Workshop on Random Matrix Theory at Universitat Bielefeld, Oct 27-31, 2025 — Zettelkasten Forum
And they say nothing happens in Bielefeld. https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/events/#/event/8069| Zettelkasten Forum
The Tools That Change Us (And the Choice to Change Back) • Zettelkasten MethodPeople react strongly to AI topics because these tools can post a threat.| Zettelkasten Forum
As a web developer, I use The Archive for (among other things) task lists and documentation which include code snippets. I would love to see some improvements of these areas in The Archive. For example: Support for task lists including a keyboard shortcut to toggle the task state of a task on the current line of the cursor. For example, iA Writer uses the ⌘+. keyboard shortcode to toggle task state: - [ ] - [x] Syntax highlighting for code blocks. ```php // code displayed here with PHP synt...| Zettelkasten Forum
It would be great if one could navigate forward and back with the side-buttons on mice that have them, much like one is able to do in web browsers!| Zettelkasten Forum
I'm following Bob Doto's advice and using Luhmann's numbering scheme, which in effect imposes a tree structure on top of a more free-form linking structure. My top-level titles are weird: 1.5: The brain is expensive. 3.3: Republic of Letters letters were often sent multi-hop 4.3: Russian fairy tales are constructed from linearly organized event types. 7.1: What does the abstraction abstract away? 14.1: People hate negativity. 15.1: Socialism aimed to change the environment in order to change ...| Zettelkasten Forum
In @Sascha's nice translation of “Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen” (much thanks!), Luhmann speaks much of randomness in ways that are not clear to me. I've read somewhere that I can no longer find – bad note-taker! bad! – that Luhmann would sometimes browse the Zettelkasten with no fixed purpose, moving about it more-or-less at random to see what his "communication partner had to say." Does anyone have a citation or pointer to more details? One thing Luhmann says in "Kommunikation" is...| Zettelkasten Forum
2025-10-25 Learning C++ Following Sascha’s example I decided to start journaling my Zettelkasten practice. I’m a computer engineering student, and in the meantime, I do some freelance projects for some local enterprises. My areas of interest at the moment are mainly math and programming. Today I’ve started brushing up my C++ skills by going through the learncpp.com lessons. These past years, I've worked on lots of web-related stuff, and I want to start doing more low-level programming. ...| Zettelkasten Forum
And they say nothing happens in Bielefeld. https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/zif/events/#/event/8069| Zettelkasten Forum
Entry: 2025-10-20 Experimenting with turning a private practice into a social practice. When I was still active in various online forums for training, it was part of the routine for many athletes to keep an online diary. Interestingly, a lot of the most interesting discussions branched off from these diaries. So, I like to start this as an experiment. Back then, it was part of the forum member's post training routine: Cool down, drink the protein shake and then check the diary for comments an...| Zettelkasten Forum
I scratched out a new musing exploring of a new verb that (I think) I made up. I'm calling I it "remindered"—the architectural act of being triggered back into a cognitive context at exactly the right moment, not just reminded of a task. chrisokeefe.io/remindered We have reminders. We have remembering. But we don't have a word for when a carefully placed breadcrumb triggers memory and additional context at precisely the right time and place. This is what I'm calling being "remindered"—con...| Zettelkasten Forum
This discussion was created from comments split from: The Complete Guide to Atomic Note-Taking by @ctietze Exact point in the previous discussion this was branched off from: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/24003/#Comment_24003| Zettelkasten Forum
The Barbell MethodThe Zettelkasten note-taking method has made book writing and writing scientific papers easy for hundreds of years already. Read the full story here| Zettelkasten Forum
This will be an irregular journal. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here.| Zettelkasten Forum
Atomicity refers to the idea that knowledge is made up of discrete building blocks. The Principle of Atomicity is a processing direction in note-taking, aiming for one knowledge building block per note. It is not a rigid law, but a guiding compass. It needs to be contextualised for each application. https://zettelkasten.de/atomicity/guide/| Zettelkasten Forum
Protesilaos Stavrou had me for a 2.5h 'interview' format and at the linked time of 1:27h we started to talk about Zettelkasten: how you pronounce it what goes inside sidebar about Luhmann's theory, a summary made up on a whim externalizing thought to discover which survives the test of time project archives vs life-long usage writing, as assembling stuff from notes retrieval vs interpretation in the moment passage of time, chiefly introduced by you using the Zettelkasten if that hour wasn't e...| Zettelkasten Forum
Writing with my Zettelkasten has taught me patience. Every time I start a new piece — a post, an essay, or even a book — I need to build a new linear order from a network of interconnected ideas. That means sorting through permanent notes, shaping a storyline, and finding the right tone for the audience. It’s slow work. As William Zinsser said, “Writing is hard work.” But could it be easier? We now live in the age of AI. One simple prompt could produce the desired output. Let’s im...| Zettelkasten Forum
So many software posts and so few gadgets... I'd recently posted about a punch for making file tabs of 2 1/4" x 3/4". So many people thought it was cool and were surprised that such a thing existed, I thought I'd mention it here as well for those who have a physical index card practice. I had been considering getting a custom punch made several times, but never looked to see if one already existed commercially. While doing a 5 minute peruse of a local thrift store, there was the thing I'd bee...| Zettelkasten Forum
I have tried several downloads, but the icon just jumps up and down in the Dock.| Zettelkasten Forum
I started a sort of Zettelkasten a few months ago, at the beginning of my PhD. Now I'm facing several difficulties in my real life practice, so I take a break to think about my overall reading and note taking process (which is my main activity for now). I do believe in the ZK method, but I need my ZK approach to meet my needs as a PhD student. Efficiency : I read too slowly. I want to capture each concept I read about, considering that it may be useful, either for my personal understanding of...| Zettelkasten Forum
Building Blocks of a Zettelkasten • Zettelkasten MethodI am working hard on the “Building Blocks” chapter of the Zettelkasten book and I want to finish it first to show it to the public. It covers all parts of the toolkit. To sketch a structure and talk about its components, I need to get the requirements and implementation done before talking about workflow details. Today, I want to show you a birds-eye view of the overarching systems metaphor I’m using in the book. Read the full sto...| Zettelkasten Forum
Swimming with Ideas This is another opportunity to share your current project with fellow forum members. Add to this discussion by sharing your experience with your zettelkasten journey. Share with us what you're learning. Sharing helps us clarify our goals and visualize our thinking. And sometimes, a conversation sparks a magical moment where we can dive into an idea worth exploring. I'd love to hear more from you. 🫵🏼 Here is my report on why I'm here and my current ZK work themes and ...| Zettelkasten Forum
Hi There ! My needs seem very simple but it is not graphic design. So I'm not sure to find any application who can do this simple thing, fast , sliding pictures anywhere (While recording screen and sound) _ 1st level of spec would be to keep space between pictures _ 2d level of spec would be to have a kind of layers to put some pictures above some others Thank you for your help !| Zettelkasten Forum
Greetings everyone! This semester I will be starting my MSc in theoretical computer science and I want to refine my studying/organization workflow. What follows is first the method I employed during my undergrad, my problems with it and my current unstructured/nessy thoughts and plans. I would greatly appreciate any input on the subject and thoughts/objections/improvements on my proposed method. Past uni workflow During my undergrad, each course had a dedicated ZK note where each heading was ...| Zettelkasten Forum
Is it possible to fold the text along headings in the editor? If not, are there any plans to make it possible in the future? It would be very helpful for long notes. How do you deal with long notes? Foldable headings is one thing I miss a lot from Obsidian.| Zettelkasten Forum
Funny as how @GeoEng51 's thread came just as I was conducting similar thinking. So, on my end: after yet another long attempt to get Obsidian to work for me, I'm yet again back in Bear. I was looking at devising a one-all, be-all end tool for all my needs. The idea was: capture, journal, mull ideas and create all at the same place, and the insights will grow and feed off each other over time. I painstakingly devised the whole parts of the system, curating the exact plugins I needed, bridged ...| Zettelkasten Forum
After bouncing around, testing different tools and software in my Zettelkasten workflow, I have finally settled on the combination of The Archive and Obsidian. The simplicity of The Archive really helps in my writing and making connections within my Zettelkasten. But sometimes I want a visual of my Zettelkasten and some added functionality to interact with my notes. This is where Obsidian comes in. Not to mention the mobile app as well on iOS makes entering things quickly, on the go, a breeze...| Zettelkasten Forum
Hello zettlers! I am practicing working with knowledge building blocks nowadays. Can you critically evaluate the following? The particular aspect I am interested in is what should be in the inside of every note so that value is created, whether I have redundancies in the chain and if you apply strict argumentative structure in your Zettelkasten. Right now I am writing a dissertation-style essay, I don't have a specific question yet but appreciate tips and tricks about empirical observations. ...| Zettelkasten Forum
In "How to Take Smart Notes", Ahrens states that before you add a slip to your slipbox, you should: "Make sure it can be found from the index; add an entry in the index if necessary or refer to it from a note that is connected to the index." (p. 104) Originally, I thought it was just important that no slip gets orphaned and is connected to some thread of notes, but this statement gives me the impression that every slip must be no more than 1 degree of separation away from the Index. But once ...| Zettelkasten Forum
I'd like to update everyone on my search for the "perfect" (for me) Zettelkasten software. I learned about the Zettelkasten method about five years ago and have been on this forum for the same amount of time, contributing posts and comments fairly regularly. I've seen the discussions on the different apps people are using for their Zettelkasten. I was looking for something that would allow me to incorporate a daily journal, task planning and management, and resource identification into my Zet...| Zettelkasten Forum
Dear Zettlers, the guide to atomicity is ready to be tested. Please, write me a private message to become a beta-reader. I'll send you the link to the article. Live long and prosper Sascha| Zettelkasten Forum
Big fan of this app, I recorded a video for my channel https://youtu.be/RDu4CKjeRjY I also interviewed Sascha a while ago, I'll see if I can dig that up.| Zettelkasten Forum
Discussion about writing and research productivity methods.| Zettelkasten Forum
Dear Zettlers, I am writing a book on habit. I know, finally somebody is making an effort on writing about that topic. Here are my reasons:| Zettelkasten Forum
