Fleeting to Permanent notes

NickB

I find myself struggling to turn fleeting notes into permanent notes. It’s not that I can’t expand my fleeting notes and flesh them out, it’s that I have difficulty deciding that a note is “complete” enough to be permanent.

How do you decide when a note is complete?

I’m probably just overthinking this, but it would be helpful to hear if any of you have a set criteria or a way to take notes to completion. I feel like my ZK is turning into a compost heap of half-eaten ideas.

Martin

@NickB said:

How do you decide when a note is complete?

Nick, notes are never complete, but they can become mature for the time being. I would argue that fleeting notes, fleshed out and - most importantly - connected to other notes and thus find their home on a structure note and along related notes, become permanent notes. And remember that permanent may just mean: sitting in place, not: never being rewritten.

JasperMcFly

1. think of permanent notes as main notes instead. Get rid of the idea of permanence.
2. not all fleeting notes have to be made into main notes.

Will

@NickB, complete and permanent are the wrong metaphors. No note is final; all notes are malleable. Think like a rocketeer, adding fuel and steering propulsion as you constantly adjust your path.

In any given time frame, more notes are edited than created, usually through linking. Sometimes, I change the title or make formatting changes. Sometimes, I notice a reference is missing and dive off to look for it. There are many reasons to refactor past notes.

Try to refactor each note as it is confronted.

I use a set of evolving prompts to determine when a note is taken out of the "#proofing oven" and placed on the rack with other notes. This is part of my note-templating system. Once answered, each prompt is removed; once they are all gone, the note is turned out by removing the #proofing oven tag.

Your prompts will be different.

## Note Building Reminders
- Does the title express the idea?  
- Are the references captured?
- List KEYWORDS!
- Connect the idea to a PROJECT thinking canvas. 
- Does this zettel need to be atomized?
- Add Links.
- Keywords are tags! *Which object or **PROJECT** is this connected with?* Is this an issue, or position, or argument? What is its topic, relevance, theory, observation, question, source, status, structure, concept/umbrella, deliverable, social context, or procedure?

NickB

@Will , this is what I was looking for, thank you. I need to find my set of criteria to consider the note “complete enough.” These are a good model and starting point. I think I knew I needed set of criteria, I just didn’t know where to begin.

Will

Let's ask the forum what criteria to use to transform a captured idea into a note with enough shape to be turned out with the herd.

So far, we have:

• Does the title express the idea?
• Are the references captured?
• Connect the idea to a PROJECT thinking canvas.
• Does this zettel need to be atomized?
• Add Links.
• List KEYWORDS!

GeoEng51

I like @Will 's list and would add the following items:

1. Check the grammar and the logic - are your thoughts expressed in accurate and easily understood terms?
2. Does the zettel feel mature? In my definition of maturity, I include each zettel being pithy and each idea being developed as far as I can personally take it (which may get upgraded later, as I read and think more about the subject).

Sascha

First, read @Will's take on it: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/literature-notes-vs-permanent-notes/

Second: You only can decide when you are done with the note, when you know when you are done with the idea. The problem cannot be solved on the level of the Zettelkasten Method, since the Zettelkasten Method only asks you for a complete note without any detailed of what completeness entails. Completeness is a concept that need to be incorporated from your general knowledge tools.

Example: You are done with an argument if:

1. You captured the logical form
2. You got all the premises
3. You got the conclusion

Then you have the argument itself.

Then you might provide empirical evidence for the premises. How much depends on the level of reliability that you want and need to produce. If you want to do that, depends on your own goals.

Then you might explore the implications of the truth of the conclusion. Again: When to end, depends on your goals, the if depends also.

andang76

In my model notes are "living" entities that grow over time. So, they tend to be never "concluded", actually.

I can say that a note is complete, or adequate, better, if it fullfills the purposes I have, simply. The purpose can change over time, so the adequacy of the note can change over time, an adequate note today can become inadequate so I tend to improve it.

Thinking about minimum requirements for a note, I can say that my note, at minimum, must have

• an adequate title that fully express its meaning
• it must not be isolated, it must have at least one participation, role in a broader context. The very minimum is I must have a link on it into another note. That link almost always implicitly expresses "why" I've taken this note, why this note exists into my zettelkasten.

I have many notes that have only their titles and participate as links in other notes, withou bodies. They are complete (adequate) despite this, beeing useful in this state

Other notes are very big and they are still not complete

Kamil

@Will said:

• Connect the idea to a PROJECT thinking canvas.

May I ask you to elaborate more on this criterion? What do you mean by a PROJECT thinking canvas? An example would be great!

Will

• This is yet another of my reboots of structure notes. Over time, I've created several structure notes, bringing together notes with a common thread. I've formatted them variously and with varying degrees of intensity. This iteration focuses on project structure, such as the improving my mindset and mind mapping projects.

• This is part of an iterative development idea I've had festering in my brain for almost a year now. The idea is that I can place more emphasis on projects as the output of my ZK. Back in January, I got struck by the idea "What would a project-driven workflow look like?" and it languished for most of the year. It was only during a recent review that the idea sprouted.

• This is probably more than you asked for, but your question led to some personal reflection. Thank you.

@JoshA gave me the idea of calling these thinking canvases.
Others who are instrumental in my evolution to structure notes as project thinking canvases.

• Design Patterns for Structure Notes and focusing on creating output - @Sascha's The Zettelkasten Method 101 LIVE Workshop • Zettelkasten Method
• @Edmund's MAKE USEFUL NOTES. A simple guide to a complex skill by using Sketchnotes, Obsidian, and Zettelkasten, 2023. PDF
• @Sascha's response to @Nori What am I doing wrong or Am I just not the right person for the method? — Zettelkasten Forum