How to make atomic literature notes using the Zettelkasten method
You’re reading a book and you’re applying the Zettelkasten note-taking method to capture what you learn in your slip box. However, you are struggling to grasp the ‘one note per idea’ philosophy to the Zettelkasten when it comes to literature notes and the entire contents of a book. What do you do?
Fleeting notes vs literature notes
The first way to approach solving this is to remind ourselves of the role of a fleeting note and a literature note when using the Zettelkasten note-taking method.
Fleeting notes
A fleeting note is a temporary, raw capture of what comes to mind or what you have seen (quotes, excerpts, ideas).
When reading a book, I create one long fleeting note which contains my highlights and annotations.
The Kindle app allows me to capture highlights with annotations.
Other apps like LiquidText allow me to extract content and organise this on a workspace.
The fleeting note can reference the original material, whether it’s a book, article, video…
