Today my Zettelkasten turns 2 years and 25 days old. He’s already a real toddler.
You can probably still remember the first steps with your own Zettelkasten. It was really fun to get to know the many functions of Obsidian and especially the great plugins. A big thank you to the community here in the Obsidian Forum. She supported us excellently. And often without realizing it, we have used and appreciated many gamification functions of our Zettelkasten.
The time has passed extremely quickly. Many of us have now left the “discovery” and “onboarding” phases of Zettelkasten behind us. Having fun at the beginning has become a habit.
But will it be boring to work with the Zettelkasten now? What is your experience?
The “8 core drivers of gamification” applied to Zettelkasten are shown in the so-called Octalysis diagram [1] above.
Which elements of gamification do you particularly like to use at the moment to keep your Zettelkasten fun and motivated?
Terms:
Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and engaging elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities.
I don’t know the exact principles contained in the gamification theory, but I think too that the combination of Zettelkasten and Obsidian (or equivalent tool) develops many benefic gaming dynamics.
A well done process can develop as a game and move away negative effects such boredom, sense of labor, and so on.
I’ve only a single note about Zettelkasten and gamification, it is not yet developed, I’ve only drafted some ideas to develop in the future:
Zettelkasten seen like a dance
Zettelkasten seen like sculpture, the knowledge seen as a statue that I’ve to free from the exceeding marble time after time (like Michelangelo saw his work)
Knowledge development seen like a puzzle to compose, or Lego bricks to build
A Knowledge domain to face like an adventure game quest to accomplish
The progress effect, you easily notice that you become as better as you practice, is very engaging (what you’ve called sense of growth)
The challenging effect, the need to resolve tasks and problems pursuing a goal, is engaging
Zettelkasting develops in me a creative capability I thought I didn’t have, even this is very engaging
the community effect you already cited
the eureka moments and serendipity effects have a very important impact in motivating you
the process need not only the operative level of writing notes, but developing tactics and strategy too just like games
Do you already know the Obsidian Gamification Plugin designed by Andreas Trebing? It’s a tool designed to harness the motivating power of game techniques and apply it to our pursuit of knowledge.
. Two of your metaphors I love most: