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751

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 08, 2019, 11:35 AM »

One thought per note is one of those things that I strive for, but rarely achieve. When you create a note, you rarely know what specific thing you are writing about. That comes in time and as you re-analyze a topic you'll start to see where different facets come in. Also, the archive should reflect your mind: topics you care about will be detailed and have one thought per note. Topics you dont care about will be generic and more nebulous. PHD's have specific knowledge... why do we think we can achieve such specificity for every one of our notes?

-kfitting (November 08, 2019, 04:59 AM)

I don't see the problem with achieving one thought to a note. It's up to you what constitutes a thought.
The big disadvantage of generic and nebulous comes with linking. Very many notes can link to a generic note, but only a very small % will be ones you want to follow whatever you're trying to do.
I don't see any difference between a PhD or a minor new difference either. The quality of the thought might vary. The specificity might vary. Knowledge should vary. But shouldn't be a problem with having one thought.

There could be a photo of a sheep in a field.
A very small child might think nice furry animal.
A slightly older child might think Shaun!
A butcher might think ready soon.
A farmer might think selenium deficiency? (mostly noticing the lush grass).
A thought is a single focus for what was in the mind. More foci simply means extra notes.
There's no reason to push yourself to have all the thoughts you might possibly have unless doing that is your purpose.
Revisiting the note or topic and adding new notes with new thoughts when there's a reason to is sufficient.

752

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 07, 2019, 03:18 PM »

I'm just going to start this.  I can feel myself going through paralysis-by-analysis.  I promised myself to move on when that happens.

-superboyac (November 07, 2019, 11:56 AM)

I'm sure that's the right thing to do. Learn enough to know where and how to start and then go. Revise as necessary. your best way is unlikely to be exactly the same as anyone else's.

753

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 07, 2019, 04:03 AM »

/donationcoder_alarm: set-for-time_5y

-superboyac (November 06, 2019, 06:25 PM)

 

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General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 06, 2019, 04:37 PM »

Examples of Luhmann's notes are available. Somewhere. I've seen pictures but not transcripts. University of Bielefeld holds the whole collection I think.

Index cards, but a completely different system without notes are Nabokov's cards on which he did most of his writing. I think you can see some of them too. But that is different.

I'm sure you can track down some current examples by frequenting zettelkasten.de. Whether they are good examples there's no way of knowing unless the keeper has proven productivity and quality using them.

I agree completely that it would be much easier to understand what they are doing if you could examine examples.

I'm not concerned about other people's systems. I can see what will work for me, and I understand why. I'm happy to pick up useful hints from other people, but I'll judge whether they will apply to me. Big question for me is whether I have the discipline, but I'm hopeful because it is one workflow. My system will be different to many because it will probably contain a substantial number of distinct and separate networks (that's how I'll achieve one workflow) and will be based on the file system and rtf documents. If I do make a go of it I'll be happy to show samples in five years time

755

General Software Discussion / Re: Laggy window resizing/dragging in Windows 10

« Last post by Dormouse on November 06, 2019, 05:09 AM »

Do you have the Logitech mouse software installed? It might help to uninstall that (with reboot after), as it has repeatedly caused issues like you mention, in the past.

-Ath (November 06, 2019, 01:05 AM)

I'm not on Logitech at the moment, but was for many years. My experience of the software was that sometimes it had a mild effect on speed, but sometimes interfered in a big way. I never made sense of it from internet comments or complaints, and concluded that the impact depended on the configuration and system at the time. So I didn't fiddle to improve it. If it was working well, I was OK with it (the features were sometimes helpful) and, if it wasn't, I uninstalled it. It was usually the first suspect for any sort of unidentified lagging.

756

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 06, 2019, 05:02 AM »

I'm pretty sure that the value of the system, still presuming it has one, is in:

• the depth of thought required
• the clarity and precise definition required
• and the thinking required to link that thought to other related thoughts.

Wording well may aid the above, but certainly aids the transfer into a written paper or book.
The atomicity is an essential restriction.

All the rest, all the technical stuff, can be done in many different ways with no effect on outcome.

So, unfortunately, there will be at least two years of effort and hard work before there's any chance of seeing it's really working for you.

very cool.  I am rather excited about this.

-superboyac (November 05, 2019, 05:05 PM)

I think that could be a very good place to start. I'm more daunted than excited, which does't help the getting going.

757

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 05, 2019, 04:47 PM »

I'm pretty sure Dormouse wrote above about first writing, and then breaking down that writing into notes.

-tomos (November 05, 2019, 04:08 PM)

Yes.
First I have the fleeting note, very quick brief comment.
Then my first stage notes where I make an effort to word it.
The the second stage notes where I integrate what I have done so far into a series of single thought notes, trying to be clear and writing with precision. This is the stage where making sensible links first becomes possible. This stage was also very effortful.

But remember, I don't really know what I'm doing. Just puzzling and trying to work it out.

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General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 05, 2019, 04:37 PM »

I feel im doing it wrong.  I think im doing more than one thought.  maybe multiple thoughts.  so mentally, i still feel i am not getting it, lol.

-superboyac (November 05, 2019, 02:48 PM)

I don't know that you're doing anything wrong, except being too wordy. It is hard.

• It will probably be easier when you are more used to it.
• It will probably be easier when you already have an extensive network and are starting with an idea about the thoughts and where they would fit.
• But part of the difficulty, I suspect, is making your thoughts tight and precise. I'm not sure how much easier that can get because it does involve intense thinking.

My guess is that what you have done,so far, is what I have been calling first stage notes. I think you need a gap before going over them (iirc, Ahrens said that Luhmann went through them in the evening). At that point you need to split them into their constituent parts and then write new notes carefully, one thought to a note. There may be a sequence to these thoughts (in which case there's a parent-child sequence) and they will all link to your first note.

When I look at posts on zettelkasten.de, I can't avoid the suspicion that most of them aren't doing it right. Too much linking, too many notes, not enough thinking. Luhmann's main (second) zettelkasten was started 1963 and stopped in 1997: that's 34 years. It has 67,000 cards in one, admittedly wide ranging, area of interest. Less than 2000 cards a year. Assuming 250 working days, he averaged 8 cards a day. Eight thoughts that he decided to record. If he was doing a lot of other things, then maybe one thought every half hour. The thinking isn't easy, achieving the precision isn't easy. There's disentangling the thoughts from each other. And composing the words.

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General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 05, 2019, 12:31 PM »

Entire thing. I debate the value of adding entire books, but they usually take up little space.

It's simply convenient, and not a problem since I'm just using the file system.

Of course, sometimes I won't possess the books or papers. I'll only have the clipped sections that I keep as part of the original note. Then there's nothing to put in the Sources folder.

References will be in the relevant note. If I used a system that allowed direct linking to the reference manager, I'd do that but I'm not confident it would work across devices with PaperPile. So I'll just add them manually, which takes very little time. Maybe even less in the end than always adding a direct link.

760

General Software Discussion / Asutype alternatives?

« Last post by Dormouse on November 05, 2019, 06:37 AM »

I wondered whether anyone can suggest alternatives to Asutype. I've not seen it mentioned here much (though it was in app103's notification bar in 2015). Seems not to have been updated since then.

I'm mainly looking for correcting simple typos rather than spell checkers or text expanders. For example letter reversal (tseting), letter moved to adjacent word (walk th edog).

I tried Phraseexpress, but it didn't seem to work.
I've tried Asutype and it works on single words but doesn't seem to catch when the space bar is hit too soon (th edog). And it's commercial and doesn't seem to be actively updated.

I don't really want to try all the phrase expander, autocorrection programs out there, but it feels that one of them must surely do this.

 

761

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 05, 2019, 02:00 AM »

However, you can override that and type something else for the file name, like just words, and then there is no id number.  When that happens, zettlr doesn't know or have an ID for that. 

-superboyac (November 04, 2019, 12:43 PM)

Surely the program should be able to detect notes that have no ID?

i have the ID as the first line of the actual note, but not in the filename.  this gets detected right away.  so i like this.  I don't have to have the ID in the filename itself, so the filename can be just the title, which is nice.

-superboyac (November 04, 2019, 12:43 PM)

That makes sense. There's no reason to see the note ID in a program: you expect the program to handle that.
I could do that using text search. It would be a more robust solution because it wouldn't be affected by tags being added or removed. But a convoluted solution for opening files from the links. And if I do change the tags, the ID means I can still locate the file from the title of the link - it's just the automatic opening that goes. And once found, I can update the link.
Alternatively, I could put the tags in the note. And use text search to find the tags.
But I'll probably keep it as it is.

762

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 04, 2019, 12:08 PM »

Does it mean that it uses the ID to find the file, but doesn't display it?

763

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 04, 2019, 03:34 AM »

ok dormouse, i still kind of want to copy your system as my first attempt....this is what i've gathered:
sources
resources
actual zettl
writing
temp
annotated

-superboyac (November 03, 2019, 09:02 PM)

That's right.

• Sources & resources are linked but not part. Exactly the same system Luhmann used.
• Temp and annotated are just staging areas that help me keep my place. I'd expect them to be unnecessary in many programs which would have their own method of tracking.
• Writing is where I will put longer pieces or those nearer completion. Again it's a convenience. I may have things to do with these MSS that will be totally external to the zettel. Luhmann must have done something very similar because his MSS were outside the zettel and his unfinished books wre found around his study when he died.

temp, this is where you put notes before they are processed with all the proper links and maybe even the kind of writing in your own words that you are supposed to do with zettl.
annoted, not sure....this is where you place notes from the temp folder, kind of a staging area, where you add the links right before moving to the zettl?

-superboyac (November 03, 2019, 09:02 PM)

My embryo process is:-

• read and highlight/copy, making fleeting notes. I try to make these one idea; I could use the same highlight twice if I see two ideas. They go into temp folder.
• I go through those making my permanent first stage notes. Once I have done that they go into the Annotated folder. (For the moment, I have the excerpt from the source at the bottom, the fleeting note next up, and then the permanent note at the top). They then need tagging and naming.
• When I have completed that stage for the group, I make second stage notes. This is the stage that takes the most thought, distilling the essence from all I have read. One idea, one thought. Many first stage notes can go together to make one of these, or a first stage thought make be linked to many. I might do a Structure Note. I then put these into a parent-child sequence and add all the links. And move the Annotated notes and these notes into the main Notes folder.

The process is definitely shaped by the fact I'm using document files rather than some other method.

btw, what kind of file naming scheme do you use?

-superboyac (November 03, 2019, 09:02 PM)

Unique identifier (YYYYMMDDhhmmss) + Anything that will make some sort of sense - something about the note, not its links + tags []

764

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 03, 2019, 04:41 PM »

since creative writing involves fiction and creating a fake world with all the logic and characters....i feel like for something like that, i need to make a separate folder.  it cant be part of my overall single zettel that i use for actual reality and academic type knowledge.  so i can have on zettel for everything in reality, which will be the big, main database.  but for, say, writing screenplays, i need to use a separate sandbox because i dont need those ideas linking to real world ideas.

-superboyac (November 03, 2019, 03:04 PM)

For me it's all the same. It's all real. Just stuff. Factual and fictional both need to produce an output. I really don't want to go into a separate silo to write fiction. For most sizeable writing projects, I will do a beat sheet and keep in in the Resources folder; templates there too. Makes no difference if it is fact or fiction, there are word targets and structure and pacing to be managed. Admittedly, if I'm intending to cook dinner, and collect recipes and ingredient details, then the output will will be a meal rather than words. I don't expect everything to link to everything, although I suppose there could be a description of a meal in a piece of fiction.

But it's about what makes sense to each of us individually. That's the most important thing. The zettel needs to reflect our own individual thinking.

one zettel/folder for everything in real life
separate zettels for creative writing projects

so i might be leaning towards a multi-folder system like dormouse, but maybe structured my own way.  we'll see.

-superboyac (November 03, 2019, 03:04 PM)

My folders are only for the convenience of file storage, and knowing what stage a note has reached (ie related to workflow management). I expect to have only one zettel.

With his sections and sub-sections, Luhmann effectively had quite a number of zettels, except all in the same wooden box. Like folders.

The big difference between us is that you intend to use a program and I intend simply to have files. I assume that the program will deal with the workflow stage issue for you.

765

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 03, 2019, 03:55 AM »

The need to read selectively is emphasised repeatedly.
I can't help thinking that it's an attempt to make a virtue of a necessity because there's no way this process can be followed with very fast extensive reading.

I'm sure it will get quicker and easier with practice!???

766

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 03, 2019, 03:50 AM »

I've gone through a few stages now.

The reading, highlighting is as usual.

Writing fleeting notes about the highlight is easy. I paste the highlight into the note as an extra; no obvious reason why not.

The next notes - the first stage permanent notes - are tedious but straightforward.

But the next stage is hard. Distilling the totality of what has been done into a proper long-term note, one note per thought. Some first stage notes contribute to more than one of these, some combine onto one note. This is the bit that requires concentrated thought. Unfortunately, I think it's essential. The power of the system must come from the thinking here. Working out a way of doing it isn't necessarily easy either. What I'm doing is writing on a single WriteMonkey page (reading the notes in DocFetcher because that is much quicker than opening the files). Headings for each topic/thought. Then writing under each until I have been through everything. Folding the notes so that I only see the headings except when I'm working on an idea. Then pasting each part separately into single notes. I think it is this level that forms the basis of the parent-child sequence.

767

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 03, 2019, 03:26 AM »

I'm sure IQ is one of the programs that is most capable of working a zettelkasten system.
So long as you can adjust yourself to the workflow required.
Once you have worked out what that is in your case. I'm pretty sure that a lot of ways will work, even if they don't tick all the purist boxes. I'm going to try to ensure that all the boxes can be ticked in my method and then just go from there.

768

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 02, 2019, 03:16 PM »

And the direct links can be conceptualised like this:

-	parent(s)	-
other links	NOTE	source(s)
-	child(ren)	-

there is a reference link on nearly every (first collection) or nearly every second note (second collection) on average.
Three types of linking can be distinguished:
a)References in the context of a larger structural outline: When beginning a major line of thought Luhmann sometimes noted on the first card several of the aspects to be addressed and marked them by a capital letter that referred to a card (or set of consecutive cards) that was numbered accordingly and placed at least in relative proximity to the card containing the outline. This structure comes closest to resembling the outline of an article or the table of contents of a book and therefore doesn’t really use the potentials of the collection as a web of notes.
b)Collective references: At the beginning of a section devoted to a specific subject area, one can often find a card that refers to a number of other cards in the collection that have some connection with the subject or concept addressed in that section. A card of this kind can list up to 25 references and will typically specify the respective subject or concept in addition to the number. These references can indicate cards that are related by subject matter and in close proximity or to cards that are far apart in other sections of the collection, the latter being the normal case.
c)Single references: At a particular place in a normal note Luhmann often made a reference to another card in the collection that was also relevant to the special argument in question; in most cases the referred card is located at an entirely different place in the file, frequently in the context of a completely different discussion or subject.

-Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity by Johannes F.K. Schmidt

So the main zettelkasten has one link for every two cards.
There are sub-sequences (not parent-child necessarily, but most will be) where the first card contains something like an outline and look like the draft of a paper. So using the zettelkasten as part of a writing workflow rather than simply thoughts and information.

769

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on November 02, 2019, 02:29 PM »

For me, the sections and subsections make much more sense of how it works. It means that he had 3 ways into his notes: the sections/subsections, the keyword index and the structure notes (usually, it seems, close to the 'front' of a subsection but also quickly accessed through the index).

The sections/subsections are easily replicated with tags (or folders).
The keyword index not quite so easily. Tags could be used, but the number of words in any index is too many for a reasonable tagging system. Text search will find to many notes unless there's a way or restricting it. Luhmann wrote keywords on the cards; combining that with text search would be able to replicate Luhmann's system (keywords would need a prefix so that they are easily identified).
Structure notes can be done in exactly the way Luhmann used them.

770

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive

« Last post by Dormouse on November 02, 2019, 09:57 AM »

The first thing I've noticed in Schmidt is that Luhmann's first kettelkasten (made before working in sociology) was divided into 108 sections by subjects, and that the second was divided into 11 top level sections and about 100 subsections.

And it seems as if the numbering is sequential within the top level section

This order per subject area on a top level is reflected in the first number assigned to the card followed by a comma (first collection) or slash (second collection) that separates it from the rest of the number given each card

I'm surprised not to have picked up on this before.

Sounds like folders. Or tags.

Also seems as if he started his second zettelkasten as a response to learning about better ways of working:

In 1960–1961, Luhmann spent a year at the Harvard School of Public Administration in Cambridge, MA (USA), where he attended lectures by Talcott Parsons, the leading sociologist in the field of systems theory at the time. There are no documents in the literary estate substantiating the claim that this visit was the trigger to start a new collection of notes, but the chronological sequence seems obvious.

-Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity by  Johannes F.K. Schmidt

And he didn't shift his old stuff onto his new system - he simply started from where he was.

771

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive

« Last post by Dormouse on November 02, 2019, 07:15 AM »

Have done more thinking on Luhmann's working method.
I think he must have removed a chunk of cards to work on a topic.

Ahrens talks about card-to-card links from different places in the card index as being weak links. Implies consanguineous links are strong links. This makes sense - new cards are easy to place in a parent-child chain when following a single line of thought or topic. By definition the strength of the link in this related group is weaker the further away from each other they are. The 'weaker' distant note-to-note links are in a way more important because of the effort involved in making them, but they area different type.
So, working with new cards, he probably worked with them as a group and then placed them as a mini-sequence in the card index. He may have started his keyword index entry here (Structure Note).
Working on a topic, he found starting places with his keyword index and then took out a chunk of relevant cards. Made new cards for his new thoughts. Dug out distant and relevant cards as necessary (finding them from links already on some cards, the keyword index or his memory) and then linked added any useful links to them or the chunk of cards. Probably he would have updated Structure notes here if needed.

Difficult to do this digitally. Adding parent-child links doesn't recreate the family network. Tagging could work in theory but probably won't in practice and doesn't convey the strength of a relationship.
Structure Notes would probably work best.

Just my thoughts as I'm trundling along. Emphasise that I know little, in case anyone thinks I know what I'm talking about.
I need to get it clear in my head before I can work out a practical implementation. And that's about a daily workflow, not the programs or notes and, about how Luhmann used his system when he was thinking rather than how he wrote his cards.
You can see I'm still reiterating the process on the Ahrens book. When I'm finished with this I will move on to Schmidt's 2018 article ( here or here )

772

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive

« Last post by Dormouse on November 01, 2019, 07:13 PM »

In going through the reading, I am surprised at how little we seem to know about what Luhmann did.
We know he read, and made notes on cards that he put in a card index. We know that he placed those cards in the card index by finding a 'parent' so that there would be a logical sequence. But how did he find that parent, if it wasn't the card he did before? Index and keywords? That's the only possibility I can think of. Then reading cards and links until he finds the right place. Could be quite a lot of reading presumably except when he was putting in a whole sequence of related cards. Feels inefficient.

Since we know he was highly productive, that suggests to me that large parts of his zettelkasten were actually active in his mind most of the time. Then finding the right place would be simple refinement. He'd have a good idea of where each sequence of cards went.

That familiarity is less likely with a digital zettelkasten. But we have text search and tags to compensate? Do they compensate? It will still work best if it is a relatively limited field that is being worked on at a time. like a PhD. Also suggests that the system did mirror his actual thinking and memory and that he would have used it to top up and remind him of things that might be fading in his mind. As well as being something he could use to develop thoughts and plan books.

But much of the time, the placement of a card must have been fairly artificial. He had to put it somewhere. Not waste too much time. The implication is that we shouldn't overworry about links either. Put them in when they make sense, have none when we don't recognise a genuine link. We don't need them for the system to work. But we do need the iterative reflection and note making.

773

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive

« Last post by Dormouse on November 01, 2019, 07:03 AM »

btw, zettlr is very slick.  I really like it.

-superboyac (October 31, 2019, 04:19 PM)

Yeah, I like its user interface. It kinda reminds me of doogiePIM but it is opensource.  Out of curiosity, did you look at the others?

I have not gone fully down the zettkasten rabbit hole, but I do find myself circling around to it often. I have seen a number of people compare this to https://www.zettlr.com/
As I understand it it uses a graph database, where each item is a container- so rather than emulating a "card" for each thought/note/idea,  it is a container... which makes it more friendly for storing other types of media.  It is opensource with Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

-sphere (October 31, 2019, 11:46 PM)

Although I'm going down a document route, I thought I ought to have a look.
Unfortunately takes a geological age to load on my machine. Otherwise looks interesting. I could probably work with it.
I saw a mention somewhere that it does text folding, butt I saw no commands for that.

Seems to me that it accommodates a zettelkasten approach but doesn't structure it, so you would still be on your own for organisation.

774

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive

« Last post by Dormouse on October 31, 2019, 07:54 PM »

so i don't need to add the note title in my actual filename?  that would be nice, id like to avoid doing that and just let the timestamp cover the filename portion.

-superboyac (October 31, 2019, 07:27 PM)

I think that's right. Try it and see if it's a problem.
I have names in mine, so I have an idea what's in the note when I'm just looking at file names. If you don't do that, I think they'd just take up space.

775

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive

« Last post by Dormouse on October 31, 2019, 07:07 PM »

the thing I'm thinking about now that i read about, is this "entry point" where luuhrman would have an entry point note that links to the rest of that topic, but its a single place that gets you started on it.  can anyone provide examples of this?

-superboyac (October 31, 2019, 04:19 PM)

I have no examples.
But think of his technology. He had the card index with, presumably, many thousands of cards. Simply in a number sequence. He had a massive need to work out where to start when he wanted to look up a topic. So he had an index with topics. Ahrens explained it thus:

The first type of links are those on notes that are giving you the overview of a topic . These are notes directly referred to from the index and usually used as an entry point into a topic that has already developed to such a degree that an overview is needed or at least becomes helpful . On a note like this , you can collect links to other relevant notes to this topic or question , preferably with a short indication of what to find on these notes ( one or two words or a short sentence is sufficient ) . This kind of note helps to structure thoughts and can be seen as an in - between step towards the development of a manuscript . Above all , they help orientate oneself within the slip - box . You will know when you need to write one .

-Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing,  Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers (pp. 112-113)