A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer

A Luhmann-style zettelkasten is used to store and network ideas. So, unless you have thoughts about wedding planners, the benefits of doing household chores, or how birthdays are some of the last rites of passage we have in society, these notes should remain outside the hallowed halls of the slip box. All the rest can be converted into main notes o

Go wild with your captures.

“Zettel worthy” fleeting notes must be transformed into main notes if they’re to become useful.

Balancing “In Spite of” with “In Light of” The need to “carve out time,” to “fit it in,” to “make it part of one’s routine” has made dynamic, back-and-forth communication with the slip box a rarity.

there are a variety of reasons why you may want (or need) to capture facts, definitions, and/or technical data in your zettelkasten. The trick is making this information usable and high-value. 1. Restate facts in your own words.37

Feel free to capture anything that excites you for whatever reason.

To that end, this book looks at writing as a holistic process, one that integrates aspects often considered adjacent, external, or preliminary. Inside, you will find practices related to having and capturing thoughts (chapters 1 and 2); refining thoughts into clear ideas that can be repurposed (chapter 3); connecting ideas across topics (chapters 4

Anytime a passage spoke to something he was working on, or reminded him of an idea previously recorded in his zettelkasten, Luhmann wrote down the page number of where the passage could be found, followed by a brief description of what was said or how it related to his thinking. On the back of the slip, Luhmann recorded bibliographic information.18

By contrast, reference notes are taken while you’re actively engaging with media, capturing ideas and passages as you come across them. Unlike fleeting notes, reference notes are stored in your slip box, to be used as a reference or personal index of the media you’ve consumed over the years.17