Life-changer

Eskie

3 days ago I accidentally discovered Zettelkasten! I was half watching a video on YouTube, and when it finished, a new video automatically played, which talked about a system called Zettelkasten. As it was explained, I realised this was exactly what I had been looking for, for years. Over the last few years I have read hundreds of books and listened to thousands of podcast episodes and diligently made notes on much of that content and then placed it in Evernote never to be seen again!
I'm still deciding on what tools to use to create my own Zettelkasten, and the Evernote tomb could be revived and used as a kind of fleeting notes folder, and then slowly go through the 12,000+ notes in there and transition them into literature/permanent notes, to convert that information into useable knowledge.
Since discovering that video, I have listened to an audiobook version of "How to take smart notes", watched several videos from Bryan Jenks, Martin Adams and others, in order to have a really good understanding of how to go about setting up my first zettelkasten.

GeoEng51

@Eskie

Welcome to the ZK forum!! It's great that you found the zettelkasten world and this forum in particular. I hope you find the same excellent information and friendly advice as I have (I'm fairly new to the game as well; been working on a ZK for 2 years).

I encourage you to go through all the "Getting Started" material - there is a lot of information there for newcomers. But feel free to ask questions as well - most people are happy to help out, even if its not the first time the question has been asked At the bare minimum, we can point you to previous discussions of various ideas on the forum.

It's not unusual for people who have taken really good "fleeting" note for many years to finally find the ZK system and world. I'm one of them; there are many others. Be patient with yourself, in terms of setting up your ZK, as it will take some time and experimentation to figure out how you want to implement various aspects of it. And don't be in too big a rush to port over everything you have in Evernote - bring it over slowly, as you need it. Some of that stuff has by now expired and doesn't deserve to be ported over. I have many binders full of carefully marked up and organized "fleeting notes" that will never see the light of day in my ZK.

GeoEng51

@Eskie

P.S. I just happened to post something about my accumulation of fleeting notes over the years yesterday (total coincidence). You can read about that journey here:

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/15254/#Comment_15254

ctietze

@Eskie welcome to the forum! I'm positive you'll find useful insights from the community and figure out a way to start a more sustainable note-taking journey

Sociopoetic

@GeoEng51 said:
Be patient with yourself, in terms of setting up your ZK, as it will take some time and experimentation to figure out how you want to implement various aspects of it.

I second this. I'm nearly three years into working with a ZK and still discover better ways to work with my notes. One question has guided much of my thinking here: why do I want this in my Zettelkasten? The question both helps me to avoid the Collector's Fallacy and guides my writing so that my notes are useful to my future self.

Eskie

Thank you for your welcome and suggestions.
I do plan to be patient with it, but will no doubt make a few mistakes along the way. But sometimes that is the best way to learn 😄
I definitely don't intend to convert ALL of my notes from Evernote. But there are many in there that contain some gems that will be useful for the ZK I create.

Eskie

@GeoEng51 said:
@Eskie

P.S. I just happened to post something about my accumulation of fleeting notes over the years yesterday (total coincidence). You can read about that journey here:

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/15254/#Comment_15254

Thank you for linking to that. That was useful to read 👍

Sascha

WILLKOMMEN!

scottscheper

Welcome! Have you tried taking physical notes? I'm one of the 'crazies' who advocates for an analog Zettelkasten all the way. 😁

Loni

@Eskie said:
3 days ago I accidentally discovered Zettelkasten! I was half watching a video on YouTube, and when it finished, a new video automatically played, which talked about a system called Zettelkasten. As it was explained, I realised this was exactly what I had been looking for, for years. Over the last few years I have read hundreds of books and listened to thousands of podcast episodes and diligently made notes on much of that content and then placed it in Evernote never to be seen again!

Welcome ! I can relate to your mindblowing impression ! I also had a large corpus of dead notes which I did'nt use at all. You have a central place to see them, it might smoother the process though.

I'm still deciding on what tools to use to create my own Zettelkasten, and the Evernote tomb could be revived and used as a kind of fleeting notes folder, and then slowly go through the 12,000+ notes in there and transition them into literature/permanent notes, to convert that information into useable knowledge.

You might be interested by this subject : Tempted to start over We talk about collector's fallacie, self-criterias for the quality of our Zettelkasten, stressed the need of structure notes… Might be helpfull for the begining of your Zettelkästen journey

This subject is really intersting as well to begin with strong bases : What do people use tags for in a Zettelkästen as tagging has not the same function in a Zettelkasten than Evernotes or other conventional softwares.

And, of course, the base of all from the blog : Introduction to Zettelkasten

And for the tool, if you are a Mac User, don't hesitate to take a look to the Archive, it seems really appealing !

Since discovering that video, I have listened to an audiobook version of "How to take smart notes", watched several videos from Bryan Jenks, Martin Adams and others, in order to have a really good understanding of how to go about setting up my first zettelkasten.

If I may, what I understand from skilled users is that it takes time to set up a workflow that will work fine for you. Try and re-try seem to be a part of the process, and it's what it makes Zettelkästen so fun to begin with, no one works the same way !

I wish you a beautiful journey

Annabella

Welcome to the gang, stranger!

Eskie

@scottscheper said:
Welcome! Have you tried taking physical notes? I'm one of the 'crazies' who advocates for an analog Zettelkasten all the way. 😁

I appreciate the suggestion Scott, but that's a non-starter for me 😄

@Loni said:
You might be interested by this subject : [Tempted to start over]...

If I may, what I understand from skilled users is that it takes time to set up a workflow that will work fine for you. Try and re-try seem to be a part of the process, and it's what it makes Zettelkästen so fun to begin with, no one works the same way !

I wish you a beautiful journey

Many thanks for the tips/suggestions.
I've decided to start with The Archive and see how I get on.

@Annabella said:
Welcome to the gang, stranger!

Thanks. Howdy 😄