A newbie...

ChrisJohnson

Hi,

first of all - thx for having me here.
I grew up in the good (?) old analog times, did my university exam papers with typewriter, collected my thoughts, excerpts, bibliography notes etc. etc. on tons of index cards as well as my poetry writings in a more and more growing number of notebooks. I must say, that, even I had my first PC in the early 90ies, it took me a while until I decided to transfer all that paper stuff into digital files. And it was a struggle - not the typing itself (which took quite a bit), but to find a system that suits my needs as well as a software which does what I want.
Finally I found that nvAlt is my perfect choice. It’s simple, I love to have everything as .txt files, the search speed is really stunning (that’s why I use Ulysses, which is a well crafted great tool, only for finishing drafts. With some thousand notes it slows down too much, unfortunately) - and the search function is crucial for a big Zettelkasten. Yes, I tried Zettelkasten (Zkn3) too, but as for me it’s way too cumbersome. So, with nvAlt as my BIG Zettelkasten and Ulysses as finishing and polishing tool I have all what I need.
Places like this site I like very much - there is always something, what helps me to reconsider my „system““ over and tweak it a little here and a little there.
One last thing - I once found myself thinking too much about the „perfect“ Zettelkasten system - inspired and enthused by many, many good posts and articles on that issue - meanwhile I know that there is a point, where concentration on the form can superpose the working on content…

Ahoy - Chris

ctietze

Welcome on board, Chris!

You're the first one I know of who transcribed his paper stuff in TXT form. (Then again, I don't know that many avid Zettelkasten users.) How many notes did you end up transcribing?

ChrisJohnson

Hi Christian,
thx for the welcome!
I always transcribe my hand written notes and always will continue to do this. I use pencil and paper cos I'm too slow with my iPhone. Sometimes my iPad will be used to note down ideas etc.
To keep everything finally in a growing folder containig .txt files simply is due to the fact that I can search and find what I need from my Zettelkasten as fast as it would never be possible with 'real' index cards. That's the reason my Zettelkasten today is a digital one. And in our everydays life we usually don't have time and leisure like Jean Paul or Arno Schmidt had (I bet both of them would run a digital Zettelkasten today...).
How many? Haha - some thousand. I'm still not done, there are some notebooks left to transcribe. But I'm more focussed on what currently comes day after day after day. As long as the brain doensn't stop to spit out all that wonderful stuff called ideas
Ahoy -
Chris
P.S.: I wrote a small article about Sublime Text; this text editor now is my new and even better nvALT...

Sascha

Also from me: Welcome to our community.

I was about to ask the same questions as @ctietze. How many notes did your transcribe?

I subscribe to your last part. Gathering tools is a part of becoming better. Even more important is to practice with these tools to improve your skill as a knowledge worker. Along the way your can produce a lot of content.

ctietze

Cool, nice to see hands-on experience with Sublime. @Sascha tried it a couple of weeks/months ago. A full-blown review of Sublime would be nice to have one day -- if you want to write that, just shoot me an email!

I think the leisure time comes when you're a full-time author. But then it's not leisure anymore, but work. Still, if you enjoy doing that sort of stuff, it's a bit like play.

Sascha

Read your article just a minute ago. Awesome! I will process it and assimilate to my own archive. Thanks for the work.