Table of contents

  • Introduction
  • What I value in a system
  • Previous systems
  • Current system
  • The future of my system
  • Conclusion

Introduction

It is no secret that I spend a lot of time thinking. I love learning new things and generating unique insights. Knowing that my brain simply cannot hold all the knowledge I acquire, I startled investing time into my note-taking system about 3 years ago. My journey started - like many - with the use of physical exercise books that are the standard in most - if not all - schools. I found that by the end of the year I would have a beautifully used and loved book that held little nuggets of gold buried deep within pages and pages of dirt. That dirt being the "Daily exercises" and "Memorise this information" that so many teachers like to use to re-enforce knowledge. By the end of the year I would have a beaten book that acts as proof that I accomplished something. Then I would throw the book away once the nostalgia wore off. Then once I got to university, I switched to using Microsoft's OneNote. Which worked well for bit, until I realised that I had the same problem, except now it's in digital format. Which then lead me to learning about Obsidian and the Zettelkasten system.

I won't harp on about Obsidian being the end-all-be-all note-taking program, but I will say that over the years I have been very pleased with everything it offers. I am personally a tool-agnostic person and so I have been looking to outsource the features Obsidian offers with my own implementations, but that's for an entirely differently article that I hope to write at a later date. Getting back to the point, I started using Obsidian half-way through my time at university and found it to be extremely exciting and useful. Until I realised that I was doing the same thing with Obsidian that I was doing with my physical notebooks, only having slightly less dirt. I was collecting information that would sit and wait for a vault hunter before it would be used again by someone. This had to stop.

That was when I discovered the Zettelkasten system and thought I understood it. Fleeting notes, literature notes, permanent notes, easy peasy. I created notes, linked them, tagged them, forgot about them, renamed them, restructured them, tagged them again, renamed them again, forgot about them. That was once again the problem, but now with new problems thrown into the mix. Turns out, I did not understand the Zettelkasten system, I just used some of its features thinking it would make me more productive and give me a cooler looking network of notes.

Now I am finally trying to change my mindset when it comes to note-taking so that I have useful and living notes that help me learn and grow.

What I value in a system

I started by considering what I valued in my note-taking system and how that would look in a completely new system. Before I tell what those things were, I wanted to outline the "guiding philosophy" that I found online that helped inform my decisions. The "guiding philosophy" (link unavailable because I don't remember where I found the information) is as follows:

  1. Write all the time
  2. Anything can become knowledge
  3. Notes are complete, irreducible thoughts
  4. Knowledge is inter-connected

These guiding principles have helped form what I believe is important. The first principle has seen me using my pocket notebooks to record thoughts, ideas, information down when i'm out and about. The second principle ensures that I take those thoughts and add them into my system when I have the time because it may be important down the line. The third has caused me to start breaking down large notes in my system to be easily digestible at a glance and easily traversable should I need more information. The last principle is the reason that I ensure my notes are connected somewhere every time I create a note, and is the reason I can explore ideas easier.

Now, for the things I deem valuable in my system. They are:

  1. Low overhead when creating and organising notes
  2. Similar notes in close proximity so that I can explore similar or contrasting ideas right away
  3. Link without backlinking, meaning that when I link to A from B I don't worry about linking to B from A
  4. Ideas should be separated by notes, and each idea should have it's own note

These requirements have been shaping my new structure for my note-taking system and hopefully are enough to ensure that my notes become useful and living rather than just collections of information, because being knowledgeable is not the same as owning lots of books.

Previous systems

My previous systems have all left behind small fragments that I am still sorting through. I have note files that contain spaces and capital letters in the filename, before I decided to impose a lowercase and hyphen only system. Those notes suggest that the are from a pre-historic time in my note-taking journey. Then there are some notes that do have the lowercase and hyphen only rule applied but still have tags regarding progress of the note, and todo tags, and fleeting/literature note tags. All of which have been banned in my new note-taking empire two versions ago because todo tags piled up and were never done, then became irrelevant, causing the note to have broken bits of information that renders it incomplete. Then there are maps of content notes that are also half complete - or empty entirely - that are linked at the top of the page. There are notes for specific classes I took in university rather than notes on the information I learned. As you can probably see, my notes have become a mixture of old and new conventions I have implemented over the last 3 years. Without proper structure, those old notes have become useless and discarded by me.

Current system

My current system will have more structure and over time will creating a large net of information that is usable and accessed rather than having a cemetery for ideas. My current system has a few components that I believe are important to talk about so that you can get a better idea of how I interact with my notes. These components are:

  • Zettel
  • Index note
  • Lecture note
  • Register note
  • Bibliography note
  • Daily note

A Zettel is simply a single thought or idea expressed in a note. A Zettel has minimum structure so that less time is wasted worrying about formatting. A Zettel note will have an ID number for the filename which helps ensure no duplicates and no need to worry about making an appropriate title. The Zettel only contains: meta-data regarding date of creation, a title, body text (usually bullet points) and references at the bottom. There will often be other notes referenced in a Zettel where they two notes may share a connection somehow. I don't need to worry about formatting every time because it's simple and I have a template loaded that I can use on command.

The Index note is my interpretation of a structure note commonly known in the Zettelkasten community. The index note is a singular note that has an overview of the broad categories I may wish to create notes about. It enables me to traverse through all my notes as all notes I create are connected to the index note in varying degrees of separation. This note has allowed me to get rid of a strict folder hierarchy and thus being able to change the structure at any time with easy because the connections are simply typed into a note. The index note is adaptable and I have been adding new categories whenever I have a new requirement, or more a category within another.

A Lecture note is similar to what is commonly known as a source note. It is a note that I simply use to jot down thoughts and ideas while consuming content. Once I finish consuming the content I will go through each idea and create a note for each idea individually and link back to the lecture note. I am still working this note out as I have not tried it out on information dense content.

A Register note is similar to the index note as they share the same purpose of listing other notes in a particular topic but they have ID numbers for filenames like the Zettels do. Register notes are what the index note links to, and each register note can continue to link to another register note. Think of this note as the splitting point on a tree graph, and think of the Zettels as leaf nodes. These notes should act like an entry point into a topic, from which you can explore and traverse.

Bibliography notes are similar to lecture notes, except I use them exclusively for books that I read, and currently videos I watch on YouTube. They are practically the same thing as lecture notes but I have not figured out yet how I am going to keep references and lecture content. I have had some ideas regarding reference managers and the likes but have not had a need yet as I do not write academic articles.

Daily notes are what set the agenda for the day, as well as the tasks to complete for the day. I have also messed around with using a time tracker, or as Ryder calls it: a "daily log". However neither of those are where I was inspired to start this practice. I started time tracker after seeing my friend Ali using an e-ink tablet to record the time and what he was doing at that time. This inspired me to try it and I found it to be really helpful with keep me accountable for the time that I am spend on and off track from my current task. Anyway, daily notes are what set up the plans for the day. I don't often achieve everything on the list, and I don't use the notes to reflect so there is still room for improvement in my system regarding daily notes.

The future of my system

For the future of my system I was hoping to step away from Obsidian. I want to be tool-independent, meaning I could use any text editing tool to work on my notes. I wish to be able to use any text editor, paired with my own house-made Python-based tools to complete functions that are otherwise built into Obsidian.

To get to my end-goal of being tool-independent, I will need to ensure that all of my notes have been converted to my new system. That way when I write scripts to interact with notes, there are clear rules set in place. This includes - but is not limited to - the following things:

  • Filenames all need to follow the ID format
  • Links all need to follow the same format (square brackets, filename only)
  • File contents need to follow the same structure

Once I have completed the big task of retroactively formatting my notes correctly, I can start making progress on writing my own tools as I already have many ideas for custom scripts that I plan to add to my notes. The current ideas I have for functions that I will add into my custom system are:

  • Have a physical backup script that will create printable files for all the notes
  • Have a guided script to help index files more efficiently (especially once the system grows)
  • Have a script to mirror all the notes into another language using DeepL
  • Have custom indexing scripts:
    • Using bag of words to find similar notes
    • Find notes as unrelated as possible
    • Random index
    • Find all the question notes
    • Have a breadth-first-search with a depth limit compile an index

I have many ideas but am a little held back by the inconsistent note structures. However once I get through reformatting all the notes, I will start putting together my own tools to replace Obsidian.

Conclusion

TL;DR: I like learning and need a more efficient way to take and use notes. Found Obsidian and the Zettelkasten system, and now I want to make my own so I'm not at the mercy of Obsidian and because I find note-taking and sorting really fun.

My new note-taking system