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Let’s assume we don’t use the word Zettelkasten just to be fancy and/or optimize for search engines.
What are then the Zettelkasten features that set aside a Zettelkasten?
Zettelkasten is a German word
Zettelkasten = Zettel + Kasten Zettel = slip of paper Kasten = box
- In Hungarian, we have a bunch of words originated from German, so we could call a Zettelkasten a cetli kasztni.
We use the German word, because we trace the practice back to Niklas Luhmann German sociologist’s note-taking practices.
- Luhmann attributed his productivity to his notebox.
- Don’t forget tho that Luhmann had a passion for his field.
- Luhmann’s first career was in legal administration, and his interest in sociology blossomed as a passion project.
- Luhmann’s first notebox contained reading notes from his various interests.
- See Umberto Eco’s advice on keeping reading logs even if we don’t know yet what we will use our reading notes for. ref-eco-how-to-write-a-thesis
- (Source / details needed, from JFK Smith’s paper. ref-schmidt-niklas-luhmann-s-card-index-2018)
What did Luhmann do differently?
Differently, compared to what?
- Keeping notes on paper slips / notecards wasn’t invented in the 20th century.
- A great read: Chris Aldrich’s deep dive on the history of notecards. ref-aldrich-the-two-definitions-of-zettelkasten
- Chris Aldrich traces it back to Swiss physician Konrad Gessner, who suggested to commonplace on slips of paper, rather than in a book, as it was traditional.
- “Subsequent note takers and composers eventually realized that, while useful, Gessner’s method could be improved by using “slips of equal size”” - ref-aldrich-the-two-definitions-of-zettelkasten
What Luhmann added:
- ditching categories
- adding a numbering system so one can address each card individually moc-different-ways-of-numbering-zettelkasten-notes
- this is a feature we don’t really feel the “aha” about, since in digital, it’s obvious that every item is addressable
- smart trick on paper tho
- direct linking (thanks to card addresses)
- keeping every card in the same pool and linking them by association
- direct linking + filing new cards by the closest association = the Folgezettel (follow-up card) numbering system
- ways to navigate
- although commonplace collections could also include indexing, see John Locke
What was lost in digital:
- atomicity
- we scratch our heads about it, try to cleverly define
- if you use an A6 notecard, it’s pretty obvious that you will roughly fit one idea on one card
- clustering a list by name with the Folgezettel UID’s
- we don’t see why we should number our cards manually when the system does it for us
- the Folgezettel system let’s a clusters form and show themselves in list view