Share your Zettel note template

Hello :wave:,

I am trying to wrap my head around zettelkasten. Just wanted to see the templates of your zettel. Can you guys share them here

Thanks in advance

21 Likes

Sure! Just to clarify, Iā€™m also super new to this, so Iā€™m not suggesting mine is in the top tier by any means. Iā€™m playing with the idea of having a couple of templates depending on function, but as a rule most of my notes should end up being permanent notes in the style of a zettel.

So a permanent note is:

---

Source: 

Tags: 

---

# yyyyMMddHHmm Title

Notes

---

### Links
- [[]]

And Iā€™m using Rocket Typist as a text expander to generate that whenever I type ā€œz.etā€.

8 Likes

Thanks for you post. Hereā€™s mine for A permanent note. Use textexpander.

Previous note refers to the thread of the idea not the actual previous note (like in physical slipbox reference system).

Consider refers to links in my slipbox

Source refers to where I found the resource (or who recommended it to me) as a way of tracking thinking and influence

Local link is a Hook link to the pdf (including pdf export of web page) on my hard drive

Thereā€™s some redundancy at the end but I donā€™t mind that (and it doesnā€™t cause any resistance for me).

My slip-box is pretty new but thereā€™s an open version on GitHub at github.com/skellis46/slipbox if you are interested (mostly arts and humanities academic research).

title

previous note:


questions & thoughts:


consider:

source:

local link:

citekey & zotero link:

reference:

12 Likes

Hereā€™s mine, when consuming content.

[[reading]]
Tags : 
Date : 
Content creator : 
Source : 
Status : #triage

# Notes
# Draft notes

Once Iā€™ve turned my draft notes into proper structured notes, I remove the #triage tag.

13 Likes
Tags: 
Links: 
Zettelkasten: 20200802223555
summary: 


***
# title
content

## references
[[paper2020]]
5 Likes

I keep mine super simple. I donā€™t want to feel like Iā€™m filling out a DMV form every time I create a note, I donā€™t want to deal with formatting and moving a curser around labels, and I donā€™t want to create friction that might stand in the way of capturing a note. I have three placeholders for tags below, but most notes will only have one. Also, I used to use a timestamp UID at the front of the title/file name, but decided to stop doing that last week in the name of readability.

ā€”

[Title]

#tag #tag #tag

[Body]

[Source]

ā€”

12 Likes

I have a similar approach of simplicity. I use this template for both literature and permanent notes.

Summary

Notes

Links

Reference

3 Likes

No UID (still donā€™t see the point). I also make use of the ā€œPage Previewā€ plugin to provide pop-ups while reading. To make that more powerful every note starts with a short summary or ā€œultra-atomicā€ version of the note so that on pop-up I see the distilled point of a topic right at the top of a note. I place a high value on that real estate that shows in the pop-up so all the metadata is placed at the end of the note.

summary/key point of note

Title (H3)

Note body with 5H section headers as needed (optimized for transclusion)


Author: []
Source: []
Related: (important links which were not used in body of note)
Tags: (status, function, type of note)

With all that said Iā€™d add that my notes are not pure Zettlekasten, my use case is more of a combination Z (on subjects Iā€™m investigating) plus a commonplace book/knowledge base. For notes that are factual recitations I may use less title and more bullet points right at the top for pop-up view. Book summary notes are similar (still a single most important point at top) but include a secton for my key takeaways at top followed by some level of highlight extractions or outline of text depending on how deep I went.

13 Likes

I have two kinds of notes: A source note and permanent notes or thoughts. For the Source notes I use a zettle number and I have a template through a text snippet using Alfred

Title

Date and Time (automatically inserted)

Source:

Topic:

Tags: #

Keywords:

Relevance note:

Possible links:

For the permanent note/thought I have the following template also triggered by a text snippet through Alfred.

Title

Date and time (automatically inserted)

Relevance:

Tags: ##

Key words:

Source notes:

Possible links:


2 Likes
Status : #triage

I like your Status idea. Do you use any other types? Do do you delete ā€œStatus:ā€ one you are done?

I delete Status once done (since then I donā€™t use the notes by themselves anymore, just in other pieces of content), but am open to suggestions :slight_smile:

Side note - to accommodate backlinks to content that I create based on those notes, Iā€™ve recently added a ā€œLinkedā€ subheader. In this specific content I want those links to be more visible than in the backlinks panel :slight_smile:

4 Likes

Iā€™ve got a few templates that I use depending on the content, and I have improved them based on the feedback here already. I use Alfred, and have these stored as snippets that get pasted in place pretty easily.

Standard Template

# Title
Status: #triage
Tags: #sn
Date: {date:short}
Type: [[Articles]] <!-- Media type, if there is one -->
Related: <!-- Links to pages not referenced in the content -->

## Notes
<!-- The main content of my thoughts really -->
- 

## Questions
<!-- What remains for you to consider? -->
- 

## Terms
<!-- Links to definition pages -->
- 

Book Template

# Title
Status: #triage
Tags: #sn #genre
Date: {date:short}
Author: [[Author Name]]
Type: [[Books]]
Related: <!-- Links to pages not referenced in the content -->

## Summary
<!-- No more than a couple paragraphs summarizing my thoughts -->


## Notes
<!-- The main content of my thoughts really -->
- 

## Quotes
<!-- Notable quotes with reference to their page or location -->
- 

## Questions
<!-- What remains for you to consider? -->
- 

## Terms
<!-- Links to definition pages -->
-
 

Glossary Template

# Term
<!-- Definition goes here -->

Date: {date:short}
Tags: #glossary
Type: [[Glossary]]

I donā€™t really have a template for Permanent Notes, yet. But will share it when I do!

13 Likes

For literature notes:

Title

Metadata

  • Type: #literature-note #video OR #article OR etc.
    Date written: [[2020-08-14, Fri]]
    Date read/watched: [[1998-12-18, Fri]]
    Author: [[author]]
    Source:
    Status: #wip
    Keywords:

Notes:

  • Inmensae subtilitatis, obscuris et malesuada fames.

For permanent notes:

Title

Fabio vel iudice vincam, sunt in culpa qui officia. Inmensae subtilitatis, obscuris et malesuada fames. Ambitioni dedisse scripsisse iudicaretur. Nec dubitamus multa iter quae et nos invenerat. Petierunt uti sibi concilium totius Galliae in diem certam indicere.

A communi observantia non est recedendum. Vivamus sagittis lacus vel augue laoreet rutrum faucibus. Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae.


Metadata:

Type: #permanent-note

Status: #wip

Timestamp: [[2020-08-14, Fri]] 12:22

Keywords:

References:

  • [[literature note]]
  • [[literature note#corresponding heading]]

keywords are left empty as Iā€™m still deciding on whether I should be using tags or links for them, and whether I should also add keywords for literature notes

5 Likes

Instead of saying related, you can call source/sources

Where do you all stand on file name and note title? The same? Different? If the same do you add the title to the top of the note or do you let the file name carry that load on its own?

2 Likes

For the permanent note:

[[Permanent note]]

  • Source:
  • Related:
  • Content:
  • Comment:
  • Todo:
3 Likes

Does anyone tag their dates or backlink their dates? just in case you wanted to see every single note you made in a current day or month of the year in a graph or list?

1 Like

Every permanent note of mine has a link to its corresponding daily note plus time. It not only acts as a timestamp, but it also lets me see all the notes Iā€™ve made for a specific day via the daily noteā€™s backlinks.

Note sure if that answers your question but there ya go

3 Likes

Below is what I have come up with. It is a template and a workflow/process heavily inspired by ā€œHow To Take Smart Notesā€ by Sonke Ahrens. Still a work in progress but hopefully of help.

I am using a hybrid Zettlekasten system by capturing the literature notes physically on index cards and then transferring/elaborating into Obsidian as per below.

Zettlekasten Permanent Note Template

tags:
links: Home Index Link - any others you may wish

Idea goes here

Lorem ipsumā€¦ - with embedded in-situ links in your idea text
#TBC (This tag can be used to search for notes which still need elaboration and/or were just captured quickly whilst in-flow from other notes)

1. Key Phrasesā€¦ Thinkā€¦

  • How to retrieve?
  • When will I need to know this?
  • What contexts?
    #KeyPhraseTag1 #KeyPhraseTag2 ā€¦

2. Elaborationā€¦ Thinkā€¦

Connections | Consequences | Implicationsā€¦

  • Why is this of interest?
  • What else does this relate to?
  • Where have i heard this before?
  • What does the opposite of this mean?
  • Compare how this fits with X or Y
  • Contrast with Z
  • How can this be combined with other ZKN notes?
  • What is missing?
  • What are the similarities?
  • How does this connect to XYZ?
  • How does this fit with what i know?
  • Can this be explained by something else?
  • What are the limitations?
  • Is this convincing?
  • Can this be disproved?
  • Why X 5?
  • What if this is wrong?
  • What ifā€¦
  • So what?

3. Related Literature Link

  • RN: RYYMMDDHHMM
  • LITERATURELINK GOES HERE - link to the book/article/paper you have captured as a note

Note: Other Zettlekasten links should go in text in situ

4. Classify

Does this fit in with a topic and what about new topics to the index?

5. CMD-SHIFT-R - Force fit

See if a random note can give new ideas/insights to the current thought

22 Likes

use configurations: Show frontmatter, Slides, VIM mode

Itā€™s easy for me to delete each line with a vim command ā€˜ddā€™.

---
title:
create: {{date}} {{time}}
type: note
type: post
type: thinking
---

#categoryA
#categoryB
#categoryC
#categoryD

---

I want {{tile}} which is changed to the note title.

3 Likes