Thread by @eugeneyan

Regular note-taking didn't work for me.

Notes stay separate—connections are not made.

I fixed this by building a Zettelkasten using @RoamResearch.

(Zettelkasten originates from highly prolific sociologist Niklas Luhmann. He wrote 70 books & 500 scholarly articles.)

Thread 👇

(1/4) Here's how a Zettelkasten works:

• Write each idea you come across on a card
• Link idea cards to other relevant idea cards (idea -> idea link)
• Sort cards into broader topic boxes (idea -> topic link)

Here's how you can build a digital one using Roam.

(2/4) Literature notes

• Add useful docs (papers, books) as a literature note
• Metadata includes: #literaturenote tag, source, author
• Summarise content, each key idea as a simple sentence
• Elaborate on each key idea with some bullet points

(3/4) Permanent notes

• I then convert key ideas into permanent notes based on:
• Would I explore this further? Or can I connect this to other ideas?
• Metadata includes: #permanentnote tag, #topic tags, literature note link, relevant permanent notes
• Add summary in prose

(4/4) Topics

• This comes free if you've been adding #topic tags
• You can now jump into topics via tags and navigate via links of relevant permanent notes

Here's the graph of my humble Zettelkasten.

More details: eugeneyan.com/2020/04/05/not…