Looking for beta readers – The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten (v0.14)

Edmund

Hi everyone,

Christian (@ctietze) encouraged me to share my book project here: The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten – Think Better with Less.

It’s about keeping your Zettelkasten light, clear, and practical — useful without growing out of control.

I’m looking for a few beta readers for version 0.14. If you’d like to take a look and share your thoughts, just send me a quick direct message and I’ll share the PDF.

Thanks a lot,
Edmund

GeoEng51

@Edmund I'd love to help, but have no time until the beginning of next year. Does that timing work?

andang76

@Edmund I can help you, if you want

wjenkins81

I've sent my feedback now... thanks and good luck.

Edmund

Iterative Writing Process

I wanted to tell you a little bit about my writing process. First, however, I had to draw a concept map to better understand it myself:

The first version was v.1, which was around 50 pages long. Versions v.7, v.10 and v.13 were printed as KDP proof copies. You began providing beta reader support with v.14. Thank you all for your thoughtful and generous feedback. However, I will probably need to create more versions before finalising and publishing the first edition.

Edmund

The Title Game

I am convinced that the books we want to write are already waiting for us in our Zettelkasten. They just want to be discovered!

Let's start with the title:

Edmund

Idea Exploration Map

The title of the book is my starting point. The central question that I am trying to answer, solve or explore in the book is this: "Can minimalism help us to stop drowning in notes and start thinking clearly?"

I have created an idea exploration map based on notes from my Zettelkasten to show what I already know about this topic:

The yellow path shows the timeline of note creation dates. It took me 623 days to capture both ideas, from 'Zettelkasten (2022-03-05)' to 'Minimalism (2023-11-18)'. It took an additional 662 days to develop the book title (until 10 September 2025). My personal example of "slow thinking". ;-)

Edmund

Book Evolution Map

The "Book Evolution Map" is a visual, strategic tool to track and plan the development of a book over time. It is especially useful in iterative or agile writing processes.

Well, after reviewing draft version v.18, there are still a few gaps that need to be filled in the next iterations.

thatjpguy

Hello Edmund
Are you still looking for any Beta Readers on your upcoming book?
I would love to read about your thoughts and Ideas surrounding Zettelkasten and trying to keep it simple.

I am not new to the theory and practice but still find it somewhat difficult to employ it properly. I use a combination of hand written notes, images and software to compile my notes but could use some fresh ideas.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

@Edmund said:
Hi everyone,

Christian (@ctietze) encouraged me to share my book project here: The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten – Think Better with Less.

It’s about keeping your Zettelkasten light, clear, and practical — useful without growing out of control.

I’m looking for a few beta readers for version 0.14. If you’d like to take a look and share your thoughts, just send me a quick direct message and I’ll share the PDF.

Thanks a lot,
Edmund

Edmund

Today, I started work on the next iteration, version 20. The initial feedback that you provided as a beta reader was based on version 14. All of your feedback has helped me to improve my writing. However, there are still many tasks relating to later feedback, such as versions 17, 18 and 19, that need to be completed.

Thank you for your ongoing engagement.

Edmund

Zettelkasten Database Publishing might be an idea for the next iteration: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/24439/#Comment_24439

tom314

@Edmund found my way here via your linkedin posts+bitly. Came across zettelkasten recently via zsolt‘s „sketch your mind“ conference, and started to look at his excalidraw plugin for obsidian.

However, my understanding of that is very superficial at the moment.

Are you still looking for beta readers?
If so, I‘d be interested to join in the hope the content would make me skip the overwhelm phase in trying zettelkasten as more or less new method for me.

—the crazy idea in the back of my mind…
my team supports the operation of business critical systems
for customers on a proprietary platform, based on documentation we were given.

Issue is, often there are no formal documents written down,
and all the knowledge of the environment grown over decades
resides in the head/memory palace of the now retiring (dyslexic) system administrator.

I‘d love to provide a systematic approach
To gather all information required
And
Present it in a way that is digestible easily,
For both auditory-sequential and visual-spatial learners,
Using the possibilities obsidian and Zsolt’s Excalidraw plugin to the same
Provide.

(Typing these thoughts out here
helped me a lot to better understand myself
where I want to move to next.
Thanks for holding this space! )

OptimusSlime

Dear Edmund. If you look for another perspective on your Beta, I'd be ready
Highly appriciate your initiative, as far as "hording" may be a problem not only in a material and physical way these days.... but also mentally and in a cognitive way. Shrinking a ZK system down and keeping it clean may be THE step therefore to become and stay productive.

Edmund

Version 21 is ready for beta reading. There are still plenty of good ideas in the task list. Today, I started working on v.22. Rewriting is a great way to learn!

Let me share my process behind:

And thank you for all your amazing feedback!

Edmund

A few weeks ago, I presented my active book project, 'The Minimalist's Zettelkasten', to my Working Out Loud circle. The first piece of feedback came in the form of a surprising question: 'What will your next project be?'

I could not answer spontaneously. As a slow thinker, it takes me time. Today, however, I have a clearer view. I'll start working on some of my next book projects using my Zettelkasten. I could say: Now I have a plan.

More about:

• Zettelkasten Context View
• On Zettelkasten Productivity
• Stepper, John. Working Out Loud - For a Better Career and a Better Life. Page Two Strategies Inc., 2020.

ctietze

@Edmund If you go full Luhmann, whose "Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft" is the culmination of 30y of work, you'll end up with "The Zettelkasten's Zettelkasten"

wjenkins81

@Edmund said:
I'll start working on some of my next book projects using my Zettelkasten. I could say: Now I have a plan.

I enjoyed your book The Minimalist's Zettelkasten a lot, and found it valuable, so I'm looking forward to The Philosopher's Zettelkasten.

One book I found helpful last year was Hope for Cynics. I was surprised to find that it's categorized under DDC 140/149 Philosophical Schools of Thought. There is an overlap between Philosophy, Psychology, and Social Science which I hadn't considered much before. I always thought of Philosophy as an 'old' thing done hundreds and thousands of years ago. But I understand better now that it can be examined in a more modern way with scientific studies.

Referenced:

Zaki, J. (2024) Hope for cynics: the surprising science of human goodness. 1st ed. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

Edmund

@ctietze "The Zettelkasten's Zettelkasten" is a beautiful idea for a great vision. But 30 years seems like hard work. Let me first finish "The Minimalist's Zettelkasten". A smal step with less than 100 pages.

Edmund

@wjenkins81 said:

@Edmund said:
I'll start working on some of my next book projects using my Zettelkasten. I could say: Now I have a plan.

I enjoyed your book The Minimalist's Zettelkasten a lot, and found it valuable, so I'm looking forward to The Philosopher's Zettelkasten.

One book I found helpful last year was Hope for Cynics. I was surprised to find that it's categorized under DDC 140/149 Philosophical Schools of Thought. There is an overlap between Philosophy, Psychology, and Social Science which I hadn't considered much before. I always thought of Philosophy as an 'old' thing done hundreds and thousands of years ago. But I understand better now that it can be examined in a more modern way with scientific studies.

Referenced:

Zaki, J. (2024) Hope for cynics: the surprising science of human goodness. 1st ed. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

A lovely reflection—thank you for sharing it.

Philosophy has always been less about when it was written and more about how we learn to see. The moment it meets psychology and social science, it becomes wonderfully alive again.

The Philosopher’s Zettelkasten is, in a way, an invitation to explore exactly that overlap—one small note at a time.

Edmund

The missing link: Zettelkasten_Philosophers_v03_2026-03-10_read_first_chapter.pdf at GitHub.

Edmund

I can't believe it! It looks like the table of contents for "The Minimalist's Zettelkasten" is finally taking shape.

However, the writing process is taking longer than expected.

Sascha

The TOC looks really nice!

GeoEng51

@Edmund This is an intriguing Table of Contents - I'm looking forward to reading your book!

Edmund

Start, Write, Release.

Title is stable, TOC is stable, content still has to be re-written.

Today I've learnt more about "Das Gesetz über die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNBG) und die darauf aufbauende Pflichtablieferungsverordnung (PflAV)". The 'Release' step has many sub-steps. ;-)

Edmund

Here is a visual blueprint for transforming scattered ideas into a structural scaffolding for writing the book. How do you visualize your project’s knowledge graph?

harr

@Edmund said:
Here is a visual blueprint for transforming scattered ideas into a structural scaffolding for writing the book.

Could you explain a bit more, what this graph shows? What kind of relationship to the edges signify?

Edmund

In my Zettelkasten, the edges are 'Structure Notes'. These are related to the typical list elements found in the back matter of a book. However, the filtered structure notes from Zettelkasten will never be as complete as they will be in the final book.

harr

I was curious about the lines and arrows between bubbles.

For example, why is there an arrow from Index to Glossary, but not from Index to Figures? Why is there a double arrow between Names and Dictionary?

If you wanted to label those lines, what would the labels say?

The graphs look nice, but I don't know how to read them.

Edmund

The arrows are showing the links available in the printed book. E.g. from the Index of the book there are page references to Names, Glossary, Notes and Dictionary chapters. Between Directory and Names there are name references, between Names and Directory there are directory/chapter references.

It‘s all about available links for navigation on paper. And paper isn‘t like Obsidian with hyperlinks and backlinks as well.

harr

Thanks! Somehow I'm still struggling with the idea of a "knowledge graph" in this context. I have classic conventions on backmatter in my mind:

• Endnotes point to a particular location the text indicated by an endnote number
• Glossary contains short pieces of text
• Bibliography/references contains a list of references, sorted alphabetically by the primary author's last name
• List of tables points to a page in the printed book; it contains a number and title for each table
• List of figures dito
• Index contains an alphabetical list of keywords referencing page numbers.
• List of names is a separate index for people who are mentioned explicitly in the main text of the book

Some of these items would also work in the frontmatter, for readers who like to scan them before reading the book:

• list of tables
• list of figures, illustrations, graphs

It feels as if I'm missing something.