How do you use Fleeting & Reference notes in the Archive? [Doto's A System for Writing]

John

Hi all,

It's certainly been a long time since I've posted. I have recently started using The Archive again, pulling my ZK out of hibernation. The first new notes have landed there in over three years. Not that there hasn't been any reading, thinking or notetaking but simply not in any coherent or structured fashion.

I recently started reading Bob Doto's book A System for Writing, after having re-read Sonke Ahrens' book again.

In Doto's approach (which I'm not sure is useful yet, having only come to chapter 3 so far) he speaks about two types of notes.

1. One of these is recognisable for me: the Reference note.
   For me those are Bibliography notes, and in my ZK I have been using those.

But I'm curious how you are using them? Do you just list the reference, like this:

[#heft2017a]: Heft, H. (2017). William James’ psychology, radical empiricism, and field theory: recent developments. Philosophical inquiries, 5, 111-130.

Or do you elaborate in the note itself?
And what about the name you give the note?

I see in my Archive that I've used two different ways of naming over time.
In my older notes I see this name: 201611081236 Johnson 2007 The Meaning of the Body
In newer notes I have started using: 202002021125 Biblio - Hook 1950 The Desirable and Emotive in Deweys Ethics

2. Then Doto talks about another type of note, but this is one he keeps apart from the main ZK: the Fleeting note.

I first thought it was akin to my use of Buffer notes. These are, you guessed it, buffers. Not yet a main formed note and most often based on a bibliographic note (and linked to it), where I have written down some more or less coherent thoughts on the reading of that book, paper, whatever.

But if I read Doto correctly on the Fleeting note type, this is more akin to a type of note used for a braindump kind of whatever strikes your fancy at a time you write down and drop into the inbox for later processing. He even references Dave Allen's Getting Things Done method here.

So I'm confused. What does Doto's Fleeting note compare to in the methodology you are using? Do you even use something so flighty or ephemeral (fleeting, yes) like this? And if, like Doto suggests, you don't want to put it in your main Zettelkasten, where do you leave them for later processing (into possibly a main, regular note)?

For me there is value in the idea of the Fleeting note because there's too much crap (read: half-formed notes) in my ZK at the moment, it's the reason I stopped using it for years. But The Archive does not seem to support Folders so there's not a separate inbox or fleeting folder I could start using in it. Hence my questions above.

Thanks all.

harr

Reference notes

Reference notes have been discussed previously in this forum under different names, eg reading notes, literature notes, source notes, bibliographical notes…

Personally I like to keep reading notes in the same tool as my zettels. They are a good place for all the questions, observations, quotations, paraphrases, etc. that come up while reading a book. Some parts of those notes might eventually move to other notes. Or they stay where they are. :-) Reading notes are permanent notes.

Other people in this forum strongly recommend to keep reference-related information in a separate tool.

Fleeting notes

I agree with Bob Doto's initial description (Section 1.2 of his 2024 book):

Fleeting notes form the basis for much of what you’ll create inside your zettelkasten, though they themselves will not make it past the velvet rope.

I disagree with Bob Doto on the next step, where he talks about a "transformation" and that fleeting notes can "become" main notes.

I prefer Sönke Ahrens's concept (Chapter 6 of the 2nd edition of his book):

Fleeting notes are there for capturing ideas quickly while you are busy doing something else. (…) They will very soon become completely useless – unless you do something with them. If you already know that you will not go back to them, don’t take these kind of notes in the first place. Take proper notes instead.

I treat fleeting notes conceptually as something that exists outside the Zettelkasten. I capture most of my fleeting notes in daily notes. I used to keep those daily notes in the same Obsidian vault as my Zettelkasten, but that blurred the conceptual boundary. So I moved them to a separate vault. I also experimented with an inbox, but that also blurred the conceptual boundary. I moved the inbox to the other vault. In my experience, an inbox is a horrible way to manage new notes.

I use my Zettelkasten vault only for non-fleeting content. That doesn't mean that all notes in the Zettelkasten are fully formed or will remain unchanged for ever. It means that they are "permanent" in the sense of being relevant for a long time.

And it means that the "velvet rope" marks an important boundary. I don't "transform" fleeting notes into main notes. I use fleeting notes only as prompts to write proper notes.

The trick is that I know exactly what elements I consider necessary for a "proper note". For me they are a clear note-type, an ID, a creation date, a meaningful name and at least one meaningful link to another note in my ZK. That's it. Others consider other information essential.

My recommendation is to draw a clear boundary between fleeting notes and permanent notes.