Zettelkasten & Obsidian
I am not a tech savvy person, but I enjoy writing. So when I stumbled upon an article about the zettelkasten method, I was intrigued, and looking into it led me to also discover the free (for personal use) note-taking software program Obsidian, made by the same people who made another of my favorite programs, Dynalist.
ZETTELKASTEN
Zettelkasten, German for “slip box,” is a simple but powerful note-taking and thinking system invented by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. It was a card catalog of all his notes taken over his career. He used this system to compare and contrast ideas, which aided his writing in that creativity is sparked by associating two ideas previously thought to be unrelated.
The principles of zettelkasten include atomization and linking.
ATOMIZATION
Atomization in this case means making each note (AKA slip or note card) as short as possible, for instance containing just one idea. The smaller the chunk of information on a note, the more modular it is. The easier it is to use in different contexts.
LINKING
Linking in this case means that you link each note to at least one other note (or else it will be an orphan). The more links to other notes a note has, the more useful it will probably be.
Luhmann’s system was created the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. He would give each note a unique ID number, written in the top left corner. To make associations with other ideas, he would cite the ID numbers of other notes.
OBSIDIAN
Obsidian is one of the most popular of several new software programs that is able to bring Luhmann’s system into the digital age. You can use Obsidian merely as an archive, but it was designed with zettelkasten in mind and if you use it as such, it is like creating and continuously tweaking and improving your own personal wikipedia.
ATOMIZATION in OBSIDIAN
I believe it was Sherlock Holmes who said that he liked telegrams because it forced you to be brief, and thus logical.
In terms of atomization, Luhmann wrote on small note cards and so was forced to be succinct. But because text files take up so little space on your computer, when you use a digital text editor or note-taking program like Obsidian, you are able to easily write a wordy document. So if you are a “long-winded” writer, remember not (usually) to write one long note but rather several small notes that are linked together.
LINKING in OBSIDIAN
In Obsidian you can easily create hyperlinks between notes. If you are writing “Note A” and want to make a link to “Note B,” type “Note B” between double square brackets “[[ ]]” and it becomes a link to “Note B.” You can also type double brackets, start to type “Note B,” and auto-complete will do the rest.
Because Obsidian has automatic backlinking, you don’t necessarily have to go into “Note B” and add a link back to “Note A” (though you can if you want to, to make it explicit). Because now “Note B” automatically “knows” that “Note A” links to it. A little more on backlinking in a few moments.
If you later change the name of “Note B,” the link in “Note A” will not be broken. Instead it will automatically update to the new name.
GRAPH VIEW
Obsidian has a graph view that I don’t yet really take advantage of. You can see all your links there, but I admit that most of what I’ve done so far with it is occasionally look at how pretty it is.
VAULTS
I downloaded Obsidian (it’s not browser-based) and created three vaults (their name for an Obsidian folder on your computer): my main vault, a fiction vault for the novel I’m writing, and a vault that I use for task management & inventory.
I could have created just one vault for everything and in some ways that would have been better in that I could make connections between everything in my life.
But instead I decided that my main (largest) vault would contain my non-fiction writing, that is all my thoughts on all the things that are of any interest to me (sports, friends, books, etc.), while my novel vault would contain my fiction writing and all the world-building ideas that support it.
I also chose to have a third vault for my tasks & inventory because items on my to-do list and physical items that I own or that pass through my hands are of no interest to others or to posterity, and of only temporary and limited interest to me.
So while the task part of my task & inventory vault contains mundane things like a task that tells me I need to buy another sword, and the inventory part of my task & inventory vault contains a note that tells me where I have stored the other swords I have purchased, my main vault contains non-fiction notes that are interesting to me, like thoughts on the history of fencing or how to write a novel. And last but not least, my fiction vault contains fictional swordplay stories I’m writing.
KANBAN
There are various ways to use Obsidian for task & inventory management, but the way I use it is with the kanban plugin, which is a community plugin, i.e. a plugin created by a third party. If you don’t know what kanban is, it’s like Trello; Trello is a kanban.
Go to settings > community plugins. Turn off “safe mode,” hit the “browse” button, and search for “kanban.”
OBSIDIAN MOBILE
Obsidian has a mobile version and I use the free program Syncthing to sync my tasks & inventory vault to my phone.
I hardly do any writing on my phone, so I don’t sync my other vaults.
THEMES
Because I often have all three vaults open at the same time, I use different “themes” for each of them so I can tell at a glance which one I’m in.
To change the theme (the look) of your vault, go to settings > appearance > themes.
The core (as opposed to community) plugins I use include Backlinks (mentioned above), Page Preview, Daily Notes, and Zettelkasten Prefixer. To turn those and others on or off, go to settings > core plugins.
BACKLINKS
When the Backlinks plugin is enabled, backlinks are available to view in the right panel. Toggle the right panel open with the “<” button in the upper right corner.
Looking at the “unlinked mentions” in other notes of words in the title of your currently-selected note will give you ideas for new links you can make between notes that hadn’t occurred to you before. Thus creativity is sparked.
PAGE PREVIEW
When this plugin is enabled you can hover your mouse over a link to see a pop-up box preview of the note. If the note is short enough (atomized) you can read the entire note without having to go to the actual note. Convenient.
DAILY NOTES
By clicking on a button on the left margin, you create a blank note titled with today’s date. You can use this note however you like.
ZETTELKASTEN PREFIXER
When this plugin is enabled, it puts a button on the left margin that creates a blank note titled with a unique ID number, in case you don’t want to think of title for your note. You can always go back later to change the title if you like.
PROGRESSIVE SUMMARY
Not all my notes are atomized. Some are longer, as when I use the idea of “progressive summary”: I copy and paste an interesting article from the Web into a note, noting the URL, author, and date.
I draw a dividing line above it and above the line I copy and paste the excerpts that are most interesting to me; or I summarize it in my own words; or both.
If I remember to, I then change the format or color of the original text so that I can know at a glance if I’m looking at someone else’s un-edited words or my own excerpts & notes from it.
I might summarize again at a later time. If I do, I always put the most recent summary at the top, where it can be seen in the Page Preview.
MAPS of CONTENT
Other notes that might not be atomized are Maps of Content AKA MOCs. They are Indexes. For example, I have a note in my fiction vault titled “characters” which contains an alphabetical list of all the characters in my novel. Each name is a link to that character’s own note.
EMOJIS
I sometimes sprinkle emojis into my notes. But I don’t use them in the titles of notes because then you can’t zip the vault.
Not that that’s much of an issue; my vaults are completely or almost completely just text files and thus don’t take up much space. And digital space is not a problem for most people, including me.
But in case I ever want to send someone one of my vaults, I am retaining the ability to be able to zip it.
IMGUR
Speaking of conserving computer space, while you can drag images into a note, I instead do something I saw on a youtube video by Santi Younger: I drag the image into Imgur and then get a share link (in markdown, the language Obsidian uses) and paste that into the note. It is more steps but it means my vault, without graphics, remains as digitally small as possible.
If Imgur, or my account with it, ever goes away, those links (unlike the internal links in Obsidian) will be broken, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. If there is an image I don’t want to lose, I can always drag it directly into my note so it will be saved in my vault.
The community plugins I use include: Better Word Count, Calendar, Excalidraw, kanban (already mentioned above), Maximize Active Pane, and Recent Files.
BETTER WORD COUNT
Writers can use this to keep track of their word count. It does more than the default word count plugin.
CALENDAR
By clicking on a date you create a blank note titled (and associated with) that date. You can use this note however you like, for example to plan your day ahead of time, or as a journal of what happened that day.
EXCALIDRAW
With which you can draw pictures and flowcharts with clickable links.
MAXIMIZE ACTIVE PANE
If you have a lot of notes open at the same time, side by side, you can toggle to maximum size the one you’re working on without having to close or shrink the other windows.
RECENT FILES
Shows you a running list of the most recent notes you opened.
CONCLUSION
Though everything I’ve said here has already been said better and with more expertise by others, perhaps this post is the first you have heard about zettelkasten or Obsidian. In that case, I hope it served as a useful introduction to these tools.