216 - Difficulties in Note Taking
As you think about creating software (Obsidian) and designing systems (Zettelkasten) it is important to keep in mind what problems you are trying to solve. It helps keep you focused and gives you an anchor to connect new thinking too.
What are the major problems people face with note taking?
I saw this nice post on the zettelkasten De forum about one persons struggles with traditional methods.
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I’ve had a problem in the past thinking too much instead of putting things into action
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get stuck on deciding on categories and where to file certain things
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As for my notes, it was the retrieval process that was most difficult. I’ve often had trouble with tags, because I would have multiple versions of the same tag, but with slight variations in phrasing, spelling, hyphens, etc
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the one thing that tripped me up was the lack of flexibility involved with systems such as the GTD. So I would have questions that I would tack on, or further ideas for exploration after having written a ZT, but nowhere central to find these questions again
Luhmann’s Note Taking Problem
Why Luhmann started engaging with Card Indexing
before he had any institutional affiliation with academia, he was already conscious of the fact that the notes he took from his readings at the time, would not be collected for a limited publication project but for a far more extensive endeavor, eventually for a lifelong project. The shortcomings of the common methods of organizing notes by collecting them in folders motivated him early on to start a card-based filing system.
“The shortcomings of the common methods of organizing notes by collecting them in folders” - I’ve heard of people working with folders before such as the Noguchi Filing System and Shane Parish of Farnam Street Blog (may be wrong, can’t find exact source for this). I’ve never used a folders system, so I’m curious what is the shortcomings with it? My hunch would be people get caught up in categorizing and deciding what folder to use.
Adopting the Emerging Practice of Card Indexing
In organizing his research in this way, Luhmann adopted a system of organizing knowledge that had emerged in the wake of early modern scholarship along with the rapidly growing number of available publications since the Sixteenth century and the practice of excerpting that followed: card indexing.
Perfecting Card Indexing
He went on to develop the potential for systematic knowledge production inherent in this filing technique to perfection by devising a very specific system of organization and referencing which seems to be an analogical pre-adaptive advance of the modern form of digital database. Luhmann’s card index allows the production of new and often unexpected knowledge by relating concepts and thoughts that do not have much in common at first sight
Problem of Categorization