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@writingslowly Enjoyed this post when it appeared in my RSS feed. Very relevant to some stuff I’ve been working through this weekend.
@writingslowly I'd spent the day converting many of my old letters to markdown. I'm toying with the idea of setting up an .md archive of old journals, etc. I was dithering re. whether they belong in my main Obsidian vault or somewhere separate. I'm keeping them separate for the time-being. But I've previously had similar dithers about what you call 'mini essays', and those ended up in my vault. Now I'm wondering whether to transfer the archived essays to my new vault. (But I needn't decide yet.)
@writingslowly Thank you for your perspective. Firstly, I’ll agree with the AI comment: I’ve tried using it for summaries, but the info just doesn’t sink in the same as just reading the source.
I’ve long been a notetaker but only became aware of Zettelkasten when it cropped up as a flavor-of-the-week topic online a few years ago. My success with it has been hit-or-miss. Much more “miss” rather than “hit.”
See, I’m a “piler” and not a “filer.” I don’t instinctively categorize and organize things. And any attempt to systemize ideas just leaves me frustrated from the friction. Lately, Temple Grandin’s “Visual Thinking” has got me considering a less textual and more visual approach, but I’m only beginning to think about what that means for sorting and recalling information on cards.
I began keeping a “digest” note on my phone for when I was AFK. The intent was to process it out to something more “permanent” in my card index. But I found that scrolling through this pile of notes, quotes, reflections, and ideas was more effective for me than trying to juggle a bunch of disparate “fleeting,” “atomic,” or “bibliographic” notes. I eventually just started putting all my thoughts, ideas, and reading highlights in the one file.
There is something about the chronological adjacency that helps me percolate more than shuffling between linked cards. Perhaps I just re-invented the diary, but I think there’s more to it than that. At least with the quote-temporary-unquote digest note that I’ve been adding to for almost 3 years, I’m able to insert additional ideas or commentary. I’d hesitate to call anything in there a mini-essay, but it’s at least an expansion on the original idea.
I’m not sure if all of that means that ZK is not for me. Maybe I could use your idea to just i.d. everything: export the entries to cards with a timestamp, store chronologically and use the timestamps to link more far-flung items.
Anyway, apologies for thinking out loud at you. I’m just glad to find someone who not only uses Zettelkasten for general-purpose information storage and retrieval, but who also doesn’t engage with it like it’s a religion. Thanks for the post!
@brandoncarey this is a very interesting process. I’m a piler not a filer. I try to give the pile just enough structure to be useful - the Zettelkasten concepts help. Like you, I feel the best ‘system’ is the one that works for me. But there’s always room for improvement!