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Comment by dmortin | Hacker News Reader

You can have tags instead of hierarchy and then you also have a network.

So instead of "java notes" and "design notes" you add the "java" and "design" tag, etc., so you can approach your notes in any direction: you can find "java" notes and then narrow the result sets to design notes (so java+design), and vice versa.

And you can add links too between the nodes, so you can also walk them in any order you define.

Existing tools can do this already, it's just a matter of using them.

Is there any more to zettelkasten? Its author invented the same thing on paper notes, but digital tools provide this naturally.

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What more do you want?

Zettelkasten is very simple and that is the point: You create small and connected notes. This constraint turns out to be useful for research and writing for some people.

There is no trick or secret to it.

hm, now that i am reading this, would that basically be the equivalent of paragraph tagging/paragraph connections in a longer document?

i.e. you use one note document for 1 specific book and it might be 1500 words. but instead of linking the documents, you link specific words/paragraphs to other notes/paragraphs?

Yes, you could easily create a Zettelkasten in a single file. Or with pen and paper.

The gist is focused and self-contained notes, linked together to form structure and connections. A personal wiki with attention of recontextualization.

That wasn't necessarily my point. I cannot visiualise how you use self-contained notes for something like book notes or meeting notes, browsing random links just seems completely inefficient and not transporting the actual meaning/context of the notes

You are not browsing the notes at “random”. You read your notes because you are working on something and what to see how your collection of notes might help you.

It takes effort to support this workflow. Notes have to be self-contained and of a somewhat permanent relevance. You don’t put raw reading and meeting notes there.

Thanks, that helped. Very different from my current workflow indeed.

The primary change of thinking that a Zettelkasten system requires is giving up the idea of keeping notes about a book or meeting. Instead, keep notes about topics you care about, using the book or meeting as a source.

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