Comments

• Eurobubba

  April 2020

  @Sascha said:
  This. Folgezettel are a mean to rob meaning from hierarchy (so it does not matter where you put Zettel).

  I'll say I do sometimes find it useful to capture how a train of thought originally unfolded (i.e. not necessarily strictly sequentially), even if some of the underlying connections are still obscure in the moment. But if and when I do want to work in that mode, I can use an ad hoc meta-note (I'll avoid the term 'structure zettel' because I'm not sure you don't have some aspects in mind when you use that term that I might not be seeing) without having to make it a fundamental organizing principle of my box as a whole.
• Eurobubba

  April 2020

  @Taylor said:
  Luhmann-IDs force you to review your zettels each time you add a new note. And not just skimming a list of notes with a relevant tag, or skimming the titles of notes in a structure note, but actually reading your zettels and following their links searching for the most appropriate place to put the new note.

  Doesn't that just take you back to the habit of sorting ideas into a (maybe slightly looser version of a) preconceived hierarchy of categories that the Zettelkasten was designed to avoid in the first place?
• cobblepot

  April 2020

  @Eurobubba said:
  Doesn't that just take you back to the habit of sorting ideas into a (maybe slightly looser version of a) preconceived hierarchy of categories that the Zettelkasten was designed to avoid in the first place?

  The conclusion I am moving towards is that all of the systems have weaknesses and the complicated question to answer is how to balance them. Hierarchies are cognitively limiting, so we can't have 100% hierarchy. Loose networks do not capture logical structure, so we cannot have 100% loose network links.

  What Luhmann's ZK does is allow or encourage hierarchy (depending on implementation) but balance its rigidity with direct links. What @Sascha's ZK does is allow or encourage loose networks but balance its loose structure with hierarchical structure notes.

  We cannot _completely _avoid sorting ideas into preconceived hierarchies of categories. Language and our structure of thought requires that. We cannot learn anything new without connecting the new information to existing "preconceived" knowledge. It is a matter of balancing the advantages of preconceived categories with techniques that overcome their disadvantages.
• Sascha

  April 2020

  @cobblepot, change "hierarchy" with pattern and we 100% agree. (There are more patterns than hierarchies. I call each type of pattern a structure. A Structure Zettel is aims to deal with a structure as one thought in adherence to the principle of atomicity)

  I am a Zettler
• andang76

  May 2024 edited May 2024

  Before reading the entire topic, I try to say my opinion about the use of Folgezettel.
  I state that I don't use it, so I don't have a real practice about. I've studied something about, and I got the idea that the method could have these potential benefits:

  • It's a method that introduces a relevant quantity of friction in our system. We tend to consider friction negative, but friction can have a positive impact in our process, if correctly framed. In a slower process, during the pause when I have to decide where to put the note, I need to think to the note itself and a bunch to other candidate notes, which are compared together during the process. The comparing/put notes close together in my mind, for my experience, is one of the most effective process that brings to me to develop new ideas
  • It's a method that, as the time passes, creates clusters of notes according to a underlying logic. Beeing build by a not casual force, overviewing over these bunch of notes can emerge new ideas thanks to serendipity
  • Folgezettel for me has surely a gamification/engaging effect. Who use it believe in its power, find the challenges that poses stimulating, building a good system with this "difficoult" construction is rewarding
  • It has a training effect for our minds, beeing a heavy and frictioning method. I strongly think that the positive effect of good knowledge methods is not only produce "good notes", but also train ourself to use our mind better, regardless the notes. I think that the work for making my zettelkasten has upgraded my mind with effects that remain even if I completely lose all the notes I've made.
  • Folgezettel leads to slowing down, reduce the quantity of content to put into our system, so helps to reduce the problem of collector's fallacy.

  I think these are potential benefits of Folgezettel I could have, if I used it.

  But, as stated before, I don't use.
  Because Folgezettel has relevant drawbacks for my attitudes.
  And I think that other methods can produce similar benefits and are closer to my attitudes.
  In my process of learning Folgezettel, I've tried to identify these benefits, and for each of them I've tried to find other ways to obtain them.
  I think I've succeeded (I obtain serendipity, good friction, slowness, and so on from other things), so I gave up, beeing uncomfortable for my attitudes, to use not only Folgezettel, but every kind of similar coding in the title of notes.

  I'm still convinced that folgezettel could fit the purpose for others. If doesn't work for me, it does not mean that it can't for others, with different attitudes.
  Learning about Folgezettel It hasn't been a useless work only because I don't use. This learning helps me to improve my method.
  Even this last point (how to learn from things you don't use) it has been a lesson learned

  Now I read your opinions :-)

  Post edited by andang76 on May 2024