is more a vantage point or a view into the text editor component topic.202108270840 § Learn programming the hard way for children: Why stop at a guide to be used in person when I can spin-off a reproducible setup?
What are your most recent structure notes (that you want to share)?
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
I'm not sure if you want us to comment on your review or see mine, so here goes.
Your review is exclusively coding. In-depth and advanced. When I review my structure note, I see where most are still a bit broad. As time progresses and I have more atomic notes, I'll refactor the structure notes refining them into fragments of what they are now. They will become super zettel and want to be focused on an "atomic topic" where the individual zettel will be "atomic ideas."
All the examples you listed have UID's created in this quarter. So are mine. What does this say about all those structure notes created in the past? Interesting?
I love to review my ZK, and I'm stealing this idea and folding it into my monthly review process. The item will be called "Monthly Structure Note Progress Review." The goal is to see where my attention is focused and spur myself into action.
How can/do you look at a structure note from a couple of months ago and determine what you worked on? I found that the hardest thing to review. When I work with structure notes, I find I'm refactoring and editing all over the place. Structure notes aren't just a list of links with one after another. They are grouped into categories. Some are annotated. Categories, titles, and annotations change. My memory is not too good or reliable. Monthly snapshots might be the ticket. Um?? I sense a Keyboard Maestro macro that takes a monthly snapshot of all the structure notes and then will provide comparisons when requested. As a bonus, this could be rolled into your annual review, looking at the 12-month changes! We are in this for the long haul, aren't we?
Structure note review 20211201-20211208 (8 days)
Thinking about thinking and knowing that I am thinking.
It has a subheading for books, articles, and 'flora and fauna' that are science-based and don't necessarily fit on other structure notes. Like - Bat Eared Fox [[202109160759]]
How to develop a more expansive "work surface."
Williams, Joseph M., and Joseph Bizup. 2017. Style: lessons in clarity and grace. Twelfth edition. Always learning. Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris: Pearson. ↩︎
Baker, L. (1989). Metacognition, comprehension monitoring, and the adult reader. Educational Psychology Review, 1(1), 3–38 http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF01326548.pdf ;↩︎
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
@Will I still recommend Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, but I can't recommend the post I wrote in which I made the suggestion (I can't stand my writing and don't entirely recognize myself in it). Must postpone discussion of writing in my ZK lately, since some of it might be publishable.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
@Will Everyone chiming in and share was my intention, yes -- sorry that wasn't made clearer after the initial wall of text
Yeah, that's the spirit -- one needs to start somewhere
Refactorings are always possible later.
When I assembled the list of roundabout the last quarter worth of structure notes, I was surprised to see so little personal, non-programming things there. I remember working on them, though, but they are older, and thus not part of the selection.
That's why I think filtering by modification date in the past month(s) might yield a better result when it comes to figuring out: where did I spend my attention? -- At the same time, listing only new notes shows what was deemed important enough to make into a "thing", or even department in the Zettelkasten.
Am postponing judgement as to what is more valuable. Needs more experimentation.
Hence the invitation to y'all to take a couple minutes to look back on what you added
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
I don't think The Archive has a "filter by" setting. It only has a "sort by" setting. When we "sort by," we can't tell where the month starts in the note list. The UID's only tell us when the notes were created. You have to poke under the hood with command-line tools to get a list of zettel modified in a time period. Not impossible but a trick for some.
I chose to look at structure notes modified, and you chose to look at structure notes created. Both methods reveal surprising information about oneself and where the focus lies.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
It indicates my low interest in creating structure notes that with around 300 zettels created over 18 months (I'm a careful writer of zettels; definitely not prolific), I only have 12 structure notes. Five of those were written within the first month of my ZK journey and four in the second month, when I had no idea what I was doing. Since then, I've only created 3 structure notes, (the most recent being last month), that is, about one every 4 months or every ~80 zettels (if one assumes my ZK progress is relatively uniform). I don't have the statistics to be any more specific than that. However, it gives you some idea that efforts to organize or access my ZK are not focused through structure notes.
Having said all that, I realize my ZK is small compared to many who post here. Despite it being small, it also covers a lot of ground. That is, it's not focused on one area of study or research, but ranges over whatever I find to be of interest.
I just noticed that a zettel that I wrote in about month 3 of my journey was specifically about structure notes - me trying to understand what they were and the various ways one could access the information in a ZK. Thereafter, my rate of creating structure notes dropped way off - not quite to zero, but close.
I don't use structure notes; however, I found the exercise interesting from two perspectives. First, I had modified many more notes than expected (granted, I am still converting older notes toward a Zettelkasten format). Second, I was happy to see a few "personal prose," notes.
Legend:
Green = Reference note. Text from article/book contains Zettel note thread link + idea in my own words.
Red = Zettel - Entry note. I rarely modify an entry note; therefore, any new Zettels that show up under "modified" would be a new discussion thread.
Purple = personal prose. Generally, in a mini-blog format linked to a Zettel note thread.
Grey = Archived reference note. Generally, archived reference notes are "fleeting" at best; a newspaper article or stock report fit this bill for me. To be included in a Zettel thread, the piece would contain information on a topic of interest, i.e., trends in technology, biosciences, etc., fall into this category.
I am disappointed that I didn't get a note governing my best smack talk since I deem it legendary at least.
I am a Zettler
@ctietze wrote:
What's the potential of organizing ZK session work via "project management notes"?
Such notes are meant to help organizing work on a topic over long-ish time intervals. They could work as a kind of "dashboard", linking to tools like work breakdown structures, linking to lists of open issues, linking to to-do-lists, linking to surveys of work done so far, etc.
(I suspect however that many classic elements of project management play a minor role in single-author ZK work.)
These notes do not emerge in a bottom-up fashion as bundles of previous notes, but they are designed from the beginning as control tower notes to guide the process of solving a problem. They can be adapted at any time when needs arise.
I suspect that "hierarchical" structures are viewed with some skepticism in ZK circles.
In my view, hierarchies can be extremely valuable when forming and following chains of thought, and excluding hierarchies from one's tool repository would be another really bad, self-crippling move. The same is true in my view for any reduction of one's work to solely bottom-up, solely literature-driven, solely markdown-based writing of solely atomic notes that relies solely on link-based serendipity as a major mechanism of generating insights. I hope I didn't forget any of the major orthodoxies.
What I would like to advocate here is "driver-driven" work that concatenates coherent directional thoughts. The "drivers" that can be used to propel work of this kind are for example
I wonder how much of this is linked to questions of "information capacity" and the productive interplay between having a narrow focus on a single aspect and having a broad overview of the entire topic.
I suspect that many ZK practices are somewhat underwhelming when it comes to the latter.
There is lots of potential in organizing ZK session work via "project management notes." When sitting down for a zk session, a dashboard focuses attention on what wants focus. This focus drives writing projects. A simple example is an outline of chapters to write in one zettel, checked off as completed. A slightly more complex example is programing a particular app enhancement where PM includes code, snippets, samples, help chats, GIT commits, etc.
The one aspect of traditional PM I can't get my head around in the zk session work arena is that PM is concerned with timelines. The organization aspect of PM is compatible with stimulating and focusing a zk session. I can't see the purpose of imposing time frames in personal knowledge management.
This outline of tools for thinking puts my brain in high def. A quick search of the zettelkasten tuned up these complementary generative tools.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
Which "tools" facilitate "driver driven" work? "Driver driven" work is defined as work that "concatenates coherent directional thoughts" we mean intentionally furthering knowledge growth.
To build your knowledge intentionally, what "tools" are employed?
Everything else only marginally contributes.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
It has been a while since this thread was active. I can't remember how I landed here.
Two years later, I'm now getting around to implementing a review and refactoring time block for the purpose of taking the structure notes I have already created and refining them.
I have 25 hubs (main structure notes) and 60 sub-hubs (branches from main structure notes). This is going to take a while.
This is the table of contents for H-Zettelkasten 202003231432. It is 1124 words. There are opportunities to split this into sub-hubs. I'll take this as a call to add more descriptive contextual material and clarify and regroup links. I already see that there are two "sub-hub" sections. In this process, even the section headings are a target for refactoring.
Does anyone else have this type of review in their workflow? How do you treat restructuring/refactoring structure notes?
Below is one of my better sub-hubs (S-Structure Notes 202003231457). A mix of contextual verbiage and links with and without forward-looking summary sentences, categorized into groupings.
Please Critique.
Structure Notes
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
I still haven't used structure notes much, except for a few scattered references in my index notes, which appear in order at the top of Zettlr's file pane.
Opening an index note will reveal all the notes that link to it in the Related Files pane of Zettlr. That seems to work well enough. Except for the index notes, my IDs start with a one to five-character keyword. This practice conflicts with the recommendation to use meaningless IDs and to avoid categories. Still, meaningless IDs were disorienting and pushed me toward structure notes, which I did not feel like maintaining. I do use them, though I rely on them less than others. They tend to play the role of category notes in my system.
I've read that Luhmann's notes became more telegraphic over time. That gave me an idea. For me, hashtags have been "write once, read none"--until now. I rarely search for them--in Zettlr, clicking on a hashtag will start a search for notes that contain the hashtag. Hashtags are telegraphic. Now, I write a telegraphic summary of the note in hashtags near the beginning of the note. The intention is to jog the memory more than to limit the number of notes with a given hashtag. This serves as a test: if I cannot write a telegraphic summary of a note in hashtags, then the note probably lacks a single focus. The telegraphic hashtag summary isn't grammatical--it's an ordered list of nouns, compound nouns, verbs, and adjectives sufficient to convey sense and reference without grammatical connectives, determiners, particles, or other parts of speech.
For review, I have a script to parse through each Zettel to check its format and whether it has at least one Wikilink to an index. I try to run this maintenance script at least once a week. Zettlr can display the list of hashtags, which can aid in their periodic consolidation--hashtags tend to proliferate.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
@ZettelDistraction Thanks for your description on the minimal use of structure notes and your practice of using hashtags. I think I follow a somewhat similar process, in that I have very few structure notes and I never purposefully start a line of thought or group of zettels with a structure note (which many on the forum do). The only times I create them are:
For items 2 to 4, the zettels may not even be on the same topic (they could be, or they could be only loosely related, or they may not be related at all). The structure note simply serves to group the zettels for some reason, usually related to how I remember things (for example, the discussion of "risk and anti-fragility" is found in that book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb). It's still a type of structure, but not one formed because of similarity of topic.
Of course, a particular zettel can show up on more than one structure note, but I don't fuss about this because the use of structure notes is mostly incidental to my normal Zettelkasten work.
The way I like to organize my zettels is by direct connections and by the use of hash tags. For this reason, I found your discussion of "telegraphic" hashtags interesting and practical. That is the point to which my hashtags have evolved, although I didn't think of them in that way before I read your post. I simply wanted to have no more than about 5 (maximum 10) zettels using any particular hashtag, so if I starting using a hashtag too frequently, I forced myself to "split" the hashtag, such as:
"#dams"
could become:
"#dams-instability"
"#dams-seepage"
"#dams-regulations"
etc.
I could easily see one of these categories being "split" even further to something like:
"#dams-seepage-piping"
"#dams-seepage-erosion"
"#dams-seepage-toe heave"
etc.
I haven't gone three levels deep yet, but I'm close on a couple of topics. I believe that is a form of a telescoping hashtag, although I'm coming at it by using a different process from the one you describe.
One of the advantages of the above method is that the list of hashtags becomes a very logical / useful index, all on its own, which is another reason I started heading in that direction.
I've never heard anyone on the forums state they recommend a top-down approach to structuring notes. On the contrary, the recommendation is to let them naturally grow out of your ZK. Maybe you don't have a critical mass of notes, or your ZK has a narrow enough focus, as the idea of a structure note is superfluous.
Further Reading
Creating structure notes could be considered incidental work when zettelkasting. The main objective is capturing what @Sascha calls the "Idea Compass." Anything else would be regarded as incidental.
You'll disagree, but when it comes time to create something from your notes, having a structure note to refer to is superior to using various tags to look all over (pardon the pun) "dam" nation for the relevant notes. Tagging only provides a list of notes. With a structure note, the notes are not only grouped, but additional context for the group is provided. As a made-up example, in 1999, you gave a presentation in Venezuela on how El Guapo Dam's near pipping failure was caught because of adherence to seepage regulations. You could add this to a variety of notes, hoping you covered all bases, or make a reference to this one time on a structure note.
You're thinking that I'm entirely off base, and maybe I am.
When I first started endeavoring to capture knowledge, I was enamored by Luhmann's system. I was confident and remained fascinated with the notion of a "keyword index," which was one of Luhmann's stated principles.
In Johannes F.K. Schmidt's Niklas Luhmann's Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity Schmidt writes pervasively about "The Keyword Index as the Central Key."
Given this, I wonder if my approach pushes me towards my goals. This has been a good exercise in that I'm re-energized about the importance of structure notes with a bright, modern digital zettelkasten.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
@Will
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
I'm not opposed to structure notes, in principle. As you will see in my earlier post on this thread, I do use them in a variety of circumstances, and for those cases they are quite helpful. However, it's just that, to me, they are simply one more tool available when building one's Zettelkasten. Sometimes tags are more useful.
So far I only have about 20 structure notes (some might say in a Zettelkasten of 400 notes, that 20 is a lot) and 2 hub notes. I use structure notes when it makes sense and not when I don't need one. Sometimes I start with a structure note and sometimes not - more of the latter and less of the former.
I do like having an index of very specific tags, such as the ones I described, to look at when seeking out particular zettels. Contrary to expectations, I find that just as helpful as having structure notes and very effective. One has to pay attention to building and assigning the tags, but then one also has to pay attention to creating and organizing structure notes.
I have seen various people on the forum promote the idea of (almost) always starting a string of ideas/zettels with a structure note. That is a little too "structured" for me.
But each to their own - there is room and flexibility in the method for all types of approaches. I believe it is a good idea for people developing Zettelkastens to find the methods and tools that work best for them.
I cannot afford any maintenance work. I have ~1700 structure notes. So, there is no re-occuring task or anything like that.
But because structure notes server as thinking canvases in my Zettelkasten I clean them up, when I am thinking while using them. When they served me, I let them slide back into the void until I need to re-engage with them.
I am a Zettler
Due to the number of structure notes and the maturity level of your ZK, it would be counterproductive to spend scheduled time restructuring/reformatting them. Your method of letting them slide in and out of the 'void' makes perfect sense.
Most of us have only a few dozen structure notes, and I think I could learn from spending time concentrating on them and seeing how they relate to their child notes, surfacing hierarchies, and where to add commentary. I want to establish positive and sanitary habits for creating and maintaining structure notes so they can serve me effectively as they de-cloke out of the void.
You wouldn't do this now, but is this something you did way back in prehistoric times when your ZK was an infant? Is this something you might recommend to an interested, inspired novice? Is there a general structure for a structure note and how does it vary depending on the contents? This is really what I want to explore.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
There is a warning against category notes in Zettelkasten, but there is no sharp demarcation between structure notes and category notes. There is no difference between a category note, such as
MATH.0000.0000, with links to various math notes (not to mention backlinks), and a structure note that does the same thing, possibly with a different ID and title. A structure note is a category note, the category being the collection of notes it brings under one heading. If anyone asks, I have both. I keep my category-as-structure notes (or structure-as-category notes) not too many levels deep.Perhaps the use of categories leads to functional fixedness and conceptual rigidity, but my thinking is too vague for this to present a problem, and I am a noisy calculator. I'm more concerned with the contents of the specific note I happen to be writing. Think locally, link globally--whatever that means. I'll ask ChatGPT to supply an interpretation.
I have several hyphen-separated (pun intended) hashtags like this. Since I use Zettlr, it's easy to locate and redefine hashtags by clicking on the tag icon in the upper left of the editor. The collection of hashtags can be fed to ChatGPT with the prompt to locate redundancies and invent better hashtags.
Likewise.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.