- Nov 2022
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billyoppenheimer.com billyoppenheimer.com
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Oppenheimer, Billy. “The Notecard System: Capture, Organize, and Use Everything You Read, Watch, and Listen To.” Billy Oppenheimer (blog), August 26, 2022. https://billyoppenheimer.com/notecard-system/.
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I review the cards way more than I originally thought was necessary. Almost daily, I engage with the boxes in one way or another.
Oppenheimer interacts with his zettelkasten almost daily. He reviews them more often than he originally thought he would.
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Do you keep track of what cards you’ve used and haven’t used? No. If I need to, I’ll search the various places online I might have used the contents of a notecard.
Oppenheimer doesn't have a system for tracking which cards he's used or not. When necessary he relies on manual search to find those places, but doesn't say if he still reuses them or how often.
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Throughout this piece Oppenheimer provides examples of notes he wrote which eventually made it into his written output in their entirety.
This has generally been uncommon in the literature, but is a great form of pedagogy. It's subtle, but it makes his examples and advice much stronger than others who write these sorts of essays.
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On the back of the notecard, I put the book title and page number(s).
Billy Oppenheimer has said that he puts the references for his reading notes on the reverse side of his cards, breaking the long standing rule to write only on one side of one's note cards.
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