Hello from a productivity-paralyzed writer

hatomie

Hello! I'm an experienced technical writer (25+ years) working in software development. I am trying to write a novel. Several months ago I was excited to discover Obsidian and then, by way of Obsidian, even more excited to learn about Zettelkasten. But I'm having trouble finding my way past productivity paralysis / analysis paralysis (whatever term you choose).

There are clearly SO many ways to do this, and it's overwhelming.

I've been browsing this forum and seeing lots of posts saying that one has to find their own way of conducting their PKM and their Zettelkasten. However, I'd like to avoid investing a lot of time customizing a productivity system that I may not end up using -- I've done this in the past with other systems and find myself spending more time figuring out a system than I do actually using it.

I would love to have a list of simple steps -- here's exactly what you do, one, two, three -- that enables me to jump in and start using a Zettelkasten. And I would love to see some actual examples of what people have done. I've seen some of that in this forum, but I'm also a bit overwhelmed even by the forum.

Has anyone else struggled with this, and if so what you have found?

ctietze

Welcome on deck! (Your re-post put this into the spam queue and I apparently didn't check for a while ಠ_ಠ)

I would love to have a list of simple steps -- here's exactly what you do, one, two, three -- that enables me to jump in and start using a Zettelkasten. And I would love to see some actual examples of what people have done. I've seen some of that in this forum, but I'm also a bit overwhelmed even by the forum.

The step that you'll find repeated a lot is: if you worry too much, worry less, and get going. That's important. Reflect on your practice and pain points over time, then adjust.

Will

@hatomie, welcome to the forums.

Here are the steps.
1. Read, listen, or go for a walk.
2. Get an idea.
3. Capture it in a note.
4. Repeat.

Basically, that is it. Each one of the steps has lots of nuances, but those skills can be developed over time. If you have specific questions or pain points, we'd love to help. @ctietze's is offering sage advice: "... worry less, and get going. Reflect on your practice and pain points over time, then adjust."

GeoEng51

@Will said:
@hatomie, welcome to the forums.

Here are the steps.
1. Read, listen, or go for a walk.
2. Get an idea.
3. Capture it in a note.
4. Repeat.

And if you run into some problem, just post here and you'll get lots of good suggestions. Don't overthink things and don't worry - we're here to help

ZettelDistraction

My idiosyncratic system is documented on my GitHub. I use Zettlr, pandoc, MikTex, Zotero, BetterBibTeX, and occasionally Obsidian and VSCode. If I had an up-to-date Mac I would use The Archive. A dirty secret--please don't tell anyone, but I use Grammarly. Thanks to the deterioration of age, I had to consult my Zettel wiki to remind myself of the name of the TeX editor that I prefer to use: WinEDT.

I read too much on the web that isn't worth keeping. Handwritten notes are very helpful when I remember to take them and can proceed slowly, though I am a plodding and easily overwhelmed note-taker at lectures. I envy effective note-takers and quick, efficient sponge-like brains. Retirement will give me the time to pursue my interests at the glacial pace I must maintain to arrive at any understanding. ^†

Mentioned elsewhere: I sometimes rely on ChatGPT-4. A very smart individual on Less Wrong demonstrates the use of ChatGPT with Obsidian for "reflective journaling."^‡ You might find this interesting or useful.

This site is hosted in about the only place on the planet where it could be hosted: Germany. The spirit of Bielefeld lives here.

† Think of the motion of the galaxies, without the grandeur.

‡ I rarely visit Less Wrong, which makes me more wrong.

Andy

@ZettelDistraction said:

The spirit of Bielefeld lives here.

Ah, so HERE is where Bielefeld is. That explains it.

@hatomie: If your novel-writing is the context for your "productivity paralysis", you find helpful these tips from what novelist Steven Pressfield called "The Foolscap Method" (2011):

In one stroke Norm convinced me to:

1) Stop wasting time writing "bibles" or "character profiles" or any other kind of Resistance-spawned preparatory material. Shut up and begin.

2) Forget doing research, at least at the beginning. Shut up and begin.

3) Shut up and begin.

Here are two drills I've given myself over the years. One, write The Great Gatsby on a cocktail napkin. Two, design the Spirit of St. Louis on the back of an envelope.

Have you ever heard of Parkinson's Law? (I highly recommend the book by the way.) Parkinson's Law states that "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion."

In other words, Resistance will make us fiddle around forever—unless we draw the line and stop it. That's what the foolscap trick does. It cuts out the crap. It concentrates the mind.

Similarly, in the section "A Research Diet" in his book Do The Work (2011), Pressfield wrote:

Before we begin, you wanna do research? Uh-unh. I'm putting you on a diet.

You're allowed to read three books on your subject. No more.

No underlining, no highlighting, no thinking or talking about the documents later. Let the ideas percolate. Let the unconscious do its work.

Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

(Later we'll come back and do serious, heavy-duty research. Later. Not now.)

Consider whether you are using your note system as a "kind of Resistance-spawned preparatory material".

r1tger

@hatomie said:
But I'm having trouble finding my way past productivity paralysis / analysis paralysis (whatever term you choose).

So, I'm all for doing Zettelkasten, but what is your end goal?

Zettelkasten -for me- is not a goal on its own. My goal is learning and retaining cool stuff, giving presentations and writing "professional" documents with lots of details. This means I write notes with the following process:

1. read/listen/engage with something/someone;
2. find the core ideas in the story. This is the hard part for me;
3. for each idea, I write a single note: first sentence of the note summarises the note. The rest of the note is written in my own words. So no copy/paste, but reformulated. Note size on average is 130 words, so short and to the point;
4. I hyperlink any words/sentences to other notes. each note has an identifier. First note is 1, second note is 2, etc. I use markdown links, as they're quick and easy to add;
5. when I need to write something, I find the related notes by using text search and/or following the links, opening more notes. That's usually the input for a first draft and expanded upon.

So here's the main thing for me. It's not about the notes, it's about working with the individual ideas. Writing stuff down helps me to remember and integrate the stuff in my head. So the notes are almost a byproduct of me thinking about stuff. It's about putting in the work, since I got annoyed with how easily I would forget things.

No productivity quick fix here, if anything note taking is taking me farther away from what I should be writing. I think I have a note about that, somewhere .... :-).

ZettelDistraction

@Andy said:
@ZettelDistraction said:

The spirit of Bielefeld lives here.

Ah, so HERE is where Bielefeld is. That explains it.

It's not certain.

Nick

1. See a piece of information you find interesting and think you'll want to remember at a later date but don't imagine yourself memorizing.
2. Search your notes to see if you already have a note realted to this piece of information. If you do, then synthesize the new information with the old
3. If you don't, turn that piece of information into a note, making sure to put it in your own words. Give that note a title that summarizes what the note is about or use the date/time the note was created as a title
4. Think about how the note is connected to other notes. Create links to other notes while including a sentence in the link about the context or how the two notes are related.
5. When you want a referesher on a topic, just search for the keywords regarding the topic in your vualt.

Keep it very basic. Then add complexity to your vault in terms of features/systems as the need arises.