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Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary that I have been using a digital Zettelkasten. As someone with ADHD and a long history of half-used notebooks, I've been surprised with how successful the experiment has been. I've put together some thoughts below on what I learned.

The attached video is a timelapse of the Zettelkasten notes as they were created over 12 months. Each dot is a file, each line is a hyperlink between them. The coloured dots represent different areas of notes. It's fun to look at but I don't spend much time here.

#zettelkasten #ObsidianMD

Cachalot

@Happyfishmedia@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@dznz I find these immensely satisfying to watch... My big frustration with Obsidian is not having found a way to integrate it with anything or export it into a useful format.

Daniel

@dznz@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@Happyfishmedia what would be a useful format for your needs?

Cachalot

@Happyfishmedia@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@dznz something that could be added to presentations and documents, that can be viewed with some interactivity, by people without Obsidian, mainly.

Isaac Freeman

@isaacfreeman@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@dznz If I haven't already marketed it to you, you may enjoy the Kakano theme.

Daniel

@dznz@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@isaacfreeman I'll go look!

Daniel

@dznz@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

Create with eventual use in mind. I have a tendency to act like a packrat and hoard whatever crosses my path. Collecting stuff for its own sake is fine, but I feel better if it might conceivably have a use someday. I'm still working on this lesson.

Separate thoughts from reference. The Zettel's value is in creating a network of contextual thinking, not in being a small wikipedia. I eventually forced myself to write thought-like titles and lead paragraphs for every permanent note, and that has added clarity.

Let it grow organically, including "mistakes". While I did use online guidance regarding setting up a digital Zettelkasten, I tried not to worry too much about growing with perfection. The landscape should remain mostly stable once it has been set.

(2/3)

Daniel

@dznz@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

Obsidian has been great for me. I love its many affordances, and its plugin ecosystem. I love that I've got my vault synced across three machines including my mobile. To me that's worth the cost. I love that I'm mostly dealing with markdown files.

The bells and whistles of Obsidian and its ecosystem would probably be a trap for me if productivity was my only stated goal. But I'm letting myself simply enjoy playing with it, writing queries in dataview, refining templates, playing with the new Base functionality. It's fine to have fun.

A daily scratch file works for me. I initially used a monthly file to jot new notes, knowledge, and ideas, but switching to the 'daily note' system with a very loose structure let me log training sessions, quick tasks, and journal notes in one place.

(3/3)

Christian Tietze

@ctietze@mastodon.social replied · 3 months ago

@dznz A comfy, customizable environment is important to settle in and not just use it as a tool. Your summary resonates (and the animation is cool!) -- I believe you hit a lot of important marks:

- malleability of notes; don't aim for perfection
- use a conversational tone (with yourself!), titles as thoughts or questions, to make working with notes more natural

"Create for use" people sometimes find hard to do, it seems. What were your breakthrough uses?

Daniel

@dznz@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@ctietze conversational tone is a good insight - I struggle sometimes to bother to actually write the thought itself out in full, and I my current thinking is that a good title, a good lead paragraph, and some solid links in and out are sufficient as a baseline.

Create for use is a challenging razor, because we don't want to exclude things that might eventually become an article or whatever, but we oughtn't to be storing everything. I added a "Projects" folder but tag things with the term "efforts", which feels looser and more open to discovery. Sometimes I accept that my "use" is simply that I enjoy thinking about it. Helps, too, to have an inbox/scratch process for less discriminate capture that I can then work through.

Daniel

@dznz@cloudisland.nz replied · 3 months ago

@ctietze oh, also, I learned a lot from zettelkasten.de so thank you for your part in that. Most specifically the guidance on tagging and the difference between information and knowledge. Helped save me all sorts of mess!

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 3 months ago

@dznz pleased to hear you've found a joyful tool that scratches your itch! I know others (ahem @isaacfreeman) with similar love for it. It's a rare & precious thing to find.

For what it's worth, I've had a similarly very positive experience with QOwnNotes (https://qownnotes.org) which contains more or less all of my professional & personal memories, synced everywhere (via NextCloud). I also take great comfort from the fact that it's fully libre/FOSS.

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