What types of notes belong to a Zettelkasten

budding

planted May 25, 2021

The Zettelkasten workflow uses different types of notes for distinct purposes. The key is to not mix these notes together, because this creates a mess.

The Zettelkasten consists of different notes, that you write in different styles to finally achieve one goal: build a knowledge management system.

The goal is to make writing a habit and learn to write your ideas down as they come to you and write down notes while you do your research. You later transfer you notes into permanent notes in your Zettelkasten.

Generally, you can break down your notes into 5 different types of notes.

Fleeting notes

On fleeting notes you write all your thoughts down on the go. It doesn't matter where you write them. A sheet of paper is as good as a random file on your smartphone. These notes don't need to be formulated nicely, as long as you know what is meant. Creating these notes should create no frictions in your daily workflow. Ideally, once a day you should review your fleeting notes and either transfer them into permanent notes or trash the notes that don't lead anywhere. I write my notes as daily notes in Obsidian.

Literature notes

Whenever you consume media to learn (reading, videos, podcasts) do it with the ability to take notes. Write down the most important parts. Be extremely selective what to write down and write it in your own words. This is extremely important to really understand the essence. Afterwards, transfer your insights into permanent notes. Archive the literature notes in your reference system afterwards.

Project notes

These notes are only relevant to a specific project and go into a project specific folder. If you are able to generalize the ideas, you can develop them into permanent notes. But if they are too specific, they just get trashed or archived once the project is finished.

Permanent notes

These are the notes that go into your Zettelkasten. Use your fleeting and literature notes to create them. Each note should only contain one idea, and it should be written in a way, that no other context is needed to understand them. Write them like for someone else. Use full sentences and be as precise as possible. It should fit on one card. This should mean no shorter than a tweet (180 characters) and not longer than a short essay (200 - 500 words).

Index notes

These work as an entry point into a topic. You should always link your permanent notes to an index. This way you have an overview about the ideas you already had about a topic. However, an index note should not consist of more than about 25 notes. If the index gets to big, consider separating it into different topics. You should also describe the topic in a few words.

Reference system

This is not a type of note, but a place in your worklow. Literature notes go into your reference system after you worked through them. This way you have an entry point for further reading about a topic and can quickly check where you got the information from.