#index #information # Zettelkasten Ok, so if you've been around enough Personal Knowledge Management systems, you've probably heard of a Zettelkasten. Everyone talks about them and how great they are and how the creator of it managed to publish over 70 different books and 500 research articles or whatever by using this one simple knowledge management strategy. And you have to do it *EXACTLY THIS WAY OR ELSE YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG*. Or maybe you haven't. That's fine too. I'm still learning as I go (such is the way of [[Digital Gardens]]). Either way, you don't need to read this section over and over; if you're like me, you've already seen it on literally every other Obsidian Publish / Public Digital Garden page, etc. Zettelkasten is a German word meaning "slip box", and is a system of note taking in which notes are kept individually and maintain a single point of knowledge, each with its own specific address. The idea is that one would be able to lay out these notecards and link bits and pieces of information together to generate new and exciting ideas and information, which in turn generates more slips. ## My methodology with this space But you've got your fleeting notes, your literature notes and your permanent notes. My fleeting notes on topics often exist on the pages of which I consider them related to a media. to some effect this makes it a weak-literature note, but I honestly don't like stopping my engagement with a media to take a note. I suppose when reading it's relatively easy to do but in shows and games, it gets harder to do so. So in a sense I wrap fleeting and literature notes into one space, and if I really want exact quotes or references I can take myself out of the moment as needed. The permanent notes are the notes that come when I export a note from a media page, and are usually found in the Zettels folder. I don't like the term "permanent", and prefer the idea of "thesis" or "distilled" instead. I adopt Andy Matuschak's method of naming notes with a "thesis-like" statement, and then building upon it in the note itself, rather than an alpha-numeric system seen in traditional Zettelkasten systems or modern Antinet ZKs. As for me, I just like having bits and pieces accumulated on topics I find interesting. They may be relevant to my research, or not, but all together they're things that I feel are worth remembering. I prefer maintaining this electronically as it therefore allows me to make the "card" as big or as small as I'd like. For example, the proof on the [[Shockley-Ramo Theorem]] page of the theorem itself absolutely would not fit on an index card, no matter what. I can also use these pieces of random information to create little musings, which in turn may become pieces of academic or creative writing. It's quite helpful! When I think about the things I put into [[why myaiba|myaiba]], I'm not always trying to publish article and create / solve problems that exist. I am doing this as a way to generate new ideas and connections for myself, and then tracing those connections to create new ideas and so on. I don't feel like note-taking has to have an end goal, perhaps beyond being a more "learned" individual, if you want. Is the information all just sourced from Wikipedia? Well no, not the personal stuff at least. But the strictly informational stuff? I'll never tell. (though odds are it's from the pages in ZOTERO I cite for academic work :] )