Please share the ideas you're grappling with - June 9, 2023
Another installment of the What You Working On? thread. Don't let me monopolize this thread.
I've been trying to get into the habit of refactoring notes by spending a few minutes each day in the refactoring mode. Adding this routine to my 'monk morning' has helped keep it consistent.
I'm reading:
- Creating Technical Manuals: A Step-by-Step Approach to Writing User-Friendly Instructions. Cohen, Gerald and Cunningham, Donald H.. 1984.
- The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story. Faulkner, Grant. 2023.
- The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral: [Poems]. Ackerman, Diane. 1976.
I'm working on ideas for new statistical summaries of my ZK.
Summer is here in the northern hemisphere: mowing, weeding, long walks, farmers market, lots of tick checks.
My ten day zettel production
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. 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
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
I've wanted to do this in the past. But, I've alway shied away from it (especially because I can lack grit with what I'm focused on). I've decided to just share!
I am about to finish listening to:
I'm at the beginning of listening to:
I'm reading:
while also being coached by the author which has been enjoyable (and challenging!).
I'm very intrigued by the concept of Knowledge Building by Bereiter and Scardalamia (for a brief overview of the idea check out this video. I'm grappling with the question of how I could either do this with people in general or specifically at my organization.
This was sparked by listening to Carl Bereiter talk about A Guide to Life Long Learning. In which, "rule" 6 is, "Make friends with people who think." Which lead me to thinking about how little I get to interact with people that like to engage in knowledge building discourse like I (seem to?) enjoy.
I'm currently completely buried at work. I've been adding notes to my ZK about Product Management. Mainly from training and web resources. I haven't gotten much done on the Genealogy front though. I can only juggle so many things.
I am continually annoyed with friction in my existing set up so I've been fluffing about with tooling the last 2 weeks. One of the great joys of plain text is doesn't stop me from trying out new tools. I far prefer command line tools and existing software just doesn't do it for me in this space. Zettlr being the closest. The beta has features I need but breaks features that already work. It is annoying. There are various other little things that annoy me and difficult to change.
So instead, I've managed to configure a nice system in VIM (neovim) that works for me. Low-tech and minimalistic. I've found you don't need a ton of plugins or tools to simply make it work. I was surprised how easy it was. Since I've used VIM for years for everything else I do, it just makes sense for me and for how I work.
@dandennison84
What have you going through for product management? I am also learning in that space.
Turning an organization that is an output-based project organization into an outcome and data driven product organization.
Selen. Psychology freak. https://twitter.com/neuro__flow
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
@c4lvorias I know this isn't directly relevant to your post, but I love the quote by Ursula K. Le Guin. She was one of my favourite writers when I was younger, but I hadn't seen that quote from her. It strikes home for me and of course the word "revolution" could take on many meanings.
I've been "Zettling" or perhaps "Zettlekasting" for about 3 years and have accumulated 400 zettels - not as prolific as many. I tend to be more purposeful in what I capture in my ZK. Anyway, my point is that you learn the process by doing, which takes some time and experimentation, and you develop a system that works for you. There is no "perfect" way - only the way that you find helpful.
Having said that, there are lots of good posts on the forum where people share what works for them, so there is no lack of ideas from which to choose. I try not to get sidetracked by the theoretical arguments for or against a particular approach or process, but rather just try one out and see how it works for me. In the end, you will develop a process that works for you, the way that you think, and the purposes to which you set your ZK.
I serendipitously heard a quote the other day that might apply: "Everything works out in the end. If it doesn't, it's because it hasn't come to an end yet"
(Fernando Sabino, in "O tabuleiro de damas", or "The Checkerboard", 1988; the quote is sometimes spuriously attributed to John Lennon and Oscar Wilde).
@GeoEng51 This is my motivation motto, revolution means personal transformation for me.
I'm kinda OK with the workflow part but having difficulties in choosing books to read to put it simply. Thank you for your deliberate commentary, though!
Selen. Psychology freak. https://twitter.com/neuro__flow
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
Sometimes I am reading a book or article, and write down an idea for later thought and zettel creation. Just as often, I have a thought or idea, write it down, maybe go away and research it or otherwise read about it, and then write a zettel. You can start on either side of that equation; if the latter - it's useful to have some way of capturing the thought while it's fresh (either on paper or electronically).
Wrapping my head around the book Atomic Habits:
My last book has a chapter that explains habits in 20 pages, or something like that. I approach the topic with a completely different perspective. Clear bases his habit loop on conditioning. I put much less emphasis on this and put more on freedom of will and one's belief system.
I am at page 50 during the main processing and see problems left and right. But there are good reasons this book went viral: It is way more accessible. It concerns itself with the easy and palpable approach of hedonism (pleasure and pain as main motivators) and it offers very smart visuals.
So, I'll use the book to enrich my areas on habits and exploit the book for a more accessible writing style.
My main problem now is to use what I learn to improve my generalized model (which is based on psychological entropy as the main driver of motivation) while create simple means to present it as an alternative to the hedonistic foundation. At the same time, I want to keep his model as one component of the tool kit I offer.
I am a Zettler
@Will I don't really post in these because I work on a slower time scale, so I feel that I'm too late by the time I see post. I almost think you should have a "Ideas your Grappling with this Month" and just post your weekly updates in that.
This month I've been working on book "Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil" alongside "The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science".
I've been working on a VS Code extension called Zettel View this long weekend to display the H1 headers of my markdown files in a tree view window. The extension makes obsolete my Python code to find filenames that don't match their IDs. Zettlr has better styling and good Pandoc integration, but I want to move my workflow to VS Code and decided to write extensions to make this possible. It made more sense for me to do this than resuscitating an Obsidian extension that no longer works to do the same thing. Here's a screenshot.
The code is available at https://github.com/flengyel/zettel-view. It's been a three-way collaboration between myself, ChatGPT, and Microsoft's Bing Chat. I learned how to program VS Code extensions when ChatGPT pointed me in the right direction.
For each markdown file, a TreeItem is created and calls its constructor, which opens a file stream to read the markdown file one line at a time. However, the constructor does not know whether the file stream contains a valid H1 header. The file stream has to be read asynchronously, but making an asynchronous call to a TypeScript class constructor is impossible. I used an Immediately Invoked Asynchronous Function Expression (IIAFE) to surmount this obstacle.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
I want to use my zettelkasten to three main "intellectual projects" that i have in mind. I'm about to start them, but a mix of overthinking and fear of failure are making me doubt if i should do the three at the same time:
As you can see, my multiple interests and my poor attention span, along with my perfectionism, stops me from working.
Experienced Zettlers, do you have any recommendations for me? Are they too many projects at the same time? Are they vaguely defined? Any specific recommendations on any project?
Thanks in advance, and please, forgive my english.
I sooo relate. I had to change my mindset, which wasn't easy, and narrow to only 1 focus. I told the other item, "not yet". It was hard to get started, but after a few days, I was glad I did. Even happier now. More satisfying as well. I needed to figure out what I wanted from that one focus—my end was an eBook. Then set a fixed schedule to always give myself 15 minutes of complete focus time (which always turned out longer). With having the end in mind on the topic (my passion hasn't changed in 10 years and probably never will) but I needed to place an end in mind. I found with an unnamed finished I was overthinking, wasting time with too many branches to run with. I finished the one focus (which I wasn't able to do before this) and I'm starting on my second. I'm so much happier. I know the first focus has more, but I'm finding setting it rest is evolving and clearing a picture of the end product. I started on my second and return after 10 days to edit and continue the publishing and marketing aspects. Two days into this space break, even though I started the second, my mind is still processing the first and evolving. This refinement has been better than I ever expected. I make fleeting notes and still continue to work on the second. The space break may or may not be 10 days—that was a grab from the air timeframe. My mind is still fighting me now and then, but I remember how far I've come and the urge to jump quickly goes away. I'm creating new thinking and habits along the way. I'm excited and pleased. Hope this helps you.
@F_Macías
Welcome to the forums.
Three main "intellectual projects" is not too many. I'd divide available time between the three evenly and see where interest leads. One will dominate for a time, then step into the background, letting another interest have the spotlight. For example, work on one particular interest every third day and see how that feels. Make adjustments based on how you feel. Another approach is to combine these projects. History is part of a Classical Education. The Bible can be read as a historical text. See, all these areas of intellectual interest can be combined.
Perfectionism separates the paralyzed from those who strom ahead into uncharted lands. My advice is to start and make adjustments as your knowledge grows.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. 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
@ZettelDistraction I can related to moving your workflow. I'm finding myself doing the same from Zettlr. I think it is overall a fine program. But most of what I do is already in neovim. I found it quite easy to configure (almost) everything I needed without much fuss. VSCode makes sense if that is where your main workflow is. I'm not a fan of electron apps in general but I've used both (obviously with Zettlr) but also VSCode.
I am working on a mini-project to complete my vim needs by writing a folgezettel helper. I'm not even sure I want to use fgz or not, but I am using the programming of it is an education in and of itself. I had to update my regex knowledge and now I am updating my lua knowledge. I hope to be able to soon select a fgz under the cursor and provide the next 2 or previous 2 ids from it.
I haven't attempted to use chatGPT to help though. Not quite sure how to approach that.
@dandennison84 I was joking in the section
... 
That was probably obvious. I occasionally consult ChatGPT4 for inspiration. Indeed, some Visual Studio Code extensions of two or three years in age have entered a state of retirement, notably one that crafts a Zettel graph reminiscent of Obsidian - oh, forgive me, I stand corrected. The phrase du jour is 'Personal Knowledge Graph,' courtesy of researchers with a distinctive flair for scholarship. Before my train of thought derailed, I meant to write that those seemingly retired extensions could find their way into my own, thanks to the MIT license.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
Totally missed the emojis 🤣
I'm of the same philosophy as @Will . One of the strengths of a Zettelkasten is that is allows you to work on as many ideas as you want. Your ZK can look after all the bookwork of staying organized and allow you to work on whichever project you wish, whenever you are so inspired, and then leave the project in a particular state and come back to it when you are again inspired. It frees you from the worry of forgetting what you were working on and lets you work when you are ready to do so.
This requires you to change your way of approaching your work - you don't have to know exactly what you are going to do ahead of time, nor do you need to seek for perfection from the first word, etc. I've been there and I can attest to the fact that if you try the ZK method, it will free you from all that nonsense.
You might be interested in reading a simple workflow that I posted (serendipitously, today) here:
https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2599/being-stuck-with-the-conception-of-permanent-note#latest
That workflow should help you to in your quest to free yourself of any worry or anxiety. If you don't have Keyboard Maestro, you don't have to use @Will 's macro, you can just create a zettel within The Archive and then copy/paste the framework text for your note.
@Will, @GeoEng51, thanks for your advice. Perfectionism and overthinking impede me of making the zettelkasten (or anything) work for me. I will keep trying.
@Will I will try connect ideas from the various projects, that is something that I have not thought before.
@GeoEng51 From what you said, I understood that the notes and plan, outlines and lists will appear as I am working, as an emergent thing (or at least that was what I understood, please make me know if I am wrong). I. e., I shouldn't worry about getting the correct reading list ahead, but It will rise naturally.
My Zettelkasten is a physical one, so I can't apply that Keyboard macro thing. Thanks anyway.
Perhaps. You will find that what goes on each zettel (or "atomic note") is usually quite simple and also, hopefully, simply stated. One zettel might contain two or three sentences or it might contain a list or a short outline. A typical word count seems to be about 100 to 400 words in my ZK, but I have the rare zettel that is 1000 or more words (these tend to be personal history zettels, where it just takes that many words to describe an event). However, it is the connection of zettels and the judicious use of tags that starts to provide an organic kind of organization to your ZK.
You will find as your ZK increases in size and complexity, it will also be useful to have some structure notes. You might think of these as short indexes on particular subjects that provide an entry point into strings of connected zettels on that subject. Some people like to start with structure notes and work out from them; I like to let the structure notes reveal themselves.
For an introduction to the idea of structure in your ZK, see this post by @Sascha :
https://zettelkasten.de/posts/three-layers-structure-zettelkasten/
I have no experience with a ZK that is built with paper cards. I imagine there are ways to adapt some of my previous comments on using the tags "#unfinished" and "#unconnected", to suit that kind of system, but I'd have to try it for a while to discover them. Also, you would have to take more care in writing your zettels, as you don't have the infinite ability to edit the contents of a card, as you do in an electronic file.