Notes should express only one concept. This makes them modular, so that you can cluster notes together like Legos to create complete thoughts. This should help make links between notes more coherent. SOURCE Andy Matuschack Evergreen notes should be atomic SEE ALSO Evergreen Notes Are Notes that Are Alive
The process of picking a topic and finding supporting research is a trap. At the best you engage in a high degree of confirmation bias, seeing only the information that supports your premise. I remember in college many times writing a paper only to find near the end that the research was pointing in a…
Niklas Luhmann observes that in order to think in any constructive way he must write down his thoughts. This seems to be one of the main purposes of his Zettelkasten note-taking system – capturing thoughts and refine them by writing them down, reflecting on them, changing them. In addition to capturing thoughts in his notes,…
When you first start on a writing project you don’t know what the structure of your project will be. As you do research, collect ideas, and clarify your thoughts, the structure will emerge. Using a tool like Tinderbox lets you test your ideas and see what kind of structure provides the best fit for your…
The Cornell notetaking system uses a college-ruled notebook with each page divided into thirds. These sections are for points that the lecturer makes, questions about these points, and a final summary of everything on the page. Ideas are captured in the largest section of the page, each idea getting a couple of lines with ample…
Photo by Pete Birkinshaw from Manchester, UK – Data Storage Device, CC BY 2.0, Link I stumbled across the zettelkasten note taking process while watching Beck Tench’s helpful Tinderbox series. Beck uses Tinderbox software to create a hyper-organized system of notes for her Ph.D. studies in contemplative practice and information science. Her method of managing these…
