A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer

Any notes that seem hard to process, but are still relevant to your thinking, should be moved to a “Sleeping” folder.

Juliana Spahr in her book, Everybody’s Autonomy: Wild reading…critiques the status quo because it disrupts schooled reading’s conventions, its socialization. One’s approach to reading…defines how one engages the larger social apparatus.28

Fleeting notes form the basis for much of what you’ll create inside your zettelkasten, though they themselves will not make it past the velvet rope. Fleeting notes live in a state of potential, waiting to be transformed into more useful “main notes,” the notes that will make up the bulk of your zettelkasten.

Folgezettel only shows that there is a relationship. It doesn’t show the nature of that relationship.

The rest of the procedure is the same as with fleeting notes. Write down your thinking about the passage. Consider the idea’s relationship to others stored in your zettelkasten. Record any connections you’ve made. Add the appropriate alphanumeric ID. Give the note a title.

If you tend to read digital books,

Don’t become overprotective of your main notes to the point where you stop making them. A main note’s contents can be as simple as an idea and a link to other ideas. Don’t get bogged down with trying to create “perfect” main notes. Remember: an idea’s value is determined by its relationship to other ideas.

A main note works best when the thought contained inside has been pared down to its essentials. Having a single idea

A Luhmann-style zettelkasten is used to store and network ideas. So, unless you have thoughts about wedding planners, the benefits of doing household chores, or how birthdays are some of the last rites of passage we have in society, these notes should remain outside the hallowed halls of the slip box. All the rest can be converted into main notes o