Remembering everything: how to build your Zettelkasten knowledge system in Notion
Have you ever been in a situation when somebody gives you a task with a specific deadline, and you realize that you can’t finish it on time? You can’t do something high-quality, creative, and innovative in this period because the appropriate thoughts and examples just do not come to mind. There is simply no time for a thorough study of some information on the internet and other sources. You have a fear of the blank page and start to feel procrastination coming on. As a result, you do something very mediocre or do not meet the deadline. So, how can you change it?
Creative work involving some research is a non-linear process. Thus, it is very problematic to complete this kind of work in a short period when somebody has already given you the task. You can’t start with a blank page if you’re doing a project that involves learning or research. You need to make a note of useful thoughts and save materials in advance. But it is also not enough.
Let’s say you’ve already made some useful notes in a notebook or a note-taking app, underlining exciting thoughts in books while reading and saving valuable documents from the internet. Still, when you need this specific information, you can’t find it because you don’t remember where you saved it. You frequently have the feeling that you have already thought about these ideas once and made the same conclusions and even kept them somewhere, but it’s lost somewhere. To prevent this from happening, you need a simple and transparent system for storing notes that you can trust.
Therefore, we need to search in advance for useful thoughts, ideas, materials and save this information immediately in one place, where it will be easy to find later.
About Niklas Luhmann and his Zettelkasten system
This kind of note-taking system, the Zettelkasten system, already exist and was developed by Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist known for his productivity. During his career, he published more than 58 books and several hundred articles. The reason was due to his smart note-taking system.
Niklas Luhmann invented this method before the advent of home computers. To work on the Zettelkasten system, he needed only a pen, A6 paper cards, and a slip box, like the ones used in library file cabinets, where he stored these cards with notes on them. In fact, the word Zettelkasten means “slip box” in German.
He had several places for cards:
- A Reference slip box with bibliographic data about the sources and essential thoughts from them
- The main Zettelkasten slip box with his thoughts
- And an Index slip box with a list of the topics of the main slip box
There are several articles and videos on the internet with a detailed description of Niklas Luhmann’s work with his paper cards, which you can easily find. Here I am only going to talk about the essential points.
He took a source and started reading it. He added a card in the Reference box, on one side of which he wrote down data about the source (title, author name, year of publication, etc.). On the other side, he put summary information of source content. If he found any important thoughts, he wrote out each idea on a separate card and put it after the card with the source’s name.
At the end of the reading, he reread the sources’ thoughts and wrote down his thoughts about this information. He placed these new cards this his ideas in the main Slip box and grouped them by topic. He kept the names of the topics on cards in the Index slip box, referenced by cards from the main slip box. An essential part of the work was to indicate keywords on each note in the main slip box, which he used to find and select the necessary cards. Besides that, he also had to link one card with a note to at least one other in the main slip box related to it by meaning.
Advantages of the Zettelkasten system
Using the Zettelkasten method, you can break down exploring different topics into small steps that are easy to complete quickly. You can create notes all the time, reading various sources, and saving important thoughts and ideas even if you don’t have much time. Luhmann made only six notes every day, and by the end of his life, his slip box had more than 90,000 cards. He used information from the main slip box to write his books and articles.
He used an atomic approach to notes, which means he saved each thought on a separate card. It allows him to use one idea in different contexts and find new connections of thoughts later. He didn’t need to develop an elaborate folder system where it is difficult to find something quickly. That is why any Luhmann cards only had to containe one thought, which had to fit on one side of an A6 paper card.
How to build your Zettelkasten from scratch in Notion?
Modern applications can simplify the work that Luhmann did manually. You can choose some specialized program for Zettelkasten or any application that allows you to add keywords (tags) to notes and put links between notes. Why it is necessary, we will consider later. For my Zettelkasten knowledge base, I chose the Notion app.
This approach assumes that you have a transparent system of storing notes and, most importantly, a specific verified process of work. The essence of the method is not in the shelving system but in working on creating notes. The mental, analytical work you need to do when you save the notes is the most important thing.
Let’s look at how you can build your Zettelkasten system in Notion. At the end of the article, you can find a template for the Notion to help you get started using this method faster and easier.
Step 1. You write out ideas from the source
You choose the source you want to study, for example, the book “Design and Form” by Johannes Itten. You enter information about it in the Notion “Sources” database.
During the reading, you decide to save information about types of color contrast. For this note, as for any other, it is crucial to formulate it so that even after an extended period, you can understand what this text is about.
After you finish reading the book, you also add a note with this book’s content summary. These two notes you save in the”References from sources” Notion database that collects thoughts from the source.
The fields inside the database practically repeat the Luhmann system, and I delete only the note unique number (ID). To change something in Luhmann’s Zettelkasten system organization, first, you need to try to work with it. After that, if you want, you can customize it for yourself.
I linked both these databases: the Source one and data table, with thoughts from sources. So you can put a link between the notes of these data tables. If you have multiple notes based on a single source, you don’t have to enter data about it numerous times. In each note, you refer to the name of the original in a particular field. The table with sources contains several additional graphs that will help you find sources by year of publication, authors, tags, etc.
Step 2. Creating a new topic
Because you are building your Zettelkasten system from scratch, you do not yet have topics in the “Index” database and notes with your thoughts in the main database “My ideas Zettelkasten.” First, you create a record with a topic in the Index data table. While you come up with a topic name, it is imperative to think about the contexts in which you will need this note. For example, I’m going to need information about color contrasts when I’m doing a graphic design concept, so I’m creating a “Graphic Design: Working with Color” topic. Other people, for example, may need this information for a completely different purpose. Therefore they should choose a topic that suits them.
Step 3. Creating a note with your thoughts
In my Notion template, I also linked the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database with a list of topics in the “Index”database and thoughts from the source in the “References from sources” database. Next, you reread two notes that you created while reading the book and write down your thoughts in the “My ideas Zettelkasten” database. You need to specify to which topic your note belongs in the field “Topic.” You can also link the references based on what ideas you came up with. Just connect a note in the “My ideas Zettelkasten” database with ideas from the source in the “Referencesfrom sources” database by the field “References.”
There are several important rules for creating the main notes:
- You must specify the topic of a note in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database by filling in the field “Topic.”
- You need to set keywords (tags). Here, as well as when creating a topic, you think about the contexts you will need this note.
- Link a note with your other thoughts to at least one related existing idea in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database. You can use a “Related Zettelkasten” field for this.
- It would be best if you took notes regularly, preferably daily, little by little, so there is no feeling of procrastination.
Step 4. Developing topics in Zettelkasten
It is vital to develop topics by analyzing notes with your thoughts in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database. You can notice new relationships between notes and add new links. You can also create new notes in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database based on such analysis. By analyzing your thoughts, you will remember the information and discover new exciting relationships between ideas that provide future research questions.
You can supplement the notes in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database with thoughts from other sources. For example, you can add a note about contrasts if you suddenly find another type of contrast in other resources. The notes in the “References from sources” Notion database do not need to be corrected. So you can check what a particular author wrote on the topic and eventually formulate and write down your opinion on this topic in a note in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database.
If the information in some notes from the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database becomes outdated, you should not delete them but rather mark them with the “Archive” status. These archive notes will help you track the development of ideas, which can be helpful for different projects, for example, for writing articles.
It is also essential to record any questions that arise. You can immediately create a question note in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database, link it to related notes, and specify keywords (tags). When you fill out the note by answering the question, you will already have the necessary information.
How do I find notes in the Zettelkasten database?
Let’s say you have a task to collect notes for a project. It can be anything: creating a client presentation, a checklist, a template document, etc. For example, you have decided to write an article for Medium with tips about choosing colors for a graphic design concept. You create a new task in the “Inbox ToDo” Notion data table. Next, you start searching for information in your knowledge base.
You can find the needed notes in the following ways:
- finding relevant topics and notes linked to it
- using search in the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database with your ideas
Since you have formulated both topics and keywords (tags), thinking of contexts where this or that information can be useful to you, you will easily find what you need. Also, the search in the Notion app can find information in the text of the note itself.
Since inside the items, you can link not only to notes with the same topic but also to any other; you can also check these links to find additional information for your task. You look at the notes found and specify the task in the appropriate field in those suitable for your project.
Now the most exciting part remains! You can create a linked database inside the task note, which will essentially be a virtual copy of the main “My ideas Zettelkasten” database with your thoughts, and filter notes by the “Task” field. You can manually move the rows in the linked table to arrange them in the article’s future narrative approximate order.
We reread the notes and create a draft of the future article. When the draft is ready, we reread and rewrite it for a clean copy. Suppose you need to specify a list of sources in the article. In this case, you will have all the necessary data in linked notes from the “References from sources” Notion database.
Template for Notion
Below you can download my template for working with the Zettelkasten Method. You can use it freely in this version or by customizing it for yourself. Just copy the template to your Notion and start creating. I hope my article will be helpful for you!
https://www.notion.so/Zettelkasten-knowledge-system-dae3f52a67ec4345a6c3b112a3ede217
