Lately I’ve been incorporating the Zettelkasten system in obsidian, which has as its fundamental principle not to categorize, that is, letting the notes link together, but lately I’ve been getting a little anxious about combining things even though I thought I was getting used to it. . For example, I was studying a little biomedicine and writing notes, then I decided to study a little programming and now other topics catch my attention, but now it is difficult for me to put new information since everything is combined, I am a little upset that I put programming information for some reason, I thought about trying to get all those notes related to programming, but it will be difficult since when applying Zettelkasten they are not ordered by categories.
My question to you is how selective you are in using Zettelkasten, do you only put information that you don’t want to forget or only what really catches your attention?
Has that happened to you when you put information that you thought was good at the time, but then you regretted it?
1 Like
I have been using the Zettelkasten system in obsidian for academical writing and note-taking for over a year now. I do not know, if Zettelkasten always has the principle not to categorize; I rather view it as a way to put one note into more than one category.
For me, it works to have different basic categories of format. For example, I have the category „notes“ (marked as = in front of the title) where it is only informational notes (real Zettelkasten-notes). Then I have a category which is academic literature, where I put summaries and so on (marked as @ in front of the title, then combined with Zotero). I have about 6 or so categories of that basic sort.
For my Zettelkasten, I tried working with links without content (i.e. I read something and find something informative and just put in a link without creating a note), but for me, that resulted in absolute chaos. That’s why I only create links with notes now and introduced Maps of Contents (MoC): I have nested MoC (marked as
which basically work like a folder system (i.e. MoC general has general notes or MoC like „; maths“ or „; history“, this then has more MoC or links and so on). Whenever I think of something important, read something etc. I create a note with a telling name (not „maths“ but „= Which ontological status have mathematical objects in Aristotle“) and then link it to at least one note which is ABOVE it in my mind/Zettelkasten, most often a MoC. I can also connect it to more than one, which I often do, as for example here, I would put it in the MoC of „maths“ „Aristotle“ and „Ontology“ or at least link it to it (I do both usually…). I always try to think of a) how I can find that particular note when I look for it and b) where would I like to find the note by chance without looking for it.
To your questions: I am not very selective. Whenever I find something interesting, I create a note, link it and explain, why I found it relevant or interesting. If that does not interest me any more, I just leave it be – it might change again and it does not bother me.
I hope that helps 
There are also a lot of videos of different people and how they do it on youtube. I watched a lot, developed my own system and have been optimizing it.
My question would be, what is it about these notes that you don’t like?
You say you regret putting the programming notes in there. Why is that? What problem do they cause? Do they clutter search results? Do you just not like looking at them in the list?
I think getting to the root of the issue like this can help you find a solution. First you have to identify what it is you’re actually trying to solve, y’know?
I think general practice is to keep everything.
I do use folders in my PKM system; at the end of the day it’s just another way of organising information, on top of tags, links, etc.
I have archive folders for things I don’t care about anymore on a subject, though those notes are still in there, and I could probably find the note again and branch off of it with my new thoughts.