Zettelkasten Forum


Little Machines in Your Zettelkasten


imageLittle Machines in Your Zettelkasten

Create tools within your Zettelkasten for various purposes to aid you in your work.

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Comments

  • Thanks for this nugget. Creating and letting a homunculus explore and gather notes in my ZK is a unique idea. This "little machine" can be applied to writing fiction and creative non-fiction.

    I want to contribute one of my "little machines" to the discussion, but not nearly as creative as the one outlines in the article. I have a 'prompt' in my journaling template, so I'm confronted by four random notes to review when I journal. I journal in Bear and cross-link to my ZK in The Archive. I'm surprised at how often the randomness appears less than random as if a homunculus has run around my ZK and gathered what I need.

    Will Simpson
    I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • edited March 2023

    This reminds me of a Naval quote "We create products not to show how good we are, but to measure how good we are."

    Similarly, we create (knowledge) tools to measure how good we are, and avoid just feeling good (Collector's Fallacy).

    Tools in our ZK represent something quite tangible. They indicate 1) the level of depth-of-processing, and 2) the level of value creation.

    Even if you do not use the tool directly, the depth-of-processing will integrate the knowledge into your mind better than, say, reading alone (very shallow). Reaching deep levels-of-processing increases the probability the knowledge will be useful to your future reasoning processes.

    Focusing on tool production has made the Zettelkasten actually relevant in my knowledge work pipeline. Before the shift in thinking my ZK was really just connected notes, no different than taking notes on paper or what people ordinarily refer to as note-taking, and I felt anxiety interacting with my ZK in this way.

    Zettelkasten is love. Zettelkasten is life.

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