r/Zettelkasten

I found myself deep in thought as I read through the insightful comments you shared regarding the pressure I felt when looking at my 100 cards.

At first, looking at those 100 cards, I mistakenly believed that the final output could only be achieved if every single card fit together perfectly. I focused on the individual pieces in every way I could

However, I eventually realized that the process doesn’t have to wait until every piece is perfectly aligned. The process itself—doing my best within the allotted time and confidently producing a result—is far more important than the final output itself

If I wait until the cards are perfectly organized, won’t I end up unable to create even a single result?

Written with the help of Google Translate

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I last posted in this community. To be honest, I completely set my Zettelkasten aside for about four months because my new job didn't leave me with any free time. When I finally returned, I realized a few blind spots about how I had been using my slipbox that are worth discussing.

1.Getting addicted to collecting information and losing sight of the big picture. When we first start using Zettelkasten, almost all of us get hooked on connecting ideas—so much so that we lose sight of our core objective. Looking back at some topics from a bird's-eye view, I realized certain subjects were over-researched with endless repetitive ideas. This was the direct result of neglecting higher-level notes like structure notes. If I had maintained a structure note, I would have easily spotted the gaps in my knowledge.

For instance, I wasted time creating 50 main notes just introducing the benefits of learning vocabulary with Anki. Meanwhile, I left crucial angles completely unexplored—like practical application, Anki's drawbacks, or real-world experience. Consequently, the topic dragged on endlessly until it died out. From my experience, setting deadlines, updating structure notes daily, and actively reflecting on your next steps while creating new main notes will keep your projects moving forward.

2. Literature notes turned out to be mostly useless clutter. I used to spend way too much time organizing literature notes and polishing every single sentence. In reality, I almost never went back to review them. I had assumed every excerpt would be referenced back to the source text or serve 'this or that project' down the line, but in practice, those literature notes just sat there collecting digital dust.

3. Over-crafting main notes. I reviewed hundreds of my main notes recently. Some were written with immense care, but reading them now, I can barely understand my own train of thought. In some cases, the author stated something simply, but my rephrasing made it twice as complicated. I’ve come to realize that if you clearly grasp what the author means on first read, verbatim quotes work just fine. You should only rewrite ideas in your own words when the author’s original explanation is genuinely confusing or hard to digest.

4. Connections are useless if you don't re-read both linked notes. I checked a few pairs of directly linked notes and realized they read like two idiots having a completely nonsensical conversation. To fix this habit, I now split my Obsidian screen into two or three panes when writing a new main note: one pane for the new note and the rest for existing notes. This allows me to keep the original context fresh in mind and write new ideas that actually remain coherent with the old ones.

5. I don't have time for formal writing, but I do have time to write guides for myself. Starting a new job made me realize that taking time to research and learn something new is far more critical than working blindly. I could watch two dozen tutorials for work, but I’d forget I had a Zettelkasten to capture that knowledge. I wasted time re-searching 5–10 text snippets scattered across 20 Chrome tabs, totally forgetting I could just turn those damn snippets into main notes under a structure note for quick reference whenever I forgot something.

6. A Zettelkasten only works well when your mind is clear. By clear, I mean forgetting what already exists in your slipbox. During my year or so of using ZK, my brain was constantly trying to memorize the contents of my existing notes. Ideas kept looping in my head, paralyzing my writing. Whenever I sat down to write, conflicting points would pop up and force me into endless editing.

Taking a four-month break changed everything. Having forgotten most of what I wrote, rediscovering my old notes became enjoyable. I follow the links, process the ideas, and drop them into my drafts. Now I can draft mini-essays without feeling overwhelmed at all.

In short, if you're suffering from information hoarding in your Zettelkasten, step away for a while. Let your future self evaluate the system with fresh eyes—you'll find that many of the rigid habits you built are much easier to fix than you think.

Stepping away for four months gave me the mental clarity I needed. Exploring new domains beyond pure writing helped me realize three things upon returning: my slipbox had plenty of junk worth discarding, a few genuine gems worth keeping, and whole new ways to actually make the system work for me.

I recently started using Obsidian to try out the Zettelkasten method, and I’m really enjoying it so far. I think the whole idea is really interesting, but because of my interests, I quickly started taking notes about way too many things. 😂

I’ve also come across a bunch of videos and posts showing completely different ways of organizing things, which honestly made me even more curious about how other people set up their own vaults.
I’m into a lot of different things: movies, TV shows, anime, manga, comics, literature, etc. I also enjoy creating content and writing stories. On top of that, I want to start organizing my studies for college and future competitive exams.

I’m not necessarily looking for a system that can somehow organize all of that using Zettelkasten, Obsidian, or anything specific. I’d actually just like to see how you guys organize your own vaults and get some inspiration, even if your setup has absolutely nothing to do with the things I’m interested in.
For now, my vault is pretty simple. I only have one MOC about Demon Slayer, inside a folder for MOCs.
So, how do you organize your vaults? What kind of stuff do you keep in them? What methods or structures do you use?

Hello everyone, I am a relative beginner to Zettelkasten, i've posted on this subreddit before asking y'all for advice but now i'm afraid I need more of said advice. My Zettelkasten started with Crime and Punishment, where theres lots of philosophical ideas to be extracted but I always chase perfectionism and feel like if my notes arent perfect then whats the point of even analysing the book, I highlight important parts in the book and turn them into literature notes, then I turn these literature notes into Atomic notes(eventually) but the problem is I find it very hard to assimilate my literature notes' context into standalone atomic notes because some of the ideas are very niche and I dont even know how i'm supposed to make atomic notes with these. Additionally, whenever I highlight key parts in the book I usually switch tabs to obsidian where I put down the quote and log it as a lit note, but that part is very time intensive and I seem to always chase perfection(as mentioned above). Ill also post my lit notes here:

https://share.note.sx/dxdqq15f#TEqK1dMAoDn+0LNeXP9qMQ

https://share.note.sx/wpu1nk3i#dV6G7sb/dV7e3jTSz/2RLQ

Ive also come up with one permanent idea(and only one) since starting the book

https://share.note.sx/2w2qilmi#FZ8RTqq2EoNWxiyJ4oRS0w
https://share.note.sx/w9txpuwe#y8ltde3v4aFlb3kq7fK0/A

Thanks yall, lwk Im also very pissed at myself for not finding ideas or links...

I am in the process of starting my first ZK, and I am very excited. One thought I am having is; when I reference a card, should the card I referenced have a reference to the card that referenced it? For example:

Let's say I'm using a ZK for d&d planning. I have a index for locations and an index for NPCs. On an NPC card, I've referenced the card for the location they live in. Should I then go to the location card and reference the NPC that lives in that location?

This seems to be both a good and a bad idea:

Good: You'll never miss a connection just because you picked up the wrong end of the connection (i.e. picking up the location card and having no idea that this NPC lives there because it isn't referenced)

BUT

Bad: Some cards are innately more "referencable". SO MANY things can reference a location card. If I reference EVERY NPC that lives in that location, surely the card will become cluttered with references?

I’ve mentioned before that I use Post-it notes in my projects. Confidently, I began writing down ideas—one per card. In a short span of time, I had generated dozens of cards, effectively clearing my mind. Yet, looking at nearly a hundred cards that had not yet been connected, I began to feel a subtle sense of pressure.

I completed the "collection" phase—the act of emptying my mind—quickly, finding it truly refreshing. I strive to build a larger picture by starting with small, manageable connections. While I don’t succeed every time, there are moments when a sudden insight flashes—a truly thrilling, dizzying experience.

It got me wondering: what methods do you use to connect those initial fragments of thought?

Written with the help of Google Translate.

Once again, I find myself caught in a cycle of organizing.

I opened an app intending to jot down a brief thought. Forty minutes later, without having written a single word, I was busy creating new tags, rearranging directories, and tweaking naming conventions.

Was this productive? In reality, I accomplished nothing.

I collect knowledge compulsively—gathering it because I need it, because I might need it, or because I anticipate needing it in the future. I even feel a sense of relief looking at the knowledge packed tightly into my storage. I then go through the items one by one, performing "meta-work"—the kind of organizing essential for retrieving and using information later.

The act of organizing even provides a sense of accomplishment. Yet, I am merely organizing so that I can find things later—failing to realize that my future self will likely need something different from what I need right now.

At this point, the effort required to maintain this knowledge has come to outweigh the actual value it provides.

What strategies do you use to avoid falling into the trap of organizing for the sake of organizing?

Written with the help of Google Translate.

I'm just starting my ZK and I see a lot of posts and forum topics about how to identify where and how to connect cards. One thing that I see prevalent in all the writing from the ZK gurus is the idea that Luhmann focused on finding the most related card.

The technique I have used before that helps sort ideas by priority or relevance, is a card sort. I've done this for projects and creative work in consulting.

While working out this morning I realised if you had a permanent note you wanted to file in your ZM,using a card sort, you would:

1. Pick all the notes you thought it could be related to.
2. Do a card sort by holding your permanent note in front of you and a stack of the related notes above it.
3. You would pick the first note on stack and ask, "Is this related to that one?"
4. If so it is holding the priority position.
5. You take the next note and then you compare: is the first note that you looked at more related or this new one?
6. If it's the first one, you remove the second one from the stack.
7. If it is the second, you remove your prior card from the stack.
8. You repeat the process of revealing one card at a time until you have no more cards on the stack and are left with one card in the related position.

At the end of the activity you should be left with one card that holds the strongest priority of relation according to your selection via the card sort.

Hope this helps.

I've just started a Zettelkasten in Obsidian following the youtuber Odysseas advice and videos as well as reading How to take smart notes by Sonke Achen, I would like to ask the community for anything I should know of before starting the Zettelkasten(my first note is going to be picking out quotes and maybe ideas from Crime and Punishment and then later creating seperate permanent notes with ideas from the book) I am still very new to this and seeking your assistance, thanks a lot!

Edit: just wanted to show you all what I did for around 2 pages worth of analysis and Zettelkasen

These are just source material pages and not yet my permanent notes

I cant put in the whole quote and I just wrote 'pg 48 monologue' on my software but its roughly about a girl that MC finds drunk with a man who is much older than her, after a minor trifle he assumes that this girl will get addicted to the drink, get caught and punished by her mother, but since shes addicted to the drink she keeps drinking and eventually becoms a cripple at ripe age 19, he initially speaks of her with pity but it turns into spite - was everyone experiencing a situation similar to this girl which allows MC to immediately throw a big assumption about the rest of her life, initially he speaks to her situation out of pity and then of spite.

'Forget about it, whats it to you, just let her have her fun'(same girl from earlier following the man, MC addresses a police officer in the scene trying to intervene' - MC immediately changes his mind even after stoutly defending that girl(earlier part of the page) this could either be due to the vain of himself or a quick change of mind showing an unstable character

pg 48 highlighted part - mc is both poor yet snobby(haughty), do poor people typically become snobby to make up for their poorness? Does this apply to every aspect(see Napoleon Complex) where people become rude or 'haughty' as a compensation to their disadvantage? This possibly links to the power complex he makes for himself which gives him the justification to kill the older lady

this is just a bit of my analysis and for context, par 2 comes before par 1.

Im a beginner to Zettelkasten and after reading around 50 pages of Crime and Punishment I was able to scrape up some key ideas from it and make them into notes by themself(Permanent notes) I initally created one big permanent note and then branched it out to smaller ones with one topic each, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEE give me feedback, ill put down some links for you to access them and criticism is welcome no matter how harsh! Im just posting this to make sure ive taken the right path. For context this is about how people lacking in traits tend to overcompensate.

The Crime and Punishment Source Material(for the specific part I think the focus is more on page 48, Ill write down the quotation to make it easier for readers to understand) please feel free to let me know what i missed out on:
https://share.note.sx/dxdqq15f#TEqK1dMAoDn+0LNeXP9qMQ

This is my sort of dumping spot where I dump everything on my head, its very rough and Ill eventually segregate topics inside:

https://share.note.sx/kcyig5x6#Vle2FG4lphOVQ3Bds6jL0A

This is the title paragraph(sort of)
https://share.note.sx/ptxi5qdv#43HG/s0Xac8KXmSTetTdNg

This is a branch: Same Domain Oversimplification
https://share.note.sx/2w2qilmi#FZ8RTqq2EoNWxiyJ4oRS0w
Another Branch: Cross Domain Oversimplification

https://share.note.sx/w9txpuwe#y8ltde3v4aFlb3kq7fK0/A

THATS ALL FOLKS! But in all seriousness to anyone whos read through all of this and is still kind enough to give feedback, my eternal gratitude is yours, criticism is welcome and this is probably the only Zettel ill post because I am a beginner!

I am starting to produce more written content and I would like to use my notes to do that.

I have read about "projects", and "outline notes" on the Zettelkasten website. I would love to hear from people who have done this, and how successful they have been using this method.

Also, there are very "tactical" questions I have, like:

- do you keep your outlines/draft notes forever, or are they just there while you're working on them?

- do you actually move the draft to another document outside your Zettelkasten when it's time to finalise your content? What happens if/when you decide to change the structure after that?

- is there a minimum content "size" you would use this for? For example, would you write X threads this way?

Many thanks!