Keeping zetel notes: productive or counterproductive approach.

Posted by Dellu
Dec 3, 2018 at 12:22 PM

This is an extension from the discussion in https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/8482/0/zettelkasten-tinderbox-for-literature-review.

I am putting this as a separate discussion because I am afraid the ideas on the zetel notes will be buried.

I recent years, there is a lot of discussion on the value of zetel notes. There have been a lot of blog posts on zetel (slip box) notes. There is also a book mentioned in Beck’s video that argues for zetel notes.

I recently skimmed through the book (you can read my annotations here by the way, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m06Jjruv5kC-1gjG47D0241DRC1dyvtf67xs3VW1XE8/edit?usp=sharing).

Here are my main takes on what are zetel notes, and how they differ from other types of notes (would like to hear if I misunderstood the idea).

>Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one, which contained the references and brief notes on the content of the literature, and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas, mainly in response to what he read. The notes were written on index cards and stored in wooden boxes.
- the bibliography note: this is a reading note, or a comment on the reading material.
- the slip box proper (zettel proper): reader’s reflection on the reading.

In the video linked above, Beck attempts to show to use Tinderbox for managing zettels (slip boxes).

- zettels are supposed to be permanent notes
- they are different from regular reading notes because they are supposed to function outside the context of the reading material (book or article). Zettels stand by themselves. You can link them. But, they are independent ideas that don’t necessarily rely on the chains of arguments presented in the reading material.
- they are short; and each of them are supposed to contain just “one idea”.
- they are independent of a specific project. A zettel can be an input to a project. But, using a zettel in a specific project doesn’t lead to the removal or archival of the zettel (in contrast to project notes). I personally find the distinction between zettels and project notes very difficult.
- We can write zettels after we finish reading the book or the article.
- the gist or abstract of the article can be one of the zettel notes (literature review).

I find the idea of zettel interesting. I am also very worried that it can be a productivity killer because collecting zettels might take a huge part of our research (reading). I do my reading with a specific purpose in mind. A specific project is often the purpose. If I remove that purpose from my mind, I will be engulfed for every by every book I picked up because there are many interesting ideas that I can collect, and think about forever.
I want to write a paper on XXX, I read articles and books that are relevant to XXX. Now, zettel notes are not part of the project. Every attractive idea becomes a zettel. This is dangerous because most materials are full of interesting ideas: and barely anything that cannot be useful for our future selves. We will end up collecting everything on any reading material. This is counter projective because we will be collecting notes that we don’t have a specific function in mind because they might be useful in the future. I am afraid I will be just a junk of thousands of notes with little actual output.
The idea of keeping an interesting idea of ours is great. But, my experience is that what I thought a great idea at some point sounds trivial after some time. MY ideas evolve so fast that I am not sure if I need to permanently record them.

Note that, I am full advocate of “thinking on paper”, or a scratchpad, or a reading note. But, zettels are different because they are supposed to be permanent, a single idea, and linked be independent of the reading material or a project.

Another question is how are zettels better than any good database of pdf articles and books, (ideally with semantic search)?

- I have also a feeling that a modern advanced searching algorism (with a good database of pdf books and articles) can really replace most of what zettels are supposed to do.

What do you guys think?
Do you think zetels would make us more projective?