what is the zettelkasten technique and what i have taken from it
A zettelkasten is personal knowledge management (PKM) system that centers itself around the idea of connecting ideas, and creating new ideas from them. This requires that ideas stay as small as possible. Zettels, or notes in a ZK are often referred to as "atomic" for being as granular as possible.
What I like
I think a zettelkasten is really appealing to software engineers because it feels like a super optimized system with infinite scalability. This is what initially intrigued me, at least.
What I really like about the zettelkasten is that it gives notes an actual usage. With notes like "Lagrangian Mechanics Unit 1 Chapter 2", there's no actual use for them. Everything in that note has already been said (better) in a textbook or by a professor. In a ZK, notes like "what is the lagrangian and why is it useful" are inherently more useful when developing further writings. For example, if I'm making a blog on why Lagrangian mechanics are useful in game development, instead of redefining what a lagrangian is, I can just link to that little note.
This is probably not as useful when writing isolated works like a novel or textbook, since you'd have to rewrite the definitions and interpretations anyways.
What I don't like
A "pure" zk seems really, really rigid. When I was really into it, I spent so much time googling stuff like "is x a fleeting note?" or "where should i put x and how should i link it?". There was significant mental overhead in this approach. I've learned that any overhead at all when writing notes causes me to just not write notes.
What I do
I have a personal notes directory, of which this blog is a part of. It's a bit sectioned off though, since these blog posts cannot intersect with outside notes that are not visible to the public eye.
My Public Blog
My public blog (what you're reading right now) is a flat directory of markdown files. There is absolutely no hierarchy, nor will there ever be (I love absolutes). This means that full-fledged blog posts like this sit right next to little blurbs and jots. This can make things seem a bit messy, but all I have to do is clarify that this system is actually really cool and people will believe me, right?
My Private Notes
I have a couple directories, but I try to keep it minimal:
- lit-notes = lectures, book notes, video notes, etc.
- exports = anything I want to "publish" or show to other people (this is in exports/blog)
- ./ = all my atomic notes and structure notes
- structure notes are sort of like "hubs" for different topics/categories. This allows for categorization without the hard lines made with a rigid folder hierarchy.