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Obsidian [1] for organizing notes of any kind, together with the book How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens.

[1] https://obsidian.md/

Explore "Zettlekasten". There's a great book on the topic - "How To Take Smart Notes"

How to take Smart Notes is a very good book that explains this technique well. Highly recommend.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction/dp/15...

Is any of this influenced by How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens, or the increasingly trendy personal knowledge management scene?

It seems there's been a mini-renaissance surrounding some of these topics.

It's not hard, but there's also no silver bullet. Start by reading "How to Take Smart Notes" (Ahrens), which is a science-based review of second-brain/slip-box systems and then iterate on that until it fits your workflow.

This has sent me down quite a rabbit hole! Now reading a book about it (How to Take Smart Notes) and trying to find some suitable software to make a slip-box (zettelkasten) with.

The book "How to Take Smart Notes" and YouTube productivity gurus, most likely. I like the method, it's a natural way to structure your notes and spend more time actually writing them than categorizing.

There's a whole book on that ('How to Take Smart Notes'), which I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/-/pt/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-...

If you're oriented towards academic writing, "How to Take Smart Notes" from Sönke Ahrens describes the Zettelkasten method which is akin to the GTD method but focused towards writing. Besides, the book contains interesting insights on how we learn and get motivated to work. Recommended reading.

I can really recommend "How to Take Smart Notes" [1] by Sönke Ahrens. It's made a real difference for me. Ignore the self help-sounding title and give it a chance.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34507927

Being able to work through big ideas is really just a process of breaking a problem down into component parts and seeing how those parts interact and connect (much like with software). I'd recommend the book "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens for some strategies on how to do that.

I can recommend this video [1] from the author of How to Take Smart Notes. The whole Zettelkasten is a great idea, and he explained it succinctly in that talk. He also compares the status quo methods of note taking with the Zettelkasten, which for me was very eye-opening

[1]: https://vimeo.com/275530205

I'm really happy that the "knowledge base management" type of tools are getting a lot more attention these days. In my opinion, the more brains that look at this area, the better the whole ecosystem will get.

I'll have to download this and give it a try, and compare it to my current workflow.

(I use org-roam on Emacs. I'm not sure if people are sick of org-mode and Emacs being mentioned on HN? I worry about becoming the stereotype of "how do you tell if someone is a Vegan (or uses Emacs)?" "Don't worry, they'll tell you". I don't want to derail any discussion though!)

For those of you wondering about Zettelkasten and knowledge management, I suggest you start by reading "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens: https://takesmartnotes.com/ and https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34507927-how-to-take-...

I think it depends what your goal is. The 'How to take smart notes' book is specifically about taking research notes for academia or at the very least non-fiction writing.

Zettelkasten Method can make a lot of sense in contexts like that. If you are writing a weekly blog, keep building notes up and polishing parts of them for the blog. Then your note taking process is in fact your blog writing process, but a bit more procedurally free form.

This is somewhat similar to Zettelkasten[0] which is a way to
take note.

Here's a quote from the book "How to Take Smart Notes" by
S. Ahrens[3]:

Notes build up while you think, read, understand and generate
ideas, because you have to have a pen in your hand if you want to
think, read, understand and generate ideas properly anyway. If
you want to learn something for the long run, you have to write
it down. If you want to really understand something, you have to
translate it into your own words. Thinking takes place as much on
paper as in your own head.

One of the differences is perhaps Zettelkasten notes does not
necessarily linked by topics. Instead, notes in zettelkasten are
linked by tags[1]. Another diference is separating bibligraphical
notes and permanent notes[2]. Explaining it in your own words is
the best to make it stick in your head. Linking ideas by topics
and objects may lead into your own new ideas.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210126003640/https://zettelkas...

[2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210423224947/https://zettelkas...

[3] - https://books.google.com.ph/books/about/How_to_Take_Smart_No...

I just finished reading "How to take smart notes" by Sönke Ahrens. It's mostly about Zettelkasten. Been looking for a good tool to implement it. Didn't like any of them very much. Zettlr at least seems tolerable, and it uses plain old Markdown files so it's easy to store the notes in git.

Something with phone support would be nice, hell even just read-only mode would be great. Best of luck, and please report back if you can set up a landing page or a github repo or something else we can poll :-)

Certainly a fad I think partly due to the book “How to Take Smart Notes”. Personally I think it’s a very well thought out argument about why this particular note taking system works and why it might work for you. But as the author says, it is meant for academics, particular those in the humanities although it doesn’t state that explicitly.

I believe this kind of work doesn’t share a lot of commonality with the research that readers of HN would do - although it is a very effective tool for some stuff we do.

I think if you’re gonna read it, don’t take it as “the one true way” to take notes. Take what you like and do what works for you.

I just started using zettelkasten method using org-roam. Since I just got started, my notes are not big yet. But it's amazing experience for me, that writing what I've just read in my own words made it stick longer rather than just reading without writing about it. Before I started using zettelkasten, I read the book How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. Then applied what I read.

Currently, I'm learning deep reinforcement learning and I have to deal with computer programming and mathematical equations in my notes. Fortunately, emacs org-mode supports org-babel, latex and latex fragments. My learning got better with this experience.

The disadvantage is that the learning curve using emacs and org-mode is steep unless you use emacs and org-mode every day.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

I don't want to remember more of what I read; I want to have access to a breadth and depth of ideas I can justify with evidence.

Repetition and flashcards will help you remember the content, but it won't help you understand it. That's only done by actively engaging with the content and connecting it to and comparing it with other facts and ideas.

The summarising, keeping lists of questions, and writeups will help you understand the content, and I think is the only valuable part of this process. Why rote memorise when you have lovely writeups you can refer back to.

I find Luhmann's Zettelkasten method, as described in 'How to Take Smart Notes' more persuasive. As you read make bibliographic notes in your own words (on page X it says Y), store these in one place for everything you read. Also note down key ideas as you read with cross references to the bibliographic notes, and to other key idea notes that are relevant; store all these notes in another place. When you're filing a key idea have a look for similar ideas already noted; is this the same? Supporting? Contradictory? These questions help engage with the content. Over a lifetime you can amass a treasure chest of ideas that you can refer back to at your leisure, as Luhmann did.

> How to take Smart Notes

I have read over 100 pages of the book but to be honest, I am disappointed with it. I learn best by examples, the book is failing short of examples on how to use Zettelkasten. My expectation was the book was going to walk me through the process of implementing Zettelkasten like a tutorial, but instead it keeps going back in circles, talking about why I should use Zettelkasten. I am about to finish the book but I still have a lot of questions.

I picked https://nesslabs.com/tiddlywiki-beginner-tutorial which uses https://noteself.org/. NoteSelf has autosync which is helpful.

I would recommend reading How To Take Smart Notes and really internalizing the information there, I started off way too fast and ended up with too many tiny notes. It takes practice but its definitely worth it.

I am an avid note taker on my Kindle Paperwhites and Voyage. The response time is frustrating at first, but you get used to it and the advantages are worth it.

I remember when the iPhone first came out and everyone in my company said they’d never switch because the Blackberry thumbboard was so much better. We all know how that ended...

If it’s helpful, you can reassure yourself that the slow response time is a feature rather than a bug. Being forced to type slowly and parsimoniously might cause deeper understanding:

> "In a small but fascinating study, two psychologists tried to find out if it made a difference if students in a lecture took notes by hand or by typing them into their laptops (Mueller and Oppenheimer 2014). They were not able to find any difference in terms of the number of facts the students were able to remember. But in terms of understanding the content of the lecture, the students who took their notes by hand came out much, much better. After a week, this difference in understanding was still clearly measurable. There is no secret to it and the explanation is pretty simple: Handwriting is slower and can’t be corrected as quickly as electronic notes. Because students can’t write fast enough to keep up with everything that is said in a lecture, they are forced to focus on the gist of what is being said, not the details." (Sönke Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes)

Resurfaced by readwise.io

I don’t have much time, but look at: Tiago Forte’s blogpost about How to Take Smart Notes (also, see the book), Roam research, Obsidian, Zettelkasten.de (mostly English). Also, both Roam and Obsidian have Slacks (or Discords) full of friendly knowledge-management enthusiasts.

Those are the things that I found most helpful on my recet foray into the Zettelkasten world. Could save you some time.

Sönke Ahrens writes about this similarity in his book "How to take smart notes". A linked notes system is indeed very similar to a wikipedia. The difference lies in the usage. In a personal system, there's a bit more "wiki" and not that much "pedia". Encyclopedic classification of content is not the aim of a linked notes system. The notes should be collected and connected based on your interests, aims, and whims.

My takeaway from the recent trend in articles talking about how great the Zettelkasten method is:

Document what you do, as if you were describing your work and/or learning to a stranger. That stranger is you, in 6 months to 5 years time.

Maintaining that enthusiasm and finding the time to document is difficult, but the results are very valuable because you are building a "second brain". That extra brain can be indexed, searched, tagged, analyzed, and edited using many powerful tools.

Don't waste energy chasing fancy tools and methodologies without already having a simple workflow in place. In other words, don't go all out learning Emacs+org-mode+org-roam when you already have a directory of text file notes. Once you have a good idea of what works for you, then introduce tools designed to make your life easier. (I say this as someone who uses Emacs+org-mode+org-roam every day)

Oh and read "The Checklist Manifesto" and "How to take Smart Notes".

I recently read How To Take Smart Notes and have been giving that approach a whirl. I'll re-evaluate after a month or so. The approach is pretty simple and didn't require an entire book to explain.

* Take notes throughout the day. I do this in a notebook.

* At the end of the day, collate those notes into long term storage with a link to the source material.

* When an idea or theme begins to arise, create a document to begin building on that idea, linking to the notes you've taken.

There's a little more regarding organization of notes and linking and so forth. I like the idea and in the short time that I've been practicing this approach I feel like I am getting a much deeper understanding of the texts that I read. Again, time will tell.

I went through my recent-books shelves and found a few shorter books that are well worth reading. Short books for developers are rare these days.

Algorithms Unlocked, Thomas Cormen, 212 pages

The Art of Readable Code, Dustin Boswell & Trevor Foucher, 180 pages

How To Take Smart Notes, Sonke Ahrens, 151 pages

How to Write a Thesis, Umberto Eco, 223 pages

How Charts Lie, Alberto Cairo, 193 pages

For anyone who wants the gist of Zettelkasten, I've just finished reading How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens.

Here's my rather brief summary of the process:

* You create fleeting notes to capture ideas as they happen. They should be short lived notes that don't become the main store of your knowledge.

* You create literature notes as your read material. These should include your own thoughts on highlighted passages, not just quotes and highlights on their own.

* You organise your fleeting notes as permanent notes into your 'Slip Box' (taken from the original use index cards). Each note should contain a single idea and should be understandable when reading in isolation.

* You want to avoid burying knowledge in large notes as it makes it hard to glance at and link to other notes in a concise way.

* Notes are linked to other notes which support your ideas. This also help the discovery of new ideas.

* You use your slip box to help you do your thinking. You want to ask it questions, find the related notes that support/oppose the arguments and find gaps or newly related information.

* You can create index notes that help you find your way around.

* Part of the process is to help your understanding by writing. With a well maintained slip box, you'll never be starting from a blank sheet. You decide what insight/question/knowledge you want to explore, and pull together the notes that give you the body of research to get you started. You shouldn't need to start a new blog post by researching, that happens prior by taking smart notes as you naturally read what you're interested in.

Hope that's somewhat helpful. I'm still experimenting with it to find out what I understand correctly and what I don't.

So there does seem to be a recent Hype-train around improved note taking and Zettelkasten in particular.

I would 100% echo the timesink/tarpit comments insofar as unless you have a specific learning or knowledge management goal devoting time to this can be a fun procrastination game.

Many of the sources rate the book "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens as a starting point (ISBN10 1542866502
, ISBN13 9781542866507)

There are a plethora of youtube channels and Productivity websites to be found so YMMV, I liked:

Bryan Jenks' - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5fd4SsfvECy0zzf8Cyo2...

Justin (Effective Remote work )- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkzyo69rqBoBJUyQ9jo53Bw/vid...

I would say if your workflow is not research-centric where you only implement software, these kinds of methods are not necessary. Only simple note-taking would suffice to ease your brain.

On the contrary, if you are reading papers and doing research, taking notes in a meaningful way is more helpful than you would realize. The human brain tends to skip information while reading and you only realize you didn't actually understand that part when you try to write it yourself. The note-taking part doesn't actually take that much brain resources. I am not a native English speaker but I am taking my notes in English. While taking my notes I don't care about grammar or anything, I just read and write what I understood. When I finish the paper and I am comfortable with the topic, I return to my notes, fix grammars and, link them with my other notes. For example, sometimes I come up with a research idea, I make a note about it. In the future, while reading a paper, I realize some of the techniques that are described in the paper might be beneficial to that idea so I link them together.

In conclusion, it really depends on your area of work whether to take regular notes or Zettelkasten notes. Forcing your workflow to these methods might hurt your productivity but if you are a researcher I can say, it will be beneficial.

I recommend reading "How to take smart notes" book if you are interested in the topic.

I am using https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam to take my notes, https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam-server to visualize it.

Roam is way of using a wiki. i.e. you could quite easily set up a wiki to act in much the same way as Roam.

The journal part of Roam, the page-per-day part, is very useful. You write down what you're doing each day, use tags and links to build up a second brain, so to speak.

Let's say, today I'm working on kubernetes. I add a tag for k8s, which is a link to the k8s page, where I have all sorts of interesting links and notes dumped. When I'm on the k8s page, I also get a list of pages that link to the k8s page, which helps me to remember some other subject that might be relevant.

It uses the Zettelkasten Method: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ and you can also get a lot of value from reading "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens.

The value also comes from it mirroring your thoughts and experiences, as I said, the second brain thing.

(I'm terrible at explaining stuff, sorry :( I hope I didn't bore you to bits)

In the book "How to take smart notes" by Sönke Ahrens, there's a lot of thought given on the real value of tags. I'd say the problem you describe happens because you are trying to create a taxonomy using tags. Classifying the notes using tags can feel rewarding in the short term, but it's not useful in the context of a linked notes system.

When creating tasks, the main question that is answered is "in which contexts would I like this note to show up?". The answer to this question is completely subjective. If, for instance, you were doing research for game level design, it makes sense for the systems architecture notes to be tagged with "game engine", "achievements", "quick save", or anything else that you will want to look up later on. The Napoleonic architecture notes could be tagged as "level design", "gameplay cues", or "side quests".

As you can see, these tags would be different for every person, and that's kind of the point. Two people can read the same content, and take the same note from it, but the intended purpose could still be completely different, and that would show up in the tags.

It's just sequences of notes and then inserting certain notes into other sequences. The "heavyweight" part of it disappears when you're using software which handles all this in the background.

The remaining parts of it is the unexpected results for someone who hasn't used this sort of note taking system. The book "How to Take Smart Notes" explains this. You use the notes as a starting point to come up with new ideas. It's useful if you do regular writing, especially as part of work rather than for personal private stuff.

For example, I use this method for jokes. Much of the value is simply having a list in one place. If I want to come up with a new joke, I look at all my material as a branching tree. I can extend a branch by going deeper. I can combine branches to come up with something completely different. I can start green branches. I can write new material all day long by doing this, rather than by waiting for inspiration to nail me.

I think people get too caught up in the technical parts. It's just a branching system of ideas.