Workflow and time commitment
Hi,
A while ago I was reading the following post:
From the feedback it is clear that you should split your note taking into different steps, by using some sort of workflow.
I'm not arguing against this, but I would like to know how this community spreads this over time. Like for example do you have daily or weekly reviews or something entirely different?
The reason I ask is because most of the time at work, like most of you :-), my day is pretty full and I'm trying to figure out how to organize my day and/or week to incorporate this workflow.
Thank you
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
I dedicate exactly zero time to reviewing anything in my ZK. Each area in my Zettelkasten represents my current progress in learning about something.
Some areas (and notes) are highly edited and clean. Others are completely messy.
The state of order in the ZK is not an end in itself. It is also not a leading indicator. It is the by-product of thinking. If it is not treated like that, the orderliness in the ZK and in the mind will separate, which most likely the result of not focussing on the actual task at hand and wasting time to get to something beautiful on screen (or paper) without engaging properly with the matter. A symptom of this is a feeling of not getting results, despite trying to adhere to all the "rules" of the method.
Reviewing the ZK should be reconceptualized as a regular scholarly practice. Similar how you don't just read to learn about something specific, but also engage in a reading habit, you can build a thinking habit, which happens to be in your ZK.
I am a Zettler
@Sascha , thank you for your reply. Maybe I chose the wrong term 'review' here. I was referring to the moment where you would enhance or elaborate your notes.
I was thinking of a workflow where initially I would create some sort of draft of a note with basic info, assumptions, quotes, etc. In a second phase I then would elaborate on that note by adding more info and thinking about links ...
Then, I am not sure what you are referring to. All the actions are identical with improving an idea.
I am a Zettler
I don't always follow the same strategy.
It depends on the complexity of the content I face in a given moment, the effort required, the available time, my tiredeness, my mood on the specific moment. I adapt myself at the rythm of the moment and of my body.
If I'm in a particular mood I work and finish a single note at time, one after one, other times I work in parallel on many notes and quickly load a draft or even only the title for many of them at first.
I've learned that if I track my work into one or more "workbench note", I can stop and resume the work even after many days. So, my work become pretty independent from time and speed.
The only thing to avoid is interrupt a flow of ideas when my mind has a good moment. That moment could not recur agan.
So, the most important thing, in my case, is capturing a braindump into a note when I have that that flow. When the flow has finished, I can pause, switch to produce zettels, or stop and go to sleep. I will have enough time to process the written content and making notes from this later.
For this specific task I consider strategical having a note that can contain a journaling session and my acquired practice of quickly writing in bullet lists (what I've called "train of thought" many times here). The keyword here is quickly, the hand must follow the brain for a while.
With this simple toolset (a workbench note, for example a daily note or a dedicated note, that can capture my flows in bullet lists) I can easily manage the issue of available time.
Once captured in a workbench, I can transform my bullet list of thoughts into a full fledged network of notes after five minutes or next week.
In the end, if A indicates a "thought flow timeslot" and B a "notemaking timeslot", and "." is a pause, I can proceed in any combination of A, B and . :
I don't force myself having first all the A, then B, having to close with a B an A in the same day, and so so on.
The only critical passage, when I stop an A what I have in my mind has to remain written in a note. and in such a way that I can restart.
@andang76 Well said. I follow a similar process. There are two keys for me:
1. Reduce the friction of getting information into my Zettelkasten and finding it later on.
2. Don't interrupt my thinking/writing when I'm in the zone - as you say, you may not be able to repeat that again, at least in the same way or with the same result.
I think I'm the same as the others who have responded. Sometimes there is flow and I just keep going with making new linked notes...and sometimes I synthesize and revise. It's organic (and fun).
I really think that whatever works to get to the endpoint of using writing to think more clearly (and deeper) is fine!
I think I like the idea of a workbench note, but I'd worry about having to write down things twice as I moved any important ideas to a note/Zettel (I don't really make a distinction) @andang76 can you tell us more?
Sure. I think you've raised a good point. Writing things twice. It's partially true, try to explain.
An important thing that I've omitted. I have a digital zettelkasten. With an analog Zettelkasten, maybe I would use something different (even if I've watched a video in which a similar thing is done with analog zettelkasten, workbench in this case was a paper block notes).
I can distinguish two main situations. In the practice, there are infinite cases that are at the middle beween them.
Having digital notes let me, very often, to reuse, thanks to copy-paste, rows, sentences, paragraphs too, written in workbench note into zettels, and the remaining work to do is assemble, adapt, fill the gaps, transform something. This happens when the content into workbench has already a "good shape" at start, maybe still not perfect, so I reuse part of it when I make a zettel. So I don't write exactly twice, I write once in workbench, then copy into zettel and make some transformations. I almost always develop something into zettel, something grows into zettel, but it's not always a full rewrite reading from workbench and writing into zettels. I have the same thought written in two place, but the effort taken for that is never double. Maybe I could quantify, in this case, in 1.1x or 1.2x of having both.
In very good cases the content of the zettel born entirely into the workbench, so making a zettel is one shot of cut and paste.
Other times I full rewrite passing from workbench to zettel. But this tipically happens when the phrases I've taken into workbench at start are themselves very dry, succint, written quickly, they are really only a quick draft of a thought. In this case I rewrite better that thoughts into zettels, but the first take into workbench was a little effort at practise. So, if the write of the zettel in this case has effort 1, the writing into workbench had effort 0.1, 0.2. Here 1.2x again.
I very rarely spend an effort of 2x.
There are other cases in which when I pass from wotkbench to zettel a new brainstorm happens and I have to return to capture ideas and again make zettels, so at the end I've spent 10x :-) but this is a very good thing.
Very often, finally, into the workbench there is only "the initial part" of a thought. The tip of the iceberg. The rest of the thought is developed and written directly into the zettel. Not all what I write into a zettel came from a workbench.
The short version of the story, it's true that a thought is often expressed twice in my note system (once into a workbench, the other into a zettel), but the effort of the work is never twice the effort of writing zettel. This happens because content that takes time tend to be reused, while content that need to be rewritten tend to be written very quickly the first time.
The other issue of having a double writing is redundancy of content. But for me is simple to manage.
The important thing is that Workbench and Zettels are very distinct note types, so I don't have confusion of their role. Workbench are like literature notes, in the end, they works as an input. When I need fo find a thought for a project, I'll continue to find it in a zettel, not in a workbench. They aren't tagged, they aren't used in structure notes, and so on. They are a support for developing zettels, they aren't zettels and they aren't considered when I have to use a zettel. I might as well throw them away, I don't because they still have a value (but this is another subject that I should explain, and I've already written a lot for a single post).
Making this distintion of roles, having a thought or a content that is repeated into a workbench and into a Zettel is not a real issue. The version that has value over time is the content into zettel.
Sometimes it happens I feel a little annoyed having the exact content into workbench and zettel. In this case, I remove that content from workbench and there I write "I've written into note ...." :-)
For this entire post I've use many times the term "workbench note". It seems a sophisticated model. In the last two months, actually, I use as workbench almost always a daily note every day. Only when I feel that the devlopment into daily note became too big, I move all the stuff into an independent note. Thinking in terms of daily notes could be simpler to understand, maybe.
I don't know if it is clear enough, maybe I've written a little mess with too much details, if not i can clarify some points.
In the previous post I've cited a "similar" idea used in an analog zettelkasten.
Here is the video.
I've watched this video only few days ago, I've developed my process in an independent way from this, but I can find in that some similarities
Of course the nature of the paper makes this version a bit... intimidating :-)
But the principle in the end is the same and rather simple, as expressed by @GeoEng51 too. Having different gears, like in a car, for moving at different speeds and with different agility during different phases
Thanks guys this is a lot of great info!
I guess my problem is I'm used to follow a fixed structure in everthing, I didn't realize this isn't always necessary...