Building A Zettelkasten In Typora

A ‘system of knowledge’ based on an infinity of markdown files

[Note: originally published in Jan 2020, now significantly updated to reflect how I am currently using Typora (once again!) as my system of knowledge. See Building A Zettelkasten In Typora at Work Futures on Substack.]

I stumbled across a reference to a note-taking system — or a system of knowledge, perhaps — I had not heard of: zettelkasten.

In Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive, David Clear writes about the note box (zettelkasten) system of Niklas Luhmann. I leave out the long preamble — perhaps helpful, but to me tedious — and simply repost his description of the principles underlying zettelkasten:

The Zettelkasten principles

A Zettelkasten is a phenomenal tool for storing and organizing your knowledge, extending your memory, generating new connections between ideas, and increasing your writing output. However, to make the most of a Zettelkasten, you should follow some key principles.

1 | The principle of atomicity: The term was coined by Christian Tietze. It means that each note should contain one idea and one idea only. This makes it possible to link ideas with a laser focus.

2 | The principle…