zettelkasten

2020-07-26 16:10

Zettelkasten is a German compound work that translates to “slip-box”. It’s a technique for organizing a lifetime of thoughts and research invented by sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

He was an extremely prolific scholar with over 70 books and 400 academic articles spanning a career of 40 years. 70 books in 40 years!

He did it with pen, paper, and hunt-and-peck typing on a typewriter.

Source: original medium article that got me interested in the idea

Like most great ideas, it isn’t complicated.

  1. Write a note for each new thought you have
  2. Tag it with a specific, one-word keywords
  3. Check for other related notes, and link them together

That’s really it…

I have known about this for weeks and I keep getting more excited about it. I love the idea of slowly building up a large volume of knowledge.

:zettelkasten: