Zettelkasten Forum


A second try with Zettelkasten

Hi!

I stumbled upon this site a couple of years ago when searching for a method that could help me processes and create a lastning value of all research I do as a journalist covering technology. The theories behind Zettelkasten struck a cord, I installed nvAlt and hit the ground running.

Only to find out that even tough I somewhere could understand the benefits with a Zettelkasten it took to much time to create, link and maintain my notes. So I started to look for another solution and found Devonthink. The autoclassify and other smart functions has served me good for a long time now, but I have an increasing feeling that I don't find the gold nuggets in my archive anymore.

I've kept an eye on the development of The Archive and have now decided to give the Zettelkasten method a second try. I've spent some time over the last week to read both the blog and a lot of the threads in the forum and think I this have gotten a better understanding of how a Zettelkasten and a Reference Management System works together, an understanding that I hope will make my second try more successful – but also a realization that leads to some questions on it's own. About citekeys, as one example. Or what RMS to use.

/Anders

Post edited by thoresson on

Comments

  • Hi Anders and welcome!

    I am a Zettler

  • Nice hearing from you again, Anders! Welcome to the forum :)

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • Hej Anders! Kul att du är här också!

    The benefit I see of a Zettelkasten is that it is application independent so you can just apply the thinking to your archive no matter where it is (preferably accessible to different applictaions) and then use any of the supports (The Archive, Sublime_zk, vim, spacHej Anders! Kul att du är här också!

    The benefit I see of a Zettelkasten is that it is application independent so you can just apply the thinking to your archive no matter where it is (preferably accessible to different applictaions) and then use any of the supports (The Archive, Sublime_zk, vim, spacemacs, bash-scripts or whatever) to ease the workflow and discoverability. I don't remember if devonthink can store your notes as markdown files in some folder and not just in their database.emacs, bash-scripts or whatever) to ease the workflow and discoverability. I don't remember if devonthink can store your notes as markdown files in some folder and not just in their database.

    So, start by adding timestamps to things you want to link to, then add timestamps throughout your Zettelkasten when you want to link, with perhaps a [[syntax]] for links.

    The discoverability is always a crucial issue though. I personally use a bunch of scripts (https://github.com/blay/dotfiles/tree/master/shell) for searching and finding other notes with similar links or types of words, and then often create themed hub notes as outlines with a bunch of related notes.

    I wonder what is really behind the "related notes" feature in Devonthink. Searching for notes with similar uncommon words could be done through scripting.

  • @magnus said:
    Hej Anders! Kul att du är här också!

    :) Hej själv!

    The discoverability is always a crucial issue though. I personally use a bunch of scripts (https://github.com/blay/dotfiles/tree/master/shell) for searching and finding other notes with similar links or types of words, and then often create themed hub notes as outlines with a bunch of related notes.

    Thanks, will have a look at that.

    And perhaps you can show me next time I visit Gothenburg?

  • @ctietze said:
    Nice hearing from you again, Anders! Welcome to the forum :)

    Thanks!

  • @magnus said:
    The discoverability is always a crucial issue though. I personally use a bunch of scripts (https://github.com/blay/dotfiles/tree/master/shell) for searching and finding other notes with similar links or types of words, and then often create themed hub notes as outlines with a bunch of related notes.

    By adding metadata at the end and not include anything below the three dashes, you make sure that your script doesn't base it's suggestions on the manual links and categorization you do, but on the content itself?

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