Is a zettelkasten a tool for writing or thinking? Both. While some of the most well-known slip boxes in the world have been employed by writers in service of their writing,144 a zettelkasten can also be used without writing as an end goal.

Is a zettelkasten a second brain? No. Second brains are comprehensive. They’re meant to include meeting notes, driving directions, friends’ birthdays, captured thoughts, business ideas, and more. A zettelkasten is comprised solely of ideas. Thus, it is not a second brain.

If you’re willing to participate in the triangle of creativity, you will learn more about your own thoughts and beliefs than you could by “keeping it all in.” You’ll gain priceless insights into what you believe, and how you’re beliefs are understood by others. This will allow you to refine what you say and how you say it.

Consequently, you may at times feel discouraged, wanting to take your ideas and go home. But, although publishing your ideas may not always feel rewarding, it will always be informative.

So long as your ideas remain hidden from view, they lack the substance that can only come from reader engagement. Meaning is created in community.127 Putting your work out into the world allows your ideas to converse with those of other people in real time. It’s how your writing gets defined.

Some of the best editorial advice I ever got came from the editor at my first publishing job on the first day: “Cut out the first paragraph. No need to wait around while the writer clears their throat.”

Now, let’s look at how to put some of the options discussed above into action. Scan through your stack of notes for a title that catches your attention, preferably one that’s part of a developing sequence of alphanumerics. Assuming your titles are statements summing up the contents of the ideas stored inside each note, it’ll be easy to get a sense

Always take advantage of inspiration. If capturing an idea turns into writing an article, continue writing the article. After you’ve finished the piece or taken a break from writing, go back and find the ideas that didn’t make it into your zettelkasten, turning each one into a main note by following the steps laid out in chapter 3.

If the ideas associated with this topic had already been processed into main notes, I’d proceed in the ways described above, exploring the contents of each note, copy/pasting ideas into a working file to begin writing. If the ideas hadn’t been processed into main notes, I’d skip doing so (for now), and move directly into writing. Once I’d