- May 2020
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zettelkasten.de zettelkasten.de
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Update 2020-01-14: I now store my outlines as Structure Zettel. For more information what a Structure Zettel is see this post.
An important update to this piece as Sascha's method evolved. Instead of using outlines to capture new notes, he started using structured notes.
I suspect the reason for this is that a system with atomic notes and structured notes is more clear cut than a system that relies on work-in-progress outlines. The main difference being that a structured note will contain only notes and not some floating, un-evolved ideas.
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zettelkasten.de zettelkasten.de
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The issue of the different layers is similar. If you chose software that doesn’t deal with those layers in a sophisticated way, you will not reap the benefits in the long term. Your archive will note work as a whole. I think that this is one of the reasons why many retreat to project-centered solutions, curating one set of notes for each book, for example. The problems that come with big and organic (= dynamic and living) systems is avoided. But so is the opportunity to create something that is greater than you.
Interesting point where the author compares the barrier that is created between the editing and the writing mode in a wiki (which makes it more cumbersome to continue lines of thought) to the barriers that appear when you're not using the right software or conventions to structure your knowledge items, as well as to structure your knowledge items' structure.
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After a while, I did not only have structure notes that structure content notes, I also had structure notes that mainly structured sets of structure notes. They became my top level structure notes because they began to float on the top of my archive, so to say.
After the need for a layer of Hub Notes a new need may emerge: to better organize the Hub Notes themselves. At this point you may want to introduce structure notes that structure sets of structured notes.
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Structure notes share a similarity to tags: Both point to sets of notes. Structure notes just add another element. They are sets with added structure. This added structure provides a better overview and adds to the utility of the archive.
Structure notes or Hub Notes are similar to tags (or pages in Roam) in that they point to a collection of other notes (or pages in Roam). The only difference being that structure notes contain within themselves a structure which provides hierarchy and context.
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But after a while, you won’t be able to keep up. When I search for tags I get a couple hundred of notes. I have to review them to connect a note to some of them, or get a grasp of what I wrote and thought about a specific topic. Naturally, a need to organize the archive arises at this point. I can’t remember how many notes I had when I experienced this. I introduced hub-like notes when I had between 500 and 700 notes.1 I gave myself an overview of the most important notes on that topic.
There seems to be an inflection point where your initial approach to organizing your Zettelkasten starts to fail (perhaps 500-700 notes). You'll simply have too many tags to choose from.
At this point hub-like notes will be the next stage in the evolution of your Zettelkasten organization.
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