The current manuscript has 81,300 words (good news: Already 2000 words removed).
I think it is realistic that I can on average edit 2000 words per day. That means 12000 words per week. So, the first round of editing should be done in 7 weeks.
Today, I am starting an obedient Grammarly round: I go through the manuscript and firstly correct all the mistakes that Grammarly is able to find.
Then I'll go through the manuscript and go into a more detailed edit.
I have the feeling that I got editing-specific attention deficit. After roughly 90 minutes, I feel my energy is plummeting steeply, and I become more easily to distract. When I read papers or work in my Zettelkasten, my limit is roughly 6–8 hours until I notice the first dip in energy.
If I am externally engaged, like during chopping wood, my mind seems to just accept its fate and the only thing that breaks down is my body. With computer gaming, back when I had time to play them, my limit was roughly 40–48 hours without stimulation.
If I wouldn't be a father, I'd seriously contemplate on just spending a couple of weeks on drugs, if I edit a longer text like a book.
Love the updates on the book. And I wanted to add some hype and gratitude for your work, @Sascha. It's been a while since I've posted, and I just wanted to share evidence of the success of this method. Writing is slow and these things take time to develop and follow through on so we don't often get to see the fruits of the zettelkasten method.
I started learning to use this method from this forum around 2016 and over that time I have successfully defended a dissertation. I have a book coming out with Bloomsbury that you can find here (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/early-christian-and-grecoroman-conceptions-of-blood-difference-9781978771901/). I've published a few academic articles and book reviews. I've used my zettelkasten to teach classes at the university level in: religious studies, early Christianity, and New Testament. And I have used it to teach classes at the high school level in: world history, geography, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and etymology.
Lastly I have used it to publish a book of poetry with a childhood friend (both under pseudonyms-- it was purely for fun!);
and I'm working on two more projects: an emerging liteary project in epistolary fiction and sci-fi-ish novel (again all for the fun of it).
I don't mean this as self promotion which is why I am only offering one link just as proof of concept, but I just wanted to thank this community for the lessons, the discussion, and the long haul. The methods that @Sascha and @ctietze are putting out there do, in fact, work. And I think we couldn't ask for better guides and companions than @Will, @chrisaldrich and @GeoEng51. Shout out to @DanAllosso and @taurusnoises if they're still around. Both have written some absolute bangers that have inspired me on this long journey.
Yes, you can get caught up in procrastinating (like with any writing method) and you can spend a lot of time sussing and faffing with notes BUT because those notes are externalizations of your thought I think this is still part of the thinking-writing process, even if it does not feel very productive. I have a lot of the more recent backlash-to-zettelkasten discourse in mind when I say that (the "I deleted my whole second brain" people). Thinking and writing is hard. The better at it you get, the harder it should get. Often times old metrics productivity will not be a good measure of your progress with the method because a lot might be going on under the hood that you just have not developed the sense or the metrics for yet.
Sorry for the long message. That is all. Appreciate you all.
@pseudoevagrius very cool, thank you for posting. Have you written a sort of post mortem on what had changed in your process or thinking that led to the method working well for you? And where you see other people get caught up compared to yourself?
I may do this at some point because I find it fun to meta-reflect on the method. My method of many iterations looks very different from general practice but I think in principle it’s functioning in the same way, and that’s why I want to emphasize the principles already championed in this forum. Zettelkasten development is circular (or spiral) in that sense. What I would say is as long as you stick with the text format, don’t be afraid to try different ideas or methods or organization principles. Go nuts. Because it’s all still information that you can come back to even if you find that method doesn’t work well for you after some time. Just never go scorched earth. Don’t delete all or reset. Stay in the Zettelkasten and always move forward. Another heuristic I have liked is that the stranger a method is that I can come up with (i.e. the less generally applicable it is to others) the more likely it will be suited to my particular needs given my field, my discipline, time constraints, and the particular grooves in my particular brain. Also sometimes you have to try something wrong or absurd to come around to understanding why not to do it. Learn by doing. An example of an unorthodox method that I use is Folgezettel. I use these heavily but what they currently amount to is a more manual and more global way of constructing structure notes. If I was teaching it I would just say use structure notes becuase they are easier and more flexible, but my use of folgezettel emerged out of a particular need for a particular time. And I don’t lose anything by switching between these methods in different seasons and for different projects.
@pseudoevagrius That's a nice surprise! I am very happy for your success.
What I would say is as long as you stick with the text format, don’t be afraid to try different ideas or methods or organization principles. Go nuts. Because it’s all still information that you can come back to even if you find that method doesn’t work well for you after some time. Just never go scorched earth. Don’t delete all or reset. Stay in the Zettelkasten and always move forward.
This is pretty much how I did it. I did migrate a lot from software to software. *.txt made it much easier. But once I started, I never went back. I think I still have files in my ZK-folder that are formatted with the ZIM-Wiki frontmatter. No issue at all.
I think this is another general principle that also applies to the ZKM: As long as you don't completely reset, you will be fine with many evolutions.
Searched the complete manuscript for instances of "obviously" and "clearly". Inspired by me listening to the Moral Landscape by Sam Harris a couple of times. Harris has put out the challenge to challenge the position(s) of this book, since he claims he never encountered a reasonable objection to his positions. I think I have, but no time to write the text with necessary care. Clickbait: I think this book is the most complicated, most useless machine ever.
Both words are indicators of bad reasoning. Therefore, I made sure to double-check.
Comments
Today, is the start of the proof-reading phase. Way a head of my secret timeline.
I am a Zettler
The current manuscript has 81,300 words (good news: Already 2000 words removed).
I think it is realistic that I can on average edit 2000 words per day. That means 12000 words per week. So, the first round of editing should be done in 7 weeks.
Today, I am starting an obedient Grammarly round: I go through the manuscript and firstly correct all the mistakes that Grammarly is able to find.
Then I'll go through the manuscript and go into a more detailed edit.
I have the feeling that I got editing-specific attention deficit. After roughly 90 minutes, I feel my energy is plummeting steeply, and I become more easily to distract. When I read papers or work in my Zettelkasten, my limit is roughly 6–8 hours until I notice the first dip in energy.
If I am externally engaged, like during chopping wood, my mind seems to just accept its fate and the only thing that breaks down is my body. With computer gaming, back when I had time to play them, my limit was roughly 40–48 hours without stimulation.
If I wouldn't be a father, I'd seriously contemplate on just spending a couple of weeks on drugs, if I edit a longer text like a book.
I am a Zettler
Love the updates on the book. And I wanted to add some hype and gratitude for your work, @Sascha. It's been a while since I've posted, and I just wanted to share evidence of the success of this method. Writing is slow and these things take time to develop and follow through on so we don't often get to see the fruits of the zettelkasten method.
I started learning to use this method from this forum around 2016 and over that time I have successfully defended a dissertation. I have a book coming out with Bloomsbury that you can find here (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/early-christian-and-grecoroman-conceptions-of-blood-difference-9781978771901/). I've published a few academic articles and book reviews. I've used my zettelkasten to teach classes at the university level in: religious studies, early Christianity, and New Testament. And I have used it to teach classes at the high school level in: world history, geography, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and etymology.
Lastly I have used it to publish a book of poetry with a childhood friend (both under pseudonyms-- it was purely for fun!);
and I'm working on two more projects: an emerging liteary project in epistolary fiction and sci-fi-ish novel (again all for the fun of it).
I don't mean this as self promotion which is why I am only offering one link just as proof of concept, but I just wanted to thank this community for the lessons, the discussion, and the long haul. The methods that @Sascha and @ctietze are putting out there do, in fact, work. And I think we couldn't ask for better guides and companions than @Will, @chrisaldrich and @GeoEng51. Shout out to @DanAllosso and @taurusnoises if they're still around. Both have written some absolute bangers that have inspired me on this long journey.
Yes, you can get caught up in procrastinating (like with any writing method) and you can spend a lot of time sussing and faffing with notes BUT because those notes are externalizations of your thought I think this is still part of the thinking-writing process, even if it does not feel very productive. I have a lot of the more recent backlash-to-zettelkasten discourse in mind when I say that (the "I deleted my whole second brain" people). Thinking and writing is hard. The better at it you get, the harder it should get. Often times old metrics productivity will not be a good measure of your progress with the method because a lot might be going on under the hood that you just have not developed the sense or the metrics for yet.
Sorry for the long message. That is all. Appreciate you all.
@pseudoevagrius very cool, thank you for posting. Have you written a sort of post mortem on what had changed in your process or thinking that led to the method working well for you? And where you see other people get caught up compared to yourself?
I may do this at some point because I find it fun to meta-reflect on the method. My method of many iterations looks very different from general practice but I think in principle it’s functioning in the same way, and that’s why I want to emphasize the principles already championed in this forum. Zettelkasten development is circular (or spiral) in that sense. What I would say is as long as you stick with the text format, don’t be afraid to try different ideas or methods or organization principles. Go nuts. Because it’s all still information that you can come back to even if you find that method doesn’t work well for you after some time. Just never go scorched earth. Don’t delete all or reset. Stay in the Zettelkasten and always move forward. Another heuristic I have liked is that the stranger a method is that I can come up with (i.e. the less generally applicable it is to others) the more likely it will be suited to my particular needs given my field, my discipline, time constraints, and the particular grooves in my particular brain. Also sometimes you have to try something wrong or absurd to come around to understanding why not to do it. Learn by doing. An example of an unorthodox method that I use is Folgezettel. I use these heavily but what they currently amount to is a more manual and more global way of constructing structure notes. If I was teaching it I would just say use structure notes becuase they are easier and more flexible, but my use of folgezettel emerged out of a particular need for a particular time. And I don’t lose anything by switching between these methods in different seasons and for different projects.
@pseudoevagrius That's a nice surprise! I am very happy for your success.
This is pretty much how I did it. I did migrate a lot from software to software. *.txt made it much easier. But once I started, I never went back. I think I still have files in my ZK-folder that are formatted with the ZIM-Wiki frontmatter.
No issue at all.
I think this is another general principle that also applies to the ZKM: As long as you don't completely reset, you will be fine with many evolutions.
I am a Zettler
I am on track: Roughly 8000 words are proof-read. However: By me...
I am a Zettler
Searched the complete manuscript for instances of "obviously" and "clearly". Inspired by me listening to the Moral Landscape by Sam Harris a couple of times. Harris has put out the challenge to challenge the position(s) of this book, since he claims he never encountered a reasonable objection to his positions. I think I have, but no time to write the text with necessary care. Clickbait: I think this book is the most complicated, most useless machine ever.
Both words are indicators of bad reasoning. Therefore, I made sure to double-check.
I am a Zettler