Keeping zetel notes: productive or counterproductive approach.

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 4, 2018 at 12:16 PM

Some thoughts on this subject:

I am not a professional note-taker. By that I mean that I am not a researcher or student. My daily note taking mostly consists of random bits of information that I feel I may need to recall sometime down the road. I also take notes for specific projects. These usually do not require me to examine long texts and create my own original thoughts about the content. But every now and then I do have to do that and I’ve found that creating a Tinderbox document like the one Beck demonstrate’s in her video (though not nearly as chock-a-block full of information) helps me to understand the information better. I suspect that this is the major benefit of the Zettelkasten system. It is not just that you have a note-network you can refer to in the future, but the process of setting up that system and using it has facilitated a deeper understanding of the material. The fact that it takes a lot of work to build and grow a system like Beck’s is irrelevant in my opinion, because it is part of the learning process, and not just a mechanical exercise in filing notes away.

I think it is worth noting that Beck’s Zettel-Tinderbox system is for a specific purpose: recording and understanding the material for her research project. It is not a system she has built for all her notes on every topic she may study. (At least that’s not the impression I got from the videos.) An effective system for working in one project may not be optimal for another.

Of course the flexibility to make new note systems is one of the benefits of Tinderbox.

Steve Z.