I am currently reading this book and taking notes. I realise now that I have read it before and made a comment about it on Goodreads.
I agree with the things the writer says in this book but it is incredibly dense and not really an accessible read. Also the complete lack of examples makes it a much harder book to take in.
I intend to finish it and take notes throughout but I am finding that my notes for each chapter are becoming more and more sparse.
There must be many other people here who have read this book and I just wondered what peoples thoughts may be on it.
The reviews on Goodreads are very divided.
What are your thoughts on it? Did you find it helpful when setting up your slip box in Obsidian?
For me reading “How to take smart notes” is a must. Without understanding the WHY it’s hard to discover the essential practices. The second book I would recommend is a book from Bob Doto. It shows the HOW of a Zettelkasten process:
I haven’t read A System for Writing—thanks for the recommendation!
I just finished David Kadavy’s book, Digital Zettelkasten: Principles, Methods, & Examples, which also shows the HOW of Zettelkasten and is a good follow-up to the Ahrens book.
I know what you mean.
One critique I have of How to Take Smart Notes is that the intended audience seems to be both students and academics, which makes it both a very boring and very difficult read, depending on which side you’re coming from.
But I do think the Ahrens book is intentionally repetitive and purposefully densely packed. Let me explain.
The book shows that simple ideas are often the most powerful and easily overlooked. Saying something like “writing is thinking” sound trite, but it’s crucial to understanding the why of Zettelkasten.
Taking the time to hammer the point home seems necessary to me given how little space we make for considering simple ideas.
Furthermore, the vast amount of supporting evidence Ahrens presents serves to amplify the impact of his claims.
That said, I still find it equally beneficially to investigate both the HOW’s and the WHY’s here.
I think the principles of using the Zettelkasten system are actually quite simple.
The problem for me is my absolute need to categorise everything and put everything in folders. This is what I am used to after using things like Evernote.
It’s a slow process of understanding for me but I will take it step by step. I think by just playing with Obsidian I might find what works and doesn’t work for me.
I just recently restructured my vault to better reflect my current understanding. My vault combines elements from Zettelkasten, PARA, Johnny.Decimal, and LYT. Maybe it will interest you.
✦ (Inbox)
Areas
Calendar
Collections
Entities&People
Sources
System
X (Projects)
Z (Zettelkasten)
What I like about this structure is it makes distinct spaces in my vault for different aspects of PKM, or types of notes.
Areas is for ongoing life areas vs X (Projects) is for one-time efforts
Calendar is for periodic notes, meeting notes, logs—things with an inherent timestamp
Collections is for retrieval of information vs. Z (Zettelkasten) is for thinking about ideas
Entities&People and Sources both help track references and citations
I also have a Personal Relationship Manager for networking
System is for vault resources (templates, attachments, scripts, etc.)
Thanks for this @dylanjr . This makes more sense to me.
I read somewhere how Obsidian really is the kind of thing that needs to be personalised. It’s totally unlike other note taking apps where it’s like a cookie-cutter principle.
But your folder ideas made things a lot more clearer to me.
