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Comment by bosie | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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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