Item — HN Reader

"I'm 99% convinced that no one actually _understands_ zettelkasten"

Fixed that for you ;)

For real, anyone interested should go read the original book (How to Take Smart Notes[1]) and you learn that it's not about creating backlinks between your notes (that's just a wiki or personal knowledge base). It's about capturing ideas inspired by your reading, etc. and linking them other ideas.

Yes, building your own personal knowledge base can be very powerful, but that's something different.

[1] https://a.co/d/5Ntl43P

2 comments

That was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I went into it expecting practical advice and found mostly vague hyperbolic promises of the magical benefits. If the hypothesis was that this note taking method produces lower effort, higher quality output, then the author either didn’t use the system or the book is evidence against its effectiveness

Thank you. Those are my thoughts exactly. The title was wrong: it should've been "Why to Take Smart Notes". I'd already decided I was interested before I ever bought the book and I wish it hadn't wasted 3/4 of pages trying to further convince me. I finished it and still had no idea how to practically implement the magical system it described.

I've also never read a book so packed with redundancy.

I kind of understood Zettelkasten only after I implemented it with slip notes in analogue form. I had read How to Take Smart Notes, zettelkasten.de, watched several videos, etc., but I only got more confused. Then I read Antinet Zettelkasten, by Scott Scheper, implemented the system on paper, and finally I understood the system. Now I could go back to Obsidian and implement my Zettelkasten in Obsidian again in a way that would be much more straightforward than what I had tried the first time (and honestly, sometimes I think of doing that because of the convenience of digital). But I enjoy writing on paper and using my fountain pens.