How genius are made: Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten and how to be creative and productive in thinking
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- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2024
- Learn how to be creative and productive in thinking using a method of small steps. How genius think can be developed using genius behaviour. Niklas Luhmann transformed sociology. To achieve this he came up with a brilliant way of structured note taking and processing notes called the zettelkasten. This method made it possible for him to forego brilliant level of insights and instead develop his ideas one tiny step at a time. You can learn to utilise the power of developing ideas in tiny steps as well. By thinking often and deeply about your topic, you can be both ingenious and productive. And it's by behaviour how genius are made.
More on the zettelkasten method: zettelkasten.de/
Luhmann's zettelkasten online (in German): niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/best...
Audio and Image Credits
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African drums - www.twinmusicom.org/
Portrait of Luhmann by Sonntag - commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Zettelkasten cross-reference schematic by David B. Clear - commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Luhmann's physical zettelkasten by Uni Bielefeld - / luhmanns-zettelkasten-...
All zettel examples taken from the online version of Luhmann's zettelkasten - niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/best...
What method do you use to keep track of your ideas?
roam
mind maps
Evernote and a Word doc! Neither is the most efficient method for tracking ideas, however. For Zettlekasten I have tried just Zettlr so far. I am going to try Roam or Obsidian next.
@@edrow7403 Try RemNote too
@@edrow7403 Roam is the best, but unfortunately not free. Obsidian seems to be the best alternative, but roam is amazing
I've Purchased 2 books, watched countless videos on youtube, and your video is, by far, the best on the topic . Keep Up. Subscribed.
Thanks, man! Great that it's useful.
This is one of the most fantastic videos I've ever seen and it is revolutionizing the way I take notes. I always liked school but I hated taking notes, but hearing this method has made learning fun again. I'm really excited, thank you for this.
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent review. Thank you. You have really explained Luhmann's method. It is not just an analogue knowledge base, but also a process of knowledge creation.
Yes, people often focus too much on superficial aspects. I tried to get to the essentials. Great that you like it!
I'm watching this again. Thanks for the video mate!
Glad it's so useful
This is great! Very well spoken and thought out video. Plus great content, a lot of people talk about Zettelkasten, but almost no one goes more in-depth or even talk about luhmann himself. You did both!
Thanks, mate! I'm trying to get to the essentials, because I think it make things easier to understand and is better if you want to implement it yourself. Great that you think I did a good job!
BTW, do you know zettelkasten.de? It's a blog about the zettelkasten that goes into much more detail than I can do in a 10min video. You might enjoy it.
Great explaination of the constructs and methodology. Thank you!
That is such a nice summary of the system. I really liked that, especially the 'genius' note near the end.
Thanks, man! I know, right? To many people have an unrealistic idea of how a genius operates, but if you look closely, you see that most of them built their ideas in tiny steps over a long period of time.
Thank you, sincerely, for making this video and breaking down Luhmann’s method. The additional context was quite helpful. Cheers!
Awesome that you find it useful! I also usually like to get more context.
Learning the Zettelkasten of Niklas Luhmann from young Niklas Luhmann? That's incredible.
lol... My grandfather looked even more like Luhmann then I do.
You’ve explained the Zettelkasten system better than most of the other people on RUclips, both the note management system itself and how Niklas Luhmann’s used it in his daily routine.
Wonderful that it's useful! Let me know how you're getting on.
@@bf-thinking I’ve been using Obsidian software for storing notes, questions and ideas for my Zettelkasten system and using links to find associations between thoughts and ideas
Congrats, and thank you so much! This is, by far, the best video that I've seen about the ZK. I came here to watch this first, as you recommended in your ZK setup. Thank you again. Gonna watch more of your videos.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This was a really thoughtful overview of Luhmann's method. Great work!
Wonderful that you like it.
Great video. Thanks.
Thanks for the added clarity on this
Glad it was helpful!
One of the best explanations of the Zettelkasten I've seen yet. Thank you!
Great that you like it! You might also be interested in watching how I implement the system for myself: ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
Well done. Thanks for the explanation 😊
Omg… this is so awesome! Most videos would cover only the surface but you go into what Luman actually did in detail. Thanks so much!
I know, it's so annoying that people rehash the same basic things over and over again. Glad that you found the extra detail useful.
What I realy like about your channel ist the combination of Birkenbihl- Methods and zettelkasten -two of my special interests as well. Currently I play around with two thoughts: ABC´s as a functional equivalent of Luhmann´s Literature-Notes, and: VFB - Methods in general as a stepping stone for creating main-notes in the ZK. I´d love to hear more of your thoughts regarding that topic, and I hope this channel keeps on going; it´s a treasure. All the best!
@@peterdragon2822 You'll be interested in this video, where I show how I go from ABC-active to zettels: ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.htmlsi=p88_hdhiunjDKYmJ
@peterdragon2822 Great, that you like my content so much.
I wouldn't say my channel is a combination of Birkenbihl and zettelkasten as much as it's about thinking tools (of which Birkenbihl has collected and invented many). The right tool depends on what you want to do. Zettelkasten can be great to grow a train of thought over time (with many (sub-)branches and the occasional link between branches). It wouldn't be the right tool to, say, solve problems.
Also, don't get too hung up on the whole literature vs. main note thing. That seems to be a distinction Sönke Ahren introduced. While Luhmann did often write quick notes on a zettel while reading, it seems he never developed that into a real system of his zettelkasten. He would sometimes do it but not other times. The important thing is that you read actively (or listen actively). ABC-active or CaWa-active can be a great tool for that. Depending on what it is you're engaging with, tools like CaGas, grouping, ranking or solving examples/exercises yourself might be a better option or a necessary extension to really understand what you're reading.
A brilliant presentation on Luhmann's technique. I am working on a presentation on building a second brain and I came across Luhmann's Zettelkasten methodology in my readings and I was bowled over. Thank you for this exposition.
Good luck with your presentation!
Thank you so much for your explanation 😊 Keep up your good work 👏
Moin, I like how you even look the same as Luhmann. I subscribed and liked!
Just seeing this video now and I absolutely love it, I've been trying to find a way to organize my thoughts because I have SO MANY flying papers filled with thoughts and ideas in so many notebooks, drawers or even in my phone. I think I just found what might be a good solution for me. Thank you so much my friend ! Greetings from Brussels, I hope you're doing well !
Wonderful that you find it useful! I just recently released a video where I show some of what I'm doing in more detail. Maybe that's also interesting: ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
This is very helpful! I am new to the ZK method as of earlier this year. Your vid has helped to fill in some of the gaps in my understanding and implementation of the methodology.
Great to hear! I just uploaded another video showing my own setup. Maybe you'll also find this useful. ruclips.net/video/sSM0CZZEDYQ/видео.html
Thank you for this very clearly presented video. I am new to Zettelkasten and your video has such a good pace in your speech,clarity of voice, and is without the clutter of many videos I have watched. Thank you for keeping it simple as Luhrmann would have intended his system to be. I have also subscribed. Thank you from New Zealand.
Great that you like it! If you don't know it already, you might also be interested in this video how I show how I adapted the system for myself:
ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
This video was so helpful to me and filled in gaps about implementing the ZK method that I have not seen before. Great job. Thanks very much.
Great to hear! I'll be publishing another video on the zettelkasten soon showing my setup.
I watched this video one year ago, but i did misunderstood the point. I was too "busy" with the tools (analog vs digital, which software i should use, etc). Now, after I'd done so many mistakes, I think it is more clearer to me about how the zettelkasten works. To simply put, zettelkasten is a method of how to make notes, store them, review the notes, organize them, and make way how to retrieve specific topic easily (from a bunch of notes). Analog or Digital zettelkasten are not important, because we should work with ideas instead of the tools...
Thanks a lot! I think I can start working to build my digital zettelkasten.
When I made the video, I had not yet started using a zettelkasten. My original intent was to show how you can develop your ideas over time and Luhmann's zettelkasten was simply the method that I could find the most descriptions about.
After I've been using a zettelkasten for over two years now, my understanding of what a zettelkasten is has matured. Now I would say "a method of how to make notes, store them, review the notes, organize them, and make way how to retrieve specific topic easily" is exactly what a zettelkasten is NOT...! It's rather a tool to help you grow your train(s) of thought/ideas on a certain topic.
That means not all notes go into a zettelkasten, but only those that advance your train of thought/ideas in some way. And they can come from reading, talking to people, reflection, categorising, creativity sessions or from wherever. The important thing is that they help you build your train of thought/ideas.
Over time this train of thought/ideas will grow very long with many, many sub-trains. And some of these (sub-)branches will be connected. You can also have a few topics you're working on. But to use a zettelkasten well, you must be selective. You must select what goes in and out and also what (sub-)branch the new zettel extends. This is a very powerful use of the categorisation technique and helps you to better remember the information too (but that's only a nice side effect).
My zettelkasten, for instance, has two main focus topics: systems (sub-topics: systems theory, phase transitions, self-organisation, systems control and systems design) and thinking (sub-topics: innovation, thinking tools, creativity, intelligence, memory and the history of science [and soon probably decision making as well]). Of these, creativity, intelligence and memory are incredibly closely connected (and decision-making will be just as close as the rest of the bunch) and still fairly close to thinking tools. Also, innovation and phase transitions are quite close.
Due to this, a zettelkasten is not the right tool for everything. It's only useful if you want to build a conceptual framework for a topic. (I hope I'm not too restrictive now. I'm also still learning.) This means that for many tasks I'm doing on an almost daily basis (such as bug fixing or data analysis), it can't be used - even though they also require deep and creative thinking. Oh... and just because you're able to develop conceptual frameworks doesn't say anything about how useful they are, mind you. For that you need to put them to the test and that requires thinking that can best be aided by other tools.
Also, while technically it should not matter what technology you use, I found an analogue zettelkasten much more effective than a digital one. I started with a digital one but only after switching to an analogue version did I really start using it. I can't really explain why, but using an analogue zettelkasten just feels "right". It triggers certain thought processes that a digital zettelkasten does not trigger (at least not for me - and several other people had the same experience). So, now I would recommend to give the analogue version a try first.
Yet in the end, you're still correct: we should work with ideas instead of tools. Anything that makes working with ideas easier is fair game. 🙂
@@bf-thinking thank you for your clarification. However, I do agree that zettelkasten is not the right tool for everything. In my engineering field, we actually don't develop a good idea from notes, but rather from experimental or simulation works.
So, when I wrote the comment above, I think this "version" of zettelkasten which is storing, organizing, etc, was to make me easier to store and retrieve information. Of course, I should modify this method to make it works.
For example, I want to collect some ideas and relate them. Those ideas are coming from papers or books, then I should make a link with the sources so that when I want to find a certain keyword, I can see where the idea was coming from and where I can get the source from the links (to external references). So basically, it's about storing, retrieving and organizing information.
Actually, I have tried to read Luhmand's work, one of his book. To be honest, that book is really difficult to read and follow. It seems, only Mr. Luhman and his God know what he's talking about. Too many wording, references and citing, which is very difficult for me to follow. Maybe because I am an engineer... I think I won't use my zettelkasten for something like that, but rather as "second external brain".
Hey cool, I'm an engineer too (turned neuroscientist). 🙂
I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're trying to do. Do you want to extract results from papers, save them as separate documents (linked to their sources) and then classify them / link them together, so that you can run complicated queries on them to retrieve information that belongs together?
Let's make a concrete example. Say you're researching better lubricants for ball bearings. You link each paper you read to its research question(s). You also translate each method into a step-by-step recipe (or even a flow chart) - as far as you can do that from the description in the methods section (and also link that to the appropriate source). You then link these recipes/flow charts to the appropriate test method they used, the type of test bench, the statistical technique they used and so on. And you similarly, extract each piece of result and (if applicable) the connections the authors made between results. You again link that to relevant concepts and/or categories. Then when you're planning your own experiment, you need an overview of all the test methods that were used by studies who had similar research questions as yours or used a similar type of lubricant or something like this. Or if you have studies with conflicting results, you want to compare the methods they used to see whether the difference in results can be explained by differences in methods.
Is that roughly what you want to do? Or am I completely misunderstanding you?
@@bf-thinking wow... your explanation is way more better and clearer than what I was trying to say. Yes, that exactly that I was trying to say. So, that type of zettelkasten probably is more suitable for engineers or scientists. That is to understand things, concepts, data, and easy to retrieve if we want write paper about this topic, especially when we do literature review, state of the art, find the novelty, and understand the research problems..
@@gondala To explain things clearly you need to understand them well. My explanation is maybe clearer because I too have been struggling with this problem for many years.
For what you're describing Luhmann's method is not the right one at all. His zettelkasten worked completely differently. I know, people are using the term zettelkasten to mean anything that consists of individual "elements" that are "linked". But while in principle that's fine, this can lead to confusion and miscommunication. So, for the sake of having a clear discussion, I propose the following vocabulary (based on my current understanding of commonly used terms).
Graph database: 'Any thing for storing data that consists of individual "elements" that are "linked".' The term graph in this case refers to the graph from graph theory.
Zettelkasten: A system similar to Luhmann's zettelkasten. (I actually don't think it's a graph database, but I'm not yet sure on this point...) It's a method to grow your train(s) of thought on a particular topic(s). And the notes must be arranged in a tree structure. There are also "long-distance links", but, contrary to what most RUclips videos make you believe, they are only a minor component. Importantly, it's a tool to help you think first, and a database second!!!
Entity: A node type in a graph database that holds data. Depending on the type of graph database, an entity might have attributes that store the data or it might be linked to so-called literals which are another type of node that hold the actual data. This might sound esoteric, but I'm an entity of the type human. And I'd still be the same human even if I changed my name or were to lose a leg in an accident. This "abstract me" that we usually are only semi-conscious of is the entity that represents me.
Ontology: A way of representing knowledge in graph form. Or more precisely, the knowledge is broken down into individual statements involving entities and their attributes as well as the relationship between different entities. E.g.: entity_1 is of type human. entity_1 has name "Martin". entity_1 has age 36. human has mortility_value "mortal". And so on. This can then be represented as a graph or it can be written in a more structured textual form that can be processed by computers.
Query: A way of retrieving data from a database. Essentially, you're translating a question into the data you need to answer this question. The system then goes forth and fetches the data for you (and represents it in some form, e.g. a graph, a table, whatever). You can then take the result to improve your understanding, use it as a basis for planning (say, your experiment) and so on. But the query itself is "dumb", it just fetches the data you specify. (Which is why I think there is not really a query as such in a zettelkasten, because interacting with a zettelkasten always requires thought.)
The type of graph database I'm most familiar with (I'm using the word "familiar" quite liberally here) is the Resource Description Framework (RDF). And the querying language that goes with it is called SPARQL. The beauty of RDF is that you can easily connect several databases in a single query. This is not easily doable with most other types of databases.
I have a feeling that for what you want to do, the following setup might work. One database that stores the data about papers (incl. title, authors, methods, results and so on). The other database is an ontology that models your knowledge about your topic. If you use RDF, you can then query one or both of them as you need. (I might fall into the trap of trying to do everything with RDF simply because I recently learned about them, mind you.)
Here're some resources that helped me understand RDF. Maybe they're also useful for you.
medium.com/wallscope/tackling-big-data-challenges-with-linked-data-278b0761a6de
medium.com/wallscope/understanding-linked-data-formats-rdf-xml-vs-turtle-vs-n-triples-eb931dbe9827
medium.com/wallscope/creating-linked-data-31c7dd479a9e
medium.com/wallscope/constructing-sparql-queries-ca63b8b9ac02
medium.com/wallscope/comparing-linked-data-triplestores-ebfac8c3ad4f
cambridgesemantics.com/blog/semantic-university/learn-rdf/
cambridgesemantics.com/blog/semantic-university/learn-rdf/rdf-nuts-bolts/
Let me know whether this was helpful at all or whether I'm overshooting the mark.
fantastic, very well presented :D
Thank you for posting this! It was certainly helpful.
Glad that you find it useful!
Great video again. I have started my own version of a zettel system. It's only day 2 but I have already made some connections and transformed a couple ideas. I am hoping this system will continue to grow and provide more in the future.
Great! Let us know how it goes.
Amazing video Martin! Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts and methods! I'm your new subscriber. :D
Awesome, thank you!
I’ve read a couple of books on ZettelKasten and have over 3 million words of notes just on my iPad (iCloud). I’m working on my own version of a digital Zettelkasten. Your video does the best job of describing Luhmann’s process that I have found on the web. Thank you for posting this content!
Glad that it was helpful! You might also want to check out Scott Scheper's channnel.
I also recently uploaded a video where you can see (among other things) how my zettelkasten evolved: ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
Very good review. I rarely write comments but I think your video definitely deserves it.
Glad you liked it!
Thank you very much!
Glad you like it.
Insightful video and awesome channel for thought feeding. Keep up the great work. Cheers
Glad you enjoy it!
Very good! i didn't know about his 'hub' notes. Thanks for this insight!
Glad you found it useful. I learned about hub notes from a post by Sascha on zettelkasten.de. You might want to take a look at their blog, if you don't know it already.
zettelkasten.de/posts/zettelkasten-hubs/
Thank you so much!!
Great that it's useful!
Beautifully put
Great that you like it!
Thank you! I knew there was more to it than a magic system of recording and storing ideas. The takeaway for me here is: return over and over... to reuse what you've stored
Yep. A good system might give more boom for your buck, but if you don't put in any buck you'll still get no boom.
This video filled up some gaps for me, specially the hub notes. Thanks
Great to hear that! I recently published another video where I show how I go from reading notes to zettels. Maybe that's also useful if you don't know it already.
ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
Awesome video man! Cheers! One thing though... is it just me or do you really really look like Luhhman himself.
(Food for thought)
You're the first to notice. 😉 Great that you like the video, though.
very good introduction video for zettlekasten. Thanks!
Cool that you like it.
Great explaination! It is true that this is not about method but about thinking. And most of people think about zettelkasten as a solution, but it is only a great tool, and solution is our mind and new ways of thinking. Thanks! Good video!
Well said! It's a tool helps us to solve new problems or to solve old problems in better ways. A zettelkasten is only useful if you use it.
I’ve never come across this system before- very informative, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for sharing great idea. Old but hold.
You are welcome!
Good video on the topic. I like how you mentioned that you can use the principles with anything even a plain old notebook. It’s about the atomic notes and the interlinking, I guess also the idea of “structure” or “map of contents” notes. I myself use plain text files.
Yes, people focus too much on SW. But success comes from applying the principles. I agree that atomicity, interlinking and structure notes are some of the core principles of the zettelkasten. And that you work on your zettles frequently so that you get the chance to slowly develop your ideas.
Thank you! This was very helpful!
Great that you found it helpful!
Nice explanation and video. Great job.
Glad you like it
Great video content Sir. Thank you!
Great that you like it!
Very good take on the Zettelkasten method. I still need to think & experiment how to fit this into my life. On hand hand the general rules are universal: such as consistency and review of the materials. Some specific techniques e.g. method of indexing is very helpful e..g in project management. Where I still need to go deeper is the creation of knowledge base.
Anyway very good video and I look forward to your future videos!
I think it also depends on where your information comes from. I think the way to create zettels should be different for information from essays than for information from papers that report experiements, for instance. It will also depend on how you work with the kasten. So don't be afraid to experiement and see what works and what doesn't.
That's sort of what I did. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but that changed once I started creating zettels (not entirely, but still). While for some aspects I now know how I want to do them, others are still fluid at this point.
Great Video! Subbed Immediately. Thanks keep up the good work. Hoping for more videos on the Zettlekasten system. I would love to know your take on digital systems like Obsidian for a Zettlekasten.
Great that you found it useful. I'm planning to make a video comparing several zettelkasten apps. Will take some weeks, because I first need to work with them some time to get a feeling for their capabilities and limitations. So watch this space.
your cool. great Video!
Very good. Thx for this Video
Glad that you like it!
This was very good! Thank you. I always have some difficulties with the workflow but you explained perfectly!
After using the zettelkasten myself now, I found that there isn't really one workflow fits all. Depends a lot on how you prefer to work, what's your topic how you're interacting with your topic and so on.
If you haven't watched it already, you might also be interested in this video where I show a little more what I'm currently doing: ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
A great video also. Actually is very helpful for my work at the moment: I am working a paper about abstract art and is difficult to select the info that is relevant to fill the gaps in my zettlekasten /moc. But curating is the key, I suppose. Your videos are very good! Thank you! Cheers from Lisbon!
Oh: and I am an Obsidian user and also a fan of Nick Milo and Bryan Jenks work. Actually I found your channel trough a video from Bryan Jenks.
Большое спасибо!
Пожалуйста!
Thanks for the presentation
Great that you like it!
Nice video about Zettelkasten! more videos about Zettelkasten sir haha.
Glad that you liked it! I'll definitely make more videos on the zettelkasten. However, it's only one of several great thinking techniques.
Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Well explained!
Glad you find it useful
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it
Thanks, that was really helpful :)
Glad it helped!
I am writing a comment to increase discoverability. Your video is brilliant. Thank you very much!😊
Great that you like it so much!
Bravo.
Thanks!
This was very helpful, thank you.
Glad that you found it helpful!
@@bf-thinking it will feature in my notes as I get my head around a very interesting topic. Keep up the good work! Peace and love from Scotland.
I have been using dot grid journals for many years but I did run into the fact that that information and notes is on sheets that can't be removed. So I am looking into this method and already started. Its nice that it is one sided cards so that, if anything, I can glue them into my notebook. I still need to figure out how to sort the information in a way that will make it easier. I love the screen time of note-taking because screens are very distracting since they are designed for maximum distraction. I want to have less screentime, not more so I see this note taking method as a way to do that.
There's much to be said for a paper-based zettelkasten. When I started my own zettelkasten I also considered that option. In the end I decided for a software solution because it makes searching easier and minimises the risk of losing zettels. Maybe Dave Hayes' channel is interesting for you. He also uses a physical zettelkasten: ruclips.net/channel/UCl3gkrOK_PVdKTnrnN1hLXQ
Good luck with finding a method that works for you!
@@bf-thinking Hi. I really enjoyed the video. It seems Hub notes are really essential if you're using a paper based system due to the limitations of the index/search facilities. I was wondering whether having hub notes in software is necessarily required when it's easier to search through all your zettels. Do you structure your zettelkasten with hub notes and does it have major advantages on computer? Thanks again for the video and your time.
@@stevenk6922 Yes, for a paper-based zettelkasten they're absolute essential. Interestingly, they also seem to be super-valuable for a computer-based zettelkasten. My own zettelkasten is not large enough yet to really comment on that, but that's what other people who have been at it for much longer than me say (for instance, the guys behind zettelkasten.de).
The reason is probably that a zettelkasten is all about linking ideas. If you just search for keywords or tags, it's basically just a collection of zettels. And one which is likely to be huge if your zettelkasten is huge. So going through this them will take a long time and not be too fruitful.
If you take the time to construct a hub note on the other hand, you pre-selecting zettels. Chains of zettels you can reach that way have a higher likelihood of being valuable and it becomes easier to build upon them.
Then again, a zettelkasten also lives from the fact that you can make unexpected connections and for that a tag / keyword search seems to be more suited. So maybe it's best not to think of tags and searches as replacing hub notes, but rather as adding an extra tool to your toolbox.
Please continute to make these wonderful videos :)
Great that you like them! I currently don't have a lot of time to make new ones, so it takes me like forever to upload the next one. But another video is close to being released.
@@bf-thinking awesome ! 💪
This is a great and concise explanation of the method. Thank you!
I would recommend watching this video before reading Sönke Ahrens book. I now feel like I understand how Luhmann generated and then used his "Literature Notes," and "Fleeting notes". Also, I now have a better sense of the Index as well as the Keywords.
That's wonderful feedback, thank you!
@@bf-thinking I have a follow-up question: I am researching several different areas, which are, on the surface, unrelated. I am wondering if I should have one mega zettelkasten that commingles all of my areas of interest or if I should have a separate zettelkasten for each of my areas of research/interest. I'm guess the answer starts with "it depends" but I wonder if you have encountered a similar situation and what decision you made.
@@goligabooks I myself have this same question! I have multiple topics that are unrelated, so I’m getting a tad confused on how to separate them when I go to reference something. If one were, for example, history of religion and then another topic such as a field of science, now that in thinking, it would be more appropriate to have separate zettelkasten as the index would be for keywords or ‘tags’ relating to that area.
Can’t have a ‘gender’ tag with both unrelated topics in, that’d get quite messy and hard to reference back to I think!
@@goligabooks You're right: the answer is "it depends on your personal style". You'll need to expriment and see what works for you.
Luhmann himself had 2 zettelkastens (successively, not at the same time). The first one was a general one of everything he was reading professionally IIRC. Then after a couple of years he developed the idea of a general theory of sociology based on systems science. For that he started a conpletely new zettelkasten (the more famous of the two and the one that people are usually referring to when rhey talk about "the" zettelkasten of Luhmann).
I personally have 2 large focus topics: systems and thinking. And while there is considerable overlap between the two topics (e.g. societies as systems exploring a new technology even though the actual designs might be worked out by individuals, or the brain as a prime example of a complex system) in my mind they're two seperate topics and to me mixing the two up in a single zettelkasten just feels "wrong" or "confusing". So, the zettelkasten that I started is about systems. I might or might not start a second one about thinking later.
@@bf-thinking Hello Martin, I have been added to my zettelkasten on-and-off for a few months now. I'm still getting the hang of it. I'm curious if you have considered doing a short workshop on building a zettelkasten? There are a lot of questions and confusion once the level of complexity increases beyond the basic setup. Perhaps have a group of fellow zettelkasten builders would be an effective way to power through confusion, share ideas, get questions answered, and even have some form of accountability (when motivation is lagging). If you were to organize something like this as an online class, I think there would be others like me that would be curious to learn from you.
He was an unsung genius
Lots of people talk about him now.
Hey Great content! Btw what music do you use for your intro?
Great that you like it! The music is called African Drums by twinmusicom.org
Thank you, I will use Obsidian for it.
is there a video for you explaining this method using Obsidian?
I've only used Obsidian very briefly, so I can't say very much about this. I used zkn3 for a while before switching to analogue (which I like much better). You can have a look at my current process here: ruclips.net/video/cwxRqmTpffY/видео.html
@@bf-thinking 👍🏻
Do knowledge webs have a geometry? As in the Königsberg bridge riddle. If yes has it a practical value?
Knowledge webs are a metaphor that shows us that the concepts in our mind are connected to one another (via associations) and that you can go from one to another by following these links.
You can probe some of those connections, for instance if you show two words to a person and have them rank how closely related these two words are. This will tell you not only whether there is a connection, but also how strong the connection is (to be specific, this only shows relationships in meaning, there might be other relationships [e.g. due to rhyme, due to one specific experience in the past and so on] that can't be captured with this method). If you do this for many words, parts of the knowledge web will become visible. The only problem is that our memory is so vast that creating a map of any appreciable size is essentially impossible (would take way too long). In the instances where this method is done the map is tiny and only includes words needed to evaluate certain hypotheses in very constraint environments.
It's still enough to see that things like connection density and modularity affect how creatively we can use our knowledge, but answering your question is currently completely impossible (although it's an interesting one).
But if you're only interested in some of the stronger connections, you can explore that very easily yourself. Take a word and create an ABC-list or CaWa. The words you come up with must be related to your word in some way (or else you wouldn't come up with them) and they're the ones that are the ones that can be activated most easily at present. The outcome will be shaped by what you know, whether your recently thought about the topic and by other things you heard or experienced recently. If you do one or two ABCs / CaWas per day for a few weeks and put them away as soon as you wrote them, you can then write everything onto one big sheet of paper and count how often you came up with each association. The more often an association showed up, the more likely it is a strong association for you. This is not really scientifically rigorous, but still pragmatically valuable.
You can then go and continue working with these words. You can, for instance, try to ask yourself why these words have the strongest connection. Or you can ask yourself what your strongest connections tell you about your outlook on that topic (e.g. are they generally more negative or more positive, on which aspect of the topic do they focus the most). If you want to come up with more creative solutions, you can instead focus on the words that didn't show up so often (these will lead to ideas which are more unusual [for yourself]).
Btw, there are two comments by you that show up in my notifications, but which I then can't seem to find under the relevant videos and to which I can't reply (one about 10 favourite books and one about learning back then). Is that because you deleted them again, or does RUclips have a problem?
Do you actually use a Zettelkasten? If so, I’d love to see your process of converting your ABC active/CaWa notes to a zettel/collection of zettels
I did start a zettelkasten last year and I made a brief video about it here (you might have found it already): ruclips.net/video/sSM0CZZEDYQ/видео.html
It's still a baby zettelkasten, really and I'm still experimenting with ways how to integrate it with the other tools I use. One example is that after doing an ABC-active and selecting the most important words you can then go and create zettels for them. Also, once you got a collection of zettels on a specific topic, you can summarise your zettels with an ABC-list, a ranked list or list broken down into categories and link from there to the actual zettels (a bit like a list article or an outline in wikipedia).
Well, it seems to me that more attention should be given to the fact that he made entries for 15k referencies than his note taking method. How did he read so much? Did he read all those books whole? How much time he spent reading on a daily basis and how fast did he read?
He read a lot every day. In fact for the most part his days just consisted of reading and making notes. He did certainly not read all his references cover to cover, but for many (most?) of his sources only the part of the text he was interested in.
But in the end, if you don't have a system to capture your thoughts about your texts and slowly grow and develop them over time (in which ever form), you're less likely to develop great ideas.
Also, you don't necessarily read as much as Luhmann did to develop great ideas. It depends entirely on the field you're operating in. And most fields consists of more than just reading. And yet, this will also give you ideas (either as you do the other tasks or when you review what you've been doing) and you can also capture those and work on them over time.
Keep up the good work, Martin! And make sure you do not verzettel, otherwise I'll give you a Denkzettel ;o)
The funny thing is, Luhmann really did call the act of creating a zettel verzetteln. He had a special type of humor...
awesome video, can you check out and review Taskade for zettelkasten?
I'm glad you found it useful. That's the first time I hear about Taskade. I'll have a look.
Gibts das irgendwo auf Deutsch?
Wenn du Untertitel einschaltest, kannst du duetsche Untertitel auswählen
the thing that should also discuss in this video is that how painful and time consuming this method. I suspect we need few years to collect and run this method before we finally got one publishable book.
Writing a book is always a lot of work (especially, if you go deeper than skin deep). A zettelkasten can help to speed up certain processes, but it's not a catch-all. Depending on what type of book you're writing, a different method might be more suitable.
Additionally, a zettelkasten can reap banefits in a matter of weeks as it will change the way we're reading (or watching lectures, documentaries...). But again, it's not a magic bullet it will only help you for certain tasks.
Are there any specific aspects that you feel are particularly painful?
@@bf-thinking Yes, I have tried few times, and it is really time consuming... i am still looking the better way in which we can do it less steps than you present in video with the same results.
As I said, it always depends on what exactly you want to do. There might be other methods that are more suitable for you, but without knowing your particular circumstances I don't know what they might be.
🎉
But what is the exact difference between a normal hub-note and a index-hub-note?
There isn't much of a difference in the way they're working. The index can be seen as a special type of hub note. But from a practical point, the index occupied a special position in Luhmann's zettelkasten. "Normal" hub notes had a place between notes derived from reading, wherever Luhman saw best fit. But the index was kept at a special position, so as to be easily accessible.
@@bf-thinking So the index hub note was basically a fast retrieval facilitator and the normal hub nodes are like one hierarchy beneath for navigating/giving meaningful entry points within a specific specific cluster of thoughts?
@@ObeySilence Yes, you can call the index a fast retrieval facilitator. The other hub notes are not necessarily one level below (though some will be), but can be at any point in the "hierarchy" (note that Luhman would have probably objected to the idea that there was a hierarchy in his zettelkasten). Your general understanding is correct. They do give a general entry point or overview over a (sub-)topic. Kind of like outlines in Wikipedia.
Like
Basically obsidian
And you too looks resembles Luhmann.
Luhmanns Son.
;-)
you look like luhmann
XD
You look like Alan de botton
Don't know him. I'll have a look.
@@bf-thinking did you Google him
@@MohammadTalhaDanish1999 I did, yes. I can see that we look somewhat similar.
aaaaw its so sweet how u say "zettels"! I'm german and this isn't meant to be some sort of hate but... it just souns funny. By the way the plural of "Zettel" is "Zettel" dont ask why xP
It seems Zettel comes from Latin cedula via Italian cedola (originally it was feminine in German, and the more common form until the 19th century was Zedel or Zeddel). The reason that in German both singular and plural are Zettel is that in the original Italian the singular and plural forms were cedola and cedole respectively - it seems that in both cases the final vowel got dropped, and the o got first downgraded to a schwa (like the e in habe) and then also dropped.
But this video is neither in German nor in Italian. If you check out other videos on the zettelkasten method, you'll find that the usual plural of zettel is zettels in English (as far as I know, the zettelkasten is the only context in which English borrowed the term zettel).
Btw, just as a fun aside, schedule comes from the same Latin word, but via French. And apparently between the 14th and 17th it was used similar to German Zettel. Languages are strange and interesting beasts...
Ich hoffe, das beantwortet deine Frage.
schade, Titel deutsch, Video englisch
mit deutschen Untertiteln
why u telling me to be quiet bro what i do