MOCs Vs Zettelkasten: An 80/20 approach for those of us who aren't Luhmann?

[Ash2025]

Hey everyone,

​Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the complexity of our knowledge systems and found myself wondering: do we really need to connect every single note individually, all the time, as a purist Zettelkasten approach preaches?

​The power of the Zettelkasten for deep knowledge generation is undeniable. However, as it grows, its maintenance becomes increasingly time-consuming. Furthermore, we need to consider a few points:

​Historical Context: Luhmann designed his method in an analog world, without the tools we have today (tags, properties, automatic backlinks, powerful search).

​Our Goals: Most of us don’t have the same routine or objective as an academic researcher like him.

​Modern Tools: Apps like Obsidian already offer us multiple ways to create connections (tags, properties, folders) that go beyond the direct link.

​This led me to a hypothesis, based on the Pareto Principle:

​For most of us, wouldn’t a leaner approach focused on Atomic Notes grouped into MOCs (Maps of Content), perhaps with the PARA method for general organization, be a way to get 80% of the benefits of a Zettelkasten with just 20% of the effort?

​Instead of worrying about creating a spiderweb of links in every note, the focus would be on:
​Creating quality atomic notes.

​Intelligently grouping them into MOCs that serve as knowledge hubs for a topic, project, or problem.

​I find Richard Feynman’s approach, where each MOC could be an attempt to answer one of his “12 favorite problems,” to be a particularly powerful path.

​I know these systems aren’t mutually exclusive, but I’m questioning the emphasis. Could it be that the search for serendipity through constant manual linking ends up being overshadowed by the cost in time and effort, when we could have a cleaner, more direct system with MOCs?

​What are your thoughts? I’m very curious about your points of view:

​Has anyone here moved from a “pure” Zettelkasten to a system more focused on MOCs? What was your experience like?
​Is the “obsession” with direct linking practically an overkill for the average user?

​How do you balance structure (MOCs) with fluidity (links)?

​Thanks!

[davidlandry]

Like you already mentioned, I find the two approaches you describe are not in opposition but quite complementary.

Zettelkasten is well suited to trains of thought or sequences of statements and followups. A good example of a Zettelkasten note is something like “Component A is an essential part of understanding B”. Then you could follow it up with new notes like “Source C suggests this is wrong” and “Source D suggests this is true”. The links are quite important here because they mark the chain of reasoning.

MOCs are well suited to store factual information (to store “cats” under the MOC “animals”), so it’s a good way to organize your notes for easier retrieval. When I write notes in this style I keep in mind that I want to store “my perspective on cats, what I need to know about cats to accomplish my own goals”. Indeed, storing every information I come across about cats feels a bit pointless and high effort.

You equate Zettelkasten with “an obsession to linking”, I disagree. My Zettelkasten type notes tend to have less links than the MOC/factual notes, which have a similar link density to a wikipedia article.

For my vault, the consequence of this is that my Zettelkasten is a subset (a folder) of my collection of notes. Among all my notes, some of them are organized in a Zettelkasten way. Other notes are organized using MOCs.

About which one to emphasise, I think it will depend on your field of work. I work in a pretty technical area so MOCs and experimental notes end up representing most of the volume of notes. My conceptual notes about the big questions going on in my field of research are stored in Zettelkasten. There’s less of them but they feel very important in comparison.

[felixchenier]

I agree with the previous comment. I use Zettelkasten inside a PARA folder hierarchy without any problem, and both are clearly not in opposition. My main zettelkasten is a folder in my Resources folder. In any case, I think the most important is to keep the main idea of it (IMO it’s the concept of atomic notes), without thinking too much about storing and linking. In fact, this is the idea of digital tools such as Obsidian: they help you finding your notes anyway.

On a day-to-day basis, using a practical method such as PARA clears friction on what you’re working on, where to store notes, etc. So if you’re doing research on a project, why not store atomic notes in this project folder? And if you happen to create lots of atomic notes for this project, then maybe it’s time to move them to your resource folder and link them within a MOC?

This is what I do and it’s perfectly fine. Frankly I stopped trying to link things perfectly. Things that are useful tend to become linked correctly anyway, other stuff tends to be a little bit farther but still searchable, and that’s ok I guess.

[liberated_potato]

Lately I have been studying different modes of failures associated with Zettelkasten. If you are not careful, eventually it will get out of control (too much friction in data input, excessive maintenance, and low ROI) and need to be abandoned. You are asking the right questions. Luhmann was a certain type of individual with certain interests. Zettelkasten was perfect for him, but given the current state of things we don’t have to stick with that. Still, we can take good things from it and build something better for modern life. Linking too much can create unnecessary noise. There’s a big difference between having a mental link (deeply understanding something) and simply adding a wiki link to a note.

I use MOCs (and links through frontmatter properties) in my system to encourage the emergence of ideas, concepts, or themes and create groups or clusters in different contexts. With the new bases feature, building MOCs can be automated by embedding a generic base in your MOC file. I primarily connect notes through front matter, as this creates semantic links that help me answer specific questions using simple searches, bases, or dataview. E.g. (1) Give me a list of all files that have this (MOC) in its moc property. This is the generic base I was talking about. If you have this, whenever you open an MOC note, it will automatically list notes that are part of that MOC. (2) Give me all the Zettels (I don’t use this term but consider it like a high value note type) associated with this MOC. (3) Give me all the reference notes (I use this note type to indicate external content) associated with a specific MOC. (4) Give me all the Zettels that contradict with this note (can be a MOC or whatever).

​Is the “obsession” with direct linking practically an overkill for the average user?

Absolutely, most people only realize it after their first failure. If you’re a researcher or content creator, using it correctly can definitely bring better ROI. Otherwise, there are far more worthwhile things to do in life than spending a significant amount of time adding and maintaining links in your notes for no clear purpose.

​Has anyone here moved from a “pure” Zettelkasten to a system more focused on MOCs? What was your experience like?

The short answer is yes. If I summarize my experience, first figure out why you are doing this, then create a system that you both enjoy using and that helps you reach your goals. It seems like you’re already heading in the right direction.

[bobdoto]

It feels like you’re emphasizing the “linking” aspect (which is a technical practice) over the “meaning making” aspect, which is what’s actually taking place. With a zettelkasten, we’re not trying to aimlessly link “every” idea (though we may use this language out of convenience). We’re establishing relationships between ideas in an effort to make meaning and establish depth. Linking is simply the technical thing done to establish connections. It’s a function of the platforms we use. Making meaning, establishing relevance, creating complexity of thought, etc. This is what we’re actually doing. When that becomes the focus, the “number of links” is just a by-product.

As for MOCs… We have something called “structure notes,” which are used to explore, develop, and refine our thinking. As a by product, these can function as “maps” (in that there are often links to single-idea notes in these longer notes), but their primary purpose is to provide a space to develop our thinking further.

Side note: The larger my zettelkasten gets, the less I need to tend to it. Not sure where the “it gets harder and harder to maintain” myth comes from. Most long-time users I know move in and out of it with considerable ease.