https://www.printables.com/model/919349-a6-dividers-with-labelled-index-tabs

via r/antinet

Custom Zettelkasten Stationery?

For those who have a significant paper-based practice, have you considered commissioning custom made cards? There are a variety of stationers who do custom work and one could also purchase directly from Chinese manufacturers to get costs down by buying in bulk.

Ryan Holliday is one of the few I've seen in the wild who has mentioned custom making cards, usually done on a per-project (book) basis where he'll put a header title at the top of his note cards. Example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeWV6xBuZUN/?hl=en

Other options could include doing custom/personalized stamps. (I have a date stamp handy for quickly stamping the dates of creation/updating in the corner of cards.)

I'm curious what suppliers/manufacturers folks have researched/used? What were your experiences? What sort of templates or printing did you use on them? Paper weight? Did you go Grid, blank, dot, lined, or all of the above? If you were looking to purchase something for yourself, what would you want?

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/16ilfgj/my_antinet_zettelkasten_setup/

A great walkthrough of the physical pieces that a zettelkasten user is using.

It almost borders on some of the productivity porn that is seen in the planner/productivity space.

Not seen before: some pre-made templates for placing data on physical cards.

https://www.nerosnotes.co.uk/collections/foglietto

Looks sort of similar to Ugmonk's offerings...

https://www.bulkofficesupply.com/

https://www.3x5life.com/

Compare with other products in this category: - Analog (Jeff Sheldon productivity system) - Memindex - Bullet Journal - Frictionless Capture Cards - Pile of Index Cards

Mark Dykeman indicates that at regular work, he fills up a 180 page notebook and at the relatively steep cost of notebooks, he's paying $1-2 a day for paper.

This naturally brings up the idea of what it might cost per day in index cards for some zettlers' practices. I've already got some notes on price of storage...

As a rough calculation, despite most of my note taking being done digitally, I'm going through a pack of 500 Oxford cards at $12.87 every 5 months at my current pace. This is $0.02574 per card and 5 months is roughly 150 days. My current card cost per day is: $0.02574/card * 500 cards / (150 days) = $12.78/150 days = $0.0858 per day which is far better than $2/day.

Though if I had an all-physical card habit, I would be using quite a bit more.

On July 3, 2022 I was at 10,099 annotations and today May 11, 2023 I'm at 15,259 annotations. At one annotation per card that's 5,160 cards in the span of 312 days giving me a cost of $0.02574/card * 5,160 cards / 312 days = $0.421 per day or an average of $153.75 per year averaging 6,036 cards per year.

(Note that this doesn't also include the average of three physical cards a day I'm using in addition, so the total would be slightly higher.)

Index cards are thus, quite a bit cheaper a habit than fine stationery notebooks.

https://baronfig.com/products/strategist?variant=39787199529043

https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/charging-tray-for-library-readers-tickets-14436111112.html

A wooden 5 tray charging tray with lid! This could make a fascinating portable zettelkasten. It has options for both 2"x3" and 3"x5"Cards.

I should mention that the Stockroom Plus 4 x 6" cards I got a while back are great with even my juiciest fountain pens. They're some of the least expensive gridded cards I've been able to find and are a fraction of the cost of the Exacompta.

• The Ultimate Guide to Zettelkasten Index Card Storage
• Index Card Accessories for Note Taking on the Go
• Be sure to check the comments for other options; I ended up binding my own using glue and chipboard which is both easy and inexpensive.
• For cost, custom made/printed slips may be the way to go for great paper if you're all-in. Many stationery/paper shops can help you custom design something.
• I've heard good things about Exacompa/Bristol index cards for fountain pens, but not tried them personally. They can tend toward the expensive side.
• Card bleachers and desk-based display options
• This playing card set is what I ultimately opted for

u/abbienormal, u/Alan_Shutko, u/CynTut all recommend Exacompta cards for fountain pen friendly use.

4x6": - Goulet Pens - White Graph $9.00 - White lined $9.00 - White blank $9.00 - Pastel graph $13.50 - Flotsam and Fork Pastel graph $9.50 - Anderson Pens $13.50 (multi-color) - JetPens Pastel graph $14.50 - Amazon White(?) grid $19.96

• Kokuyo
  • may be close in size but A or B style sizing

reply to u/pipepistolnoscope at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/10lqfsn/comment/j62dp7o/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

These are slightly easier to find in a variety of styles, colors, and materials if you're using European A5 or A6 slip sizes. Search for 6 ring binders which usually come in A5 or A6 sizes for a variety of planners, calendars, and general notes with accessories. Franklin Covey has a variety of binders for their 4.25" x 6.75" note pages and planners which will likely work with index cards, but I haven't tried that.

If you use US standard index cards 4 x 6" or 3 x 5", you'll want an appropriate 6 ring hole punch to pre-punch your cards as appropriate, but keep in mind the two standard sizes can be slightly off with respect to the binder you find but they're probably close enough it shouldn't be a big issue as most of the binders are slightly larger in both directions to protect the paper inside.

I recently posted about note taking on the go, so you might find some interesting ideas, methods, modifications or even DIY options there or in the comments: https://boffosocko.com/2022/12/01/index-card-accessories-for-note-taking-on-the-go/

If you really want to go crazy you can get 6-hole punches to make your own cards.

And if you like you can co-opt those holes in your notebox by using them for taxonomy terms and removing/or not the connective pieces to indicate membership of a group. Then by putting a knitting needle through large groups of cards, you can sort through your collection to find related items the way they used to in early computing with edge-notched cards. 😉🗃️

https://ljvmiranda921.github.io/life/2022/08/04/pen-and-paper/