New User: Zettlekasten-ish simple setup

Knowledge management
1

I have now read a lot about Obsidian and PKM both (did not even know PKM was a thing).

My use case is pretty simple, a kind of Zettlekasten-ish:

  1. Capture notes
  2. start linking them together to see what patterns emerge.
  3. no folder hierarchy (the main reason I am leaving OneNote.)
  4. no need for task management, to do type stuff.
  5. setup for success so that when my knowledge base is huge, I don’t have to redo a lot.
  6. I am not an academic, but do want to include references so I know where stuff came from/.

Does anyone have a vault to view that does something similarly?

Looking through all the plugins, I am not seeing a lot I should need, but I want to make sure. DataView seems interesting, but not for this early. Is that true? Should I use Templatizer or stick with the native Template system, since I am new and don’t need sophisticated stuff.

Ambitiously,
S

2

Starting with plain Obsidian makes sense. You don’t need third party plugins to build a Zettelkasten.

However I think it is to early to worry about No 5. You will have to redo a lot, no matter where you start. It takes a while to find out, what works for you. So don’t worry. Change is part of the game.

I recommend you start with a test vault for your first experiments. Be prepared to start over after an initial test phase. The test serves two purposes:

  • Learning Obsidian’s basic features. Be patient, there’s a lot to learn! https://help.obsidian.md
  • Exploring your own needs. I recommend you write real notes about stuff that really matters to you.

For a starter vault I recommend some technical folders Something like this:

references/
zettels/

In references you collect your bibliographical notes about the resource you reference. In zettels you collect your own thoughts.

Don’t worry about numbering schemes and naming conventions. You’ll change them anyway. The only thing that matters is that file names should be unique in your vault. Not two file names should have the same name. Evverything else is a matter of taste and preference (and endless heated online discussions).

BTW, it’s good to have many notes. Paradoxically Zettelkasten becomes easier with more notes. Your test vault should have at least 100 notes.

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3

This is excellent, thank you! I especially appreciate your setting expectations in terms of redoing items. Let me get started then!

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4

Maintaining “Literature notes” next to the “Permanent notes” is part of the Zettelkasten system. In the Literature note, you indicate full reference information about the note. You can also note anything other related to that work or reference, including citations that stuck with you, own thoughts about a specific section, etc.

You create permanent notes based on your Fleeting notes (which are soon discarded after use) and Literature notes. Permanent notes are brief, well elaborated and clear, self-contained notes about a single well-defined idea. You should link these as good as possible to related ideas that are already in your Zettelkasten. In the permanent note, you include reference to the literature note(s) on which the idea was based off.

Maintaining a Zettelkasten system with pure Obsidian will hardly involve “starting over”. Instead, it involves maintenance. With time, as you grow, you will be cleaning up - editing and even deleting old notes. By maintaining your Zettelkasten, it will evolve into an ever more useful resource for you.

Maintaining a Zettelkasten involves effort and engagement. However, if you do so, rather sooner than later you will come to a point where you suddenly realize that having your Zettelkasten made a difference. These moments will be more frequent as the Zettelkasten grows and matures. With time, your Zettelkasten will become an like old friend with whom you consult regularly for insight and advise.

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5

… unless it turns out that pure Zettelkasten is not the best fit for one’s needs. :wink:

I recommend an exploratory phase, so that new users get some practical experience with the tool Obsidian first. Writing notes with Markdown is very different from writing notes in OneNote.

Once they get the hang of basic features like Markdown formatting, links, tags, properties and search, those deeper discussions about organizing principles and PKM methods become more relevant.

IMO the Zettelkasten method works well for a certain style of academic writing. But for other purposes it might make sense to complement it with other concepts liks like a generic inbox or daily notes.

Obsidian as a tool has all the necessary features for building a Zettelkasten. But with the same features one could also build a pretty Digital Garden, a deeply linked personal Wiki, a chronological journal, a messy “collection of interesting stuff”, and much more.

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6

My zettelkasten is stored in Obsidian and relies on almost no community plugins. [Checks Obsidian vault] Nope, nothing particular to my zettelkasten folder.

IME, the zk structure works best when it’s pared down to its basics. You can start with something that isn’t integral, but is sort of universally helpful:

  • An inbox for holding quick captures/unprocessed notes (stored outside the zettelkasten)

Then, inside the Zettelkasten, you can have:

  • A folder for reference/literature notes
  • A folder for main notes (the single-idea notes)

Any additional folders for high-level views of what’s going on down in the anarchic network of main notes can be added over time, if you find a need for them. These include:

  • Hub notes (notes that point to specific trains of thought developing in the zettelkasten)
  • Structure notes (notes where you can unpack and further develop specific trains of thought)
  • Keyword index (with “Search” this isn’t particularly necessary, but some people like the experience of using one)

Of course, all of this can be stored in one folder, but I appreciate the ability to compartmentalize things now and again. Hope this helps.

7

It wasn’t mentioned it yet, but a Zettelkasten-ish setup can also contain project notes.

Acccording to Sönke Ahrens, tools like Obsidian “allow you to create project-specific pages, where you can not only structure your thoughts and conceptualise the chapters of your draft, but also collect and sort the notes for this specific project without fear that they will water down or interfere with the slip-box itself.”

Therefore a fuller Zettelkasten-ish setup could look like this:

indices/
projects/
  project1/
  project2/
  project3/
references/
zettels/

In this example, the folder indices/ would include indices, like a keyword index, and what is known as maps of content (MOC), hub notes, structure notes, … Personally, I have very few of those notes. This kind of thinking usually happens in the context of a project, like outlining a blog article, so I keep those notes in project folders.

My brain finds puristic Zettelkasten somewhat limiting. I use Obsidian on computer, tablet and phone. I’m not manually stuffing tiny pieces of paper in small wooden boxes. Today’s networked and mobile digital tools enable workflows, that were impossible in Luhmann’s lifetime. For a more contemporary digital workflow I added folders like these:

daily notes/
definitions/
downloads/
inbox/
media/
people/

General purpose folders like inbox/, daily notes/ and downloads/ contain notes and files, that don’t have a better place yet. It’s not only fleeting notes (Sönke Ahrens), but also longer notes from various sources. I’m still undecided on how to call these notes and files. I’m still undecided where to put them. But I want to have those notes in my vault, so I can find them with Obsidian’s Search—right now. (Basically these is the messy part of my vault, where I collect stuff.)

The special purpose folder definitions/ is about precision. Here I store notes that define things precisely. I treat them similar to Wikipedia articles. For example I have a note Zettelkasten method.md, that defines what the Zettelkasten method is and who came up with these definitions. I try to assume Wikipedia’s Neutral Point of View (NPOV). These notes are not about what I think, they are about what other people think.

The special purpose folder people/ contains notes about those other people, one note for one person. For example I have a note Niklas Luhmann.md, that contains some biographical data, quotes and links.

The folder media/ is my default location for new attachments in Obsidian. (See Settings > Files and links > Default location for new attachments > Attachment folder path.)

TL;DR: Some more options to expolore before going all-in Zettelkasten.

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8

Definitely. Luhmann created a system that worked for him, like so many before him. I don’t see why anyone else shouldn’t do the same.

My goal in ZK discussions is to help people understand the concepts (and the many ways they’re understood), the terminology as it’s typically employed, and the basics of what a setup looks like. From there, they should make all sorts of decisions based on personal use case, interests, aesthetics, etc.

Enough knowledge to make informed decisions.