My Digital Zettelkasten Setup with Logseq and Syncthing

gvisoc

I have been quite happy with my setup, so I thought on sharing it here.

I use Logseq, which is a plaintext file, markdown-based, local-first (or local-only) outliner. It is opensource, free software and it is available for MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android (and all forks) and iOS.

• It is designed so that the native unit of information is the bullet, not the page, and so each bullet of the list can be linked.
• It also handles markdown pages / Notes as linkable elements of information, so if the bullet list doesn't bother you it is a very powerful piece of software.
• It doesn't let you create folders, but allows you to nest pages in what they call "namespaces" (which I don't use), which is pretty equivalent.
• It supports tags, and the tags are pages.
• The pages in Logseq (normal-named and tag-like) work as permanent searches on your workspace. For example, a page named #fleeting will present all the tagged bullet items as Linked References of it. Pretty handy to find tagged content and also document the meaning and context of the tag itself.
• You link by either [[]] or #.
• The pages have also aliases, so you can name your page Fleeting Notes and then put fleeting as an alias, so you can link either by [[Fleeting Notes]] or by #fleeting.
• Logseq has built-in pages: Journals, which presents an infinite timeline of notes grouped by date (each day is a markdown file); contents.md, to create your main entrypoint; and some other pages tailored to task management.
• It has built-in whiteboard which allows you to drop pages and bullets in an infinite canvas and play with relationships, built-in Excalidraw to draw in your notes, and also supports a wide range of plugins to whatever you'd like: mermaid diagrams, advanced highlighting,...
• It has all the bells and whistles otherwise: theming, favourites, export / import, basic syntax highlighting for the techy folks,...

In order to sync my ZK to my other devices I use Syncthing, which is a very powerful but quite DYI peer to peer service: you install in all your devices, share a folder, and whenever the devices are online they will sync, either through the LAN or also across the internet using cellular connectivity. The only caveat is that Syncthing is not available for iOS, so if you don't use (an) Android you may want to look for other alternatives. I used git in the past, but it's not as comfortable as it seems.

My workflow is as follows:

1. I use Logseq's Journal timeline to capture fleeting notes and literature notes as nested bullets, for which I tag the top-level bullet with #fleeting and #literature. That creates two permantly-accessible dynamic hub pages which work as searches, that will always have all those notes as Linked References.
2. At the end of the day or when I have marked my timeslot to process notes, I go to those searches and I process one by one deciding how I should use that note and if they should be moved to the ZK as permanent. That means creating a note, tagging it, linking to a references, and so on and so forth.
3. I update my main index hub, which is in the built-in contents.md page from Logseq.
4. When I need to create an output, I use a whiteboard.

If you have any questions about any of the tools above or you'd like to know more about the workflow please comment below. Also, do you folks do digital catch-ups and live demos? Do any of you have a YouTube channel? I've read some setups that would be really cool to see working.

pro2type

Nice. It is quite a change to have the bullet and not the page/file as the primary thing. It gives possibilites, but also create complexity. But I like the idea of having your Journal automatic and separated from your ZK. The problem is always that the App creates alternative new structures like "namespaces" instead of just using standard folders.

gvisoc

I think that the bullets are entirely optional, in the sense that you don't have to use them: you can just link to the notes you create or the days of the journal without having to worry about the pros, cons or effects of linking to bullets. Yet, having them, is what makes it possible capture unlimited notes in a single journal day, and having them linked one by one. Thus having them is truly powerful regardless you use the link-to-bullet mechanics or not.

What I never found useful in any PKM method was the folders, and I have to say that I left Obsidian because I found myself spending a lot of time trying to adjust folders v. tags v. links to a nice balance. When I tried Logseq out of curiosity I found that I never really needed folders, thus neither I need namespaces... at least for now.

GeoEng51

@gvisoc

I really like Logseq and have also posted about it in this forum - here is one example

Your description of Logseq is accurate and helpful for those who are not familiar with it.

My only concern with Logseq is that the developers are pursuing a different direction for improvement, namely using a conventional database approach for the files. At some point down the road, you may find that the "original" version of Logseq, which uses text-based files, is no longer supported. I hope that doesn't happen, but it could.

For full disclosure, I should mention that I have switched my ZK back to another app that I also really like called NotePlan. The post is here which also discusses some of the reasons for switching back to NotePlan.

gvisoc

I read about it, and it seems that the current product will be maintained. They say it wont receive new features, but it will be patched and ported to new versions of the runtimes and dependencies.

I'm quite sure that once that happens there will be some fork.

For my use, anyways, it's enough as it is today.