Use a Real Notebook • Zettelkasten Method

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Use a Real Notebook • Zettelkasten Method

A Zettelkasten is a personal tool for thinking and writing that creates an interconnected web of thought. Its emphasis is on connection and not mere collection of ideas.

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Jvet

Hey @Sascha, out of curiosity, how do you structure the notes you take inside your notebook when you are reading a books? I mean like do you create an index that organizes notes by ideas or general topics? After reading the getting started guide I know you used to take notes with A7 sheets of paper and then organized them by idea or topic, and you kind of manually with your own hands structure your physical sheets of notes. How is the process different now that you use a notebook and the versatility of having everything in an atomic sheet of paper is gone?

Thanks!

Donnie

@Jvet said:
Hey @Sascha, out of curiosity, how do you structure the notes you take inside your notebook when you are reading a books? I mean like do you create an index that organizes notes by ideas or general topics? After reading the getting started guide I know you used to take notes with A7 sheets of paper and then organized them by idea or topic, and you kind of manually with your own hands structure your physical sheets of notes. How is the process different now that you use a notebook and the versatility of having everything in an atomic sheet of paper is gone?

Thanks!

Donnie

This topic is of great interest. Was there any elaboration & answer to this question ?

Loni

@Jvet said:
Hey @Sascha, out of curiosity, how do you structure the notes you take inside your notebook when you are reading a books? I mean like do you create an index that organizes notes by ideas or general topics? After reading the getting started guide I know you used to take notes with A7 sheets of paper and then organized them by idea or topic, and you kind of manually with your own hands structure your physical sheets of notes. How is the process different now that you use a notebook and the versatility of having everything in an atomic sheet of paper is gone?

Thanks!

Reminds me the Commonplace Book - it was a notebook to quote books you read. You can organise it with index, like John Locke :

I take a white paper book of what size I think fit, I divide the two first pages which face one another, by parallel lines, into five and twenty equal parts, with black lead; after that, I cut them perpendicular by other lines, which I draw from the top of the page to the bottom, as you may see (below) … Afterwards I mark with ink every fifth line of the twenty five that I just now spoke of. … I put at the beginning of every fifth space, or before the middle, one of the twenty letters which are defign’d for this use; and a little farther in every space one of the vowels in their natural order. This is the index or table of the whole volume, be it of what size forever.

If I would put anything in my Common-place Book, I find out a head to which I may refer it. Each head ought to be some important and essential word to the matter in hand; and in that word regard is to be had to the first letter, and the vowel that follows it; for upon these two letters depends the use of the index.

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I worked with this kind of device last year. I needed a friction less, pleasant and fluid support for my notes without having myself lost into to much organization. Notebook was perfect.

However, I found difficult to separate the note from random thoughts from ramblings from finished notes and so on... I would I have needed a separate notebook maybe? Before that, I tried index cards to write my notes. It was easier to organize it, notes where separate from garbage or temporary content, but I could'nt take part of my ZK with me into my bag.

Right now I'm still using a notebook for ideation, "fleeting notes" before take them into my ZK. I like the "bullet journal" approach : one day, one entry for brain dump. Cards are prefered for finished notes and index.

• Notebook : more freedom for writing, too much maybe, rigidity over placement, Index can be hard to make, you'll need something to index everything.
• Card notes : less freedom for writing as you have a definite space, more agile for placement. You can extract them for your ZK and put them in front of you to tell a story, prepare an outline or whatever. Notebooks are closed spaces.

Sascha

@Jvet said:
Hey @Sascha, out of curiosity, how do you structure the notes you take inside your notebook when you are reading a books? I mean like do you create an index that organizes notes by ideas or general topics? After reading the getting started guide I know you used to take notes with A7 sheets of paper and then organized them by idea or topic, and you kind of manually with your own hands structure your physical sheets of notes. How is the process different now that you use a notebook and the versatility of having everything in an atomic sheet of paper is gone?

Thanks!

(Sorry, I seem to missed this)

Disclaimer: My practice changed a lot during the years. Currently, I don't carry any notebook with me and don't even have my voice recorder with me, when I am not sitting at my desk. I really value the times without anything on me, which gives me a break from the written world. So, in part, I practice what Stephen King says: Good ideas are sticky.

Back then, there was no organisation. I see no reason to organise the notebooks, if you have a Zettelkasten. I used notebooks as a capturing device. Then I just processed the info into my Zettelkasten and then never looked back into my notebooks.

The organisation of notes with A7 sheets of papers was Christian's idea. I never practised.

The general theme for me is, that I try to avoid any work leading up to my Zettelkasten and then go all in when I write/think in my Zettelkasten. This is the reason why I like PARA for everything that leads to my Zettelkasten. PARA is about minimalist investment of time and energy. A perfect match for me and my Zettelkasten.

Jvet

No problem @Sascha, thanks for explaining this a little bit further. Contrary to you I always have to carry my planner (used to be a BuJo but I filled it) which is a Hobonichi Techo Cousin, maybe it's my ADHD but I always need to rely on something to write on, although I don't know if a planner classifies as a notebook if I use it as a productivity tool instead of a component from a system to produce knowledge.

At the moment in my case I use an "iPad" as my notebook when I schedule time to think. I open an app like Endless Paper or Freeform and just write in the infinite canvas the ideas I have explored from a book or something and see relationships. That was the main reason I bough the iPad, I'm glad I acquired it from another owner that wasn't using it and I got it really cheap, almost a 50% save in money.

My book this month will be Getting Things Done and I tried to read it while taking notes with Bike or with my iPad but found it too disrupting of my flow. So I ended up just underlining with pencil and making comments in the margins. I will relegate this more extraneous thinking when I go to the book a second time.