Roam Research: The Digital Zettelkasten

How One Website Is Changing the Game in Knowledgement Management

I’ve found that managing the ideas that I have and the information that I come across and then finding unique connections between all of it has been something that I’ve always struggled with. I’ve managed to do it well in my mind, but even then I only manage to make a few connections and can only go so deep without relying on something else to help me probe broader and deeper. Because I’m sensitive to this deficit, I’ve always been interested in new ways of managing information that allows me to make meaning of what I know in new and unique ways.

Over the last few years, I’ve used products like Evernote, Mendley, iPhone Notes, and several others to try to digitally manage the ideas I have and the information that I come across when passively or actively researching.

In December 2019, I read a Medium post by David Clear, PhD on a Medium page called The Writing Cooperative. The article’s title said it all: Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive. The researcher’s name was Niklas Luhmann and over his career, he was able to publish 70 books and 400 academic articles using a unique process of notetaking and knowledge management called the Zettelkasten.

I then read through what’s arguably the most authoritative website about the process and gained a solid understanding of praxis for using the Zettelkasten method, which got me started.