Refactor note

chrisdb

Hi,

New member here, hello :-)

I've been reading a lot about Zettelkasten lately and I would like to try it out.

The site https://zettelkasten.de/ has been a great place to start. I still have a couple of questions, but most of them will become clear while I'm using ZK I guess.

Still 1 thing is not very clear to me. I know a note initially starts as a concept, but I'm wondering when you add more context to your existing note, what do you do with the original text, do you keep it or rewrite the whole note into something new?

Sorry if my question is not clear.

Thank you

Will

@chrisdb said:
... I'm wondering when you add more context to your existing note, what do you do with the original text, do you keep it or rewrite the whole note into something new?

Maybe I misunderstand your question. This question gets asked a lot on the forums, and I'm always confused. There is a difference between editing your thinking/writing/notes and programming, where the need for a history of changes is often life-saving.

Refactoring is editing. When you edit a note, it changes. The changes could be spelling and grammar, or you could group sentences into narratives, add examples or use cases, you could add references, see where the current ideas are leading to another idea in your zettelkasten, and beg for a link. Just like when I edited this message, where did the original seed go? It disappeared into what has become this new message.

I have no idea why, but if you want to keep a revision history beyond undo and redo, I can only recommend putting your zettelkasten in a git repository.

chrisdb

@Will thank you for your response. It's not exactly revision I'm interested in.

What if f.e. I started with a specific note because I got an idea about someting. I put some outline in it and afterwards I want to add more context to the idea.

My question is, do I leave the original text with outline as it was (maybe because in the future when I look back, I know where my thoughts originated from) and just append the text with new info, or do I remove the outline and rewrite the entire note?

andang76

Both approaches are valid, with drawbacks and benefits for both.

There is a similar, recent discussion about:

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2905/hypothesis-non-editability-of-analog-zettelkasten-is-a-feature-not-a-bug

I use the refactoring approach by default, but when I feel that it is useful having tracks of previous contents, I use, for this specific case, the other approach.

It's a broad theme.
After these months of first practice, anyway, I'm convinced that it's not important prefer one or the other, but learning how to use well one of them. They are both adeguate for the the purpose. Indeed, both immutable and mutable Zettelkasten exist.

Refactoring seems easy, it's not easy. Good refactoring need discipline.

Two things are important using my method:

• the awareness that it's more, more easy refactorable a note that represents one single and "well written" idea, rather than a complex content.
• I have to distinguish if I need to rewrite the text, maintaining the same idea, or if I need reformulate the idea below the note. It seems the same thing, but they are very different tasks. It's like, in OOP programming, changing the interfaces or changing the implementations maintaining the same interface. When you change the idea, you need to consider the impact of change over all the network of notes which the note partecipate.

It is the mindset of writing good notes, using well the Zettelkasten principles, that simplifies their evolution, whether it is used refactory or immutability. Bad notes are harder to manage with both approaches.

My advice, in the end, is use the method that you feel more comfortable. With that method, try to develop the final quality of the note, rather than struggling applying the method itself in a zealously way.

Will

@chrisdb said:
What if f.e. I started with a specific note because I got an idea about someting. I put some outline in it and afterwards I want to add more context to the idea.

My question is, do I leave the original text with outline as it was (maybe because in the future when I look back, I know where my thoughts originated from) and

Develope the ideas the outline represents. An outline is valuable for thinking through and arranging ideas. Approach your writing with a mindset of a writer. Use drafts to refine your thoughts. A reference manager comes in handy to trace the origin of your ideas from other sources.

just append the text with new info, or do I remove the outline and rewrite the entire note?

Maybe. Add new information when you discover it. If the outline has been superseded, you can remove it. More than likely it will evolve and become more sophisticated if the note continues to captivate your interest. All notes get rewritten to some degree and some notes end up on the trash heap.

Here is an example of a note that started as an outline and then was flushed out in more detail. I see no need to look at any historical versioning.

---
UUID: ›[[202204281054]]
cdate: 04-28-2022 10:54 AM
title: Rock:Steady:Boxing OpEd Outline
tags: #JAMM328 #science #PD
---

Rock Steady Boxing OpEd Outline

Final

• Rock Steady Boxing OpEd Final [[202205011724]]

Potential Title:

• Counterpunching to improve the health of people with Parkinson's Disease
• The only opponent in the ring is Parkinson's disease.

LEDE:

Rock Steady Boxing was founded in 2006 to empower people with Parkinson's disease (PD) to fight back through a non-contact, boxing-style fitness regimen and emotional support.Boxing is a surprising therapy for Parkinson's Disease.

NUT:

Advocate for people with PD to sign up for and participate in Rock/Steady/Boxing.

The program started in a tiny gym in Indianapolis, Indiana and has grown to over 900 affiliate locations serving over 50,000 people with PD.

BODY:

Parkinson's patients have specific challenges, and Rock/Steady/Boxing is a strategy to correct and delay some of the more debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's disease. This non-interventional exercise regime is scientifically proven to improve life satisfaction. It is underutilized even by those with easy access to specially designed programs because of a lack of education.

Boxing does require hand-eye coordination, speed of movement, agility, footwork, explosive movements, balance, and focus — many of which are impacted by Parkinson's.

A possible counter argument is the fact that Mohammed Ali's head trauma from boxing was the proximal cause of his PD and now boxing is a therapy used in the treatment and for slowing of progression of PD.

I want to advocate for the science of boxing as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease. My target audience would be people diagnosed with PD who wonder what treatment options are available to them once diagnosed.

CONCLUSION:

End with a call to action. What should people do if they know someone who might benefit from this practice.

Another insight I got was in the discussion helping Spencer. Kindness and respect are hard things to advocate for but cruelty, the opposite of kindness, is impossible to advocate for. The discussion made me think I should plan to bringing kindness into my call to action.

Resources

JPM | Free Full-Text | A Randomized Controlled Trial of Motor Imagery Combined with Virtual Reality Techniques in Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Rock Steady Boxing HQ’s YouTube channel

RSBFamily on Facebook

Full article: High satisfaction and improved quality of life with Rock Steady Boxing in Parkinson’s disease: results of a large-scale survey

Michael J. Fox Foundation - Rock Steady Boxing Offers New Video Series to Keep People Active, Safe and Connected | Parkinson's Disease

Rock/Steady/Boxing Moscow Affiliate - Gritman Medical Center - Jeff Martin Wellness Center - - Interview With Mary Jo [[202205011559]]

Target Publication

Moscow Daily News

———
References

ctietze

@chrisdb said:

>

Still 1 thing is not very clear to me. I know a note initially starts as a concept, but I'm wondering when you add more context to your existing note, what do you do with the original text, do you keep it or rewrite the whole note into something new?

Echoing what the other said --- esp. coming from a background of strong version control tools for source code in programming --- I also want to stress that I see no value in versioning in my Zettelkasten at all. I wanted to have that early on, but keeping a history of changes to an idea usually is not what I'm interested in 10 years later. As ideas evolve and contradictions or expansions and 'forks in the road' happen, I take note of these incidents as such if they feel like future-me would value this.

For example, I have very concrete how-to style process notes that I use to look up, well, how to do something. My understanding of processes and their parameters improve over time and I may need to correct assumptions I initially made. Then I write about that:

Initially, I thought X was a U but it's actually X, so the old solution of doing V turned out not to work reliably.

Most corrections are just being done to notes and then that's it. The new note's content is the current understanding.

If the current understanding contradicts previous notions, that could mean that incoming links don't 'work' anymore. With 10 incoming links to a note that were made under the assumption "that X was a U", I may need to take extra care to have these links still make sense.

You can't write a note about apples, link to it as See apples[[202407161002]], and then change it completely to a note about bananas without breaking the sensemaking-network.

It's all about content and context, not mechanics.