Zettels Aren't Working For Me (Always)

7edfor7ee

Hello, Zettlers!

The way I write notes is a bit different compared to the classical note-taking style or the Zettelkasten Method.

Suppose I was learning about Moravec's Paradox. Here is my typical workflow.

I first go through the learning process. To learn about these things, we basically consume some form of a source like the Wikipedia page, articles, explanations, videos, etc. On a side note, I always do a syntopical reading (coined by Adler I guess?!), I never read about a topic only from one source. I at least use two, to get a better understanding of it. Anyways, so I read and read and watch and watch and as I am going along with it I am learning in my head by doing all those wonderful things that my brain can do, thinking, analyzing, critiquing, understanding, comparing, blah blah blah!

Once I learned it I have to make some notes. I need to record my learnings so that I can refer to them later.

Here is the problem. When I write notes, I always (tend to) write them in a teaching-explanatory fashion. Who do I pretend I am explaining to? My future self! This process helps me learn better and allows me to really go deep inspecting various fragments of that topic. It helps me find gaps in my knowledge as well. More on this here. The notes thus produced have a flow in them. I can not break this flow into chunks or zettels. When I refer to these notes at a later stage, I get back into that complete learning flow that I had. It was almost as if my past self knew exactly what and how to teach me. Here is a similar discussion around the idea of making notes in a way that you teach your future self, please watch it.

This workflow is indeed time-consuming at times but comes with great benefits. I learn something really well in the present by teaching it, that too through writing, and I have better-styled notes for my future self.

I have just jotted down some info instead of the explanations, I found it of no use, as I forgot what that meant after 6 months.

What can be the best ways for this type of workflow?

Consider this exact post itself. It is an explanation. There is a flow. This is exactly how I write my notes. How can I break this down into zettels? And how can I connect or link the zettels? The flow will be lost. That is why I find it hard to implement the idea of creating a Hub Notes or a MOC for this.

Can I say that the Zettelkasten method is not for me for this type of workflow?

amahabal

Hi @7edfor7ee. What you do right now might not be ZK, but I don't see it as inconsistent with a ZK. A couple of years ago, I used to jot short notes, more of a reminder than the real thing. My ZK was littered with half-baked wanna-be notes.

But I have now learned that there is a crucial difference, pointed out on page 45 of [Ahrens2017], between, on the one hand, a note being a reminder of what to write, and on the other, a fully written note of the idea.

A similar point is made by Andy Matuschak in his note about atomicity:

It’s best to create notes which are only about one thing—but which, as much as possible, capture the entirety of that thing.
This way, it’s easier to form connections across topics and contexts. If your notes are too broad, you might not notice when you encounter some new idea about one of the notions contained within, and links to that note will be muddied. If your notes are too fragmented, you’ll also fragment your link network, which may make it harder to see certain connections.

Your notes being detailed isn't bad at all. What you lack, though, is interconnectivity and thus miss out on making connections. You learn your material well, but assuming you consume much material from nearby topics, you will reap more from a richly interconnected ZK, more even than what you sowed.

--Abh

Will

Here is my perspective, such as it is. My intention is to be helpful, and please consider these ideas as a guide. Take what resonates and chuck the rest.

@7edfor7ee said:
What can be the best ways for this type of workflow?

Consider this exact post itself. It is an explanation. There is a flow. This is exactly how I write my notes. How can I break this down into zettels? And how can I connect or link the zettels? The flow will be lost. That is why I find it hard to implement the idea of creating a Hub Notes or a MOC for this.

Where to start? I'd start by capturing your post as a note. Give it the title of something like "Note creation workflow in a teaching-explanatory fashion," and then cull out the stuff not related to the idea expressed in the title (which would be little.) I'd recommend spinning off all the stuff about your ideas about learning into a separate note. I think you'll find as time goes on, your ideas about learning will evolve. I've made Moravec's paradox a separate note. Now I'd search my ZK for references to workflows, note-taking, zettel, and flow for link candidates for the first note, and for the second, I'd search for learning, pedagogy, thinking, analyzing, critiquing, and understanding. Depending on the number of hits during my search, we might see a plethora of link candidates, in which case, I'd gather them together on a Hub Note.

Hub Notes help with research, and they also help in seeing idea threads and link candidates.

So as I see it, you've written 4 zettel with your forum post.
1. "Note creation workflow in a teaching-explanatory fashion"
2. "Learning Ideas"
3. "Moravec's paradox"
4. "Zettel Workflow" or "Pedegogy" Hub Note, depending on what other hits your searches point out.

This is just a hypothetical scenario. Your ideas may be different. Hopefully you can extract the ideas for the specifics. Do you have other notes on other research paradigms like Moore's Law or other mental models like Occam's Razor? This is where "Moravec's Paradox" is hung on my Mental Models Hub Note. This is only part of the hub note but shows the beginnings of an idea thread.

@7edfor7ee said:
Once I learned it I have to make some notes. I need to record my learnings so that I can refer to them later.

Backwords and confused.
You need to make notes in order to learn. The notes come first. ¹

@7edfor7ee said:
Can I say that the Zettelkasten method is not for me for this type of workflow?

Yes, no, maybe, don't worry.
If this is how you write all your notes, I'd say you were in great shape. Remember the habit of reviewing and refactoring.

---

1. Read Historian Charles Weiner's interview with Richard Feynman. The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain - Annie Murphy Paul - Google Books ↩︎

7edfor7ee

Thank you very much @amahabal and @Will. This was really really helpful. I see the big picture now.

@Will thank you again. You have done a very great job of breaking this down. I just have no words.

ctietze

@7edfor7ee I had to read your original post twice to even find a problem

Writing notes as explanations to your future self sounds very reasonable!

If you end up with 3000 words worth of text, say, there could eventually be potential to break this up into smaller pieces.

Taking your original post as an example, there's potential for a couple of things:

• You could extract details from the larger text, like

  • "syntopical reading" in your original post where you can cite Adler/van Doren.
  • a process description of your current workflow
  • "Can I say that the Zettelkasten method is not for me for this type of workflow?" -- there's a presupposition about what the Zettelkasten Method is (for you), so you could extract that. You might find that performing this addition makes some parts of the original post superfluous; you can un-weave this presupposition from the text, and move it into its own note.

• You could shorten the format. Replace prose with outlines/lists. (Like this one )

• You could cut prose from the note. E.g. remove this from the note:

Anyways, so I read and read and watch and watch and as I am going along with it I am learning in my head by doing all those wonderful things that my brain can do, thinking, analyzing, critiquing, understanding, comparing, blah blah blah!

You might end up butchering up the original post's text, but then you have re-usable pieces.

That's not a goal in itself, though! If you never use the step-by-step process description elsewhere, i.e. if you never link to it from another note, why extract it? Could be an interesting exercise, and you could form intuition about when you would actually need this in the future.

---

In programming, extractions like this are first about detecting potential seams in the fabric of the code. (In your Zettelkasten, that's the boundary of a note, where links cross.) It's also about designing/planning where you will want seams to be. You become better at detecting and planning together, so there could be value in practicing this. (And then undoing the change if the new seam sucks )