Zettelkasten's Hidden Problem: When Finding Notes Becomes a Treasure Hunt
Hey there!
I'm hitting a wall with Zettelkasten and need to vent. I've been trying to make this note-taking system work for ages, and it's been a rollercoaster. A few months ago, I thought I finally cracked it – ideas were flowing, and I totally got what makes a good atomic note.
But here's the thing that's bugging me: As my collection grows, I'm spending more time trying to find existing notes to connect with new ones. And it got me thinking – if I'm struggling now, what happens when I have thousands of notes? I'm starting to worry that I'm spending more time maintaining this system than actually benefiting from it. Sure, following those idea trails is fun and sometimes leads to cool discoveries, but I'm getting anxious about actually finding specific information when I need it.
Anyone else feeling this way about Zettelkasten? How do you deal with the whole "finding the right note" problem?
Howdy, Stranger!
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Just never leave single ideas isolated, without connections.
Connect them:
as they are born and increase in number.
Multiple ideas related/collected together can form a theory, a map, a framework, a structure, a broader/higher concept and so on. If in the future you do not remember the specific note exactly, it is more likely that you will remember a composition or an entry point linked to that specific note, and from there you will reach it.
I have about 100 notes talking about idea atomicity. I absolutely don't remember each of them, but I remember I have "Atomicity" main note that is a composition of almost all of them
, so starting from it I can easily retrieve them in one, two, three steps at most.
Curate note titles too. If you don't reach notes browsing between connections, you can still search them using well thinked keywords into title.
You can also use an index construct. I don't use it, its role is replaced by structure notes. Even this construct, in a digital system, is still a matter of links.
In both methods (keyword searching and connection browsing) well thinking of note titles is strategic. Title is the contact you will have with your notes in the future.
Don't worry if you spend much time retrieving old notes, anyway.
Getting back in touch with old, often forgotten ideas during a retrieving, is one of the "powers" of Zettelkasten. Close to the desired notes you will find other interesting ideas during a retrieve, next year.
Exploring again the notes and structures already built in the past is a value.
In this practice, prefer browsing, it is much more effective than direct search.
Browsing old notes is a chance to make unexpected connections, emergence of new reflections, development of serendipity effects. It is often invested time, not wasted time. But browsing requires not isolated notes, as stated above.
I don't have the hard data to prove this statement, but my sense, from participating on this forum for almost five years, is that as people accumulate more and more zettels, they develop practises for better structure and connection in their ZK. That includes a more sophisticated system of tagging and/or the use of structure notes. You might say: "Everyone already does that". But there are ways of setting up structure notes and tags that make them very effective and personal practices (such as consistency and persistence in maintaining your ZK) that allow you to find material quickly.
Can you quickly find an obscure note in your ZK that you vaguely remember every time? Maybe not. But as @andang76 says, some search effort is usually rewarding. And if you encounter too much friction finding that important zettel, well, fix that problem! Put that zettel on a structure note or connect it to a few more zettels. Maintenance of your ZK to fine-tune zettels and improve connections is an ongoing quest that pays big dividends.
@igorv Without knowing anything about your particular Zettelkasten (maybe there's some low-hanging fruit hanging just behind your back), maybe this is some consolidation: usually in life, it gets better after it gets worse
This may be a crisis that you need to overcome.
I'm thinking of structural layers that can be discovered:
https://zettelkasten.de/posts/three-layers-structure-zettelkasten/
The proverbial iceberg hidden beneath the surface:
https://zettelkasten.de/posts/zettelkasten-iceberg/
Initial practices don't scale forever as the amount of notes grow. You cannot check every note for relevancy anymore when you have 1000 of them. So you need to move up a hierarchy level to hubs and other structures to check for relevant connections, nudging you to create these in if you don't have them, yet.
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
There are many different factors that could cause your issues: Structure (pre-designed instead of naturally developed, solely collecting on structure notes with no added work on the whole that is formed through the structure note,...), type of input (too much random stuff..., too many different ongoing things hinder depth) etc.
Currently, I have 13,7k notes and absolutely no problem of integrating any note and I barely do any maintenance work.
Give us more details, please.
I am a Zettler
Those live streams that you did a while back have been of tremendous help to me. Have you planned any more of these in the future?
Thriving with fibromyalgia by becoming a pain expert.
panaousis.com
Do you mean my solo-streams?
I am a Zettler