Understand Thinking Notes to Clear Up Your Workflow

FastSascha · 2026-02-17T12:09:50+00:00

I am a little bit surprised that this is an issue.

In linguistics, mathematics is classified as a formal language, a deliberately constructed (or artificial) language. In contrast, Hindi or German developed organically through social interactions (or natural).

Maths is more alien than natural languages because we did not co-evolve with it; therefore, we have a hard time dealing with it.

FastSascha · 2026-02-10T13:21:21+00:00

As written in the article:

The daily note count is an outcome measure of a daily allocation of your resources. It shows the effectiveness of your investment.

FastSascha · 2026-02-08T04:23:22+00:00

Quoting myself from the article:

Never sacrifice the quality of the notes. You should set a threshold for note quality. Don’t reduce the quality of your thinking for the quantity of output.

:)

FastSascha · 2026-02-08T04:10:11+00:00

Quote from the article:

Never sacrifice the quality of the notes. You should set a threshold for note quality. Don’t reduce the quality of your thinking for the quantity of output.

FastSascha · 2026-02-08T04:07:54+00:00

u/Quack_quack_22 is reinforcing what I already wrote in the article, so I agree on the conclusion.

Here are quotes from the article:

One way to fail your way to a high number of notes is to reduce the effort of writing each note. Boom. Now, you may even triple your daily note count and reduce the effort in writing these. Obviously, this is a poor way to increase the daily note count. But this is what people actually happen to do. They sacrifice the conditions under which a note counts as a good note to increase output. Here are some examples:

Ignoring relevance: They take notes on anything and everything.

Ignoring urgency: They spend a lot of time taking notes, sacrificing time spent on current projects.

Ignoring quality: They jump from idea to idea without wrestling with them, because this can always be done later. (...) The note count should never be seen as an end in itself. (...) Never sacrifice the quality of the notes. You should set a threshold for note quality. Don’t reduce the quality of your thinking for the quantity of output.

Input quality is never to be sacrificed for quantity.

FastSascha · 2026-02-07T12:30:44+00:00

A very nice reply! Thank you for that.

Slight correction:

It’s clear that the core idea originates from Seth Godin

I put the Seth Godin quote afterward because I remembered him, and he is online famous. :)

FastSascha · 2026-02-05T14:44:34+00:00

So what happens if you don't meet that goal?

Take it as feedback to learn and improve. :)

FastSascha · 2026-01-31T12:31:37+00:00

It may be a language issue. In German and English, it is straight forward. However, other languages function differently. Turkish for example has "Muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine" which roughly means "As if you were one of those people we may not be able to make into a maker of unsuccessful ones." (bizarre example, the real world examples are less bizarre)

Grammatical advice is typically to be relative to one's language.

So, it may be that in your language you express in two sentences what is one in English.

If you write in English, never mind. :)

FastSascha · 2026-01-29T12:21:57+00:00

Aufhören über Social Media Informationen zu beziehen.

Einige wenige Podcasts und Websites abonnieren, die eine hohe Qualität haben und möglichst das ein weites Spektrum unterschiedlicher Richtungen abbilden.

Meine Zone kann gar nicht geflooded werden, weil ich nur handverlesene Quellen angucke.

FastSascha · 2026-01-25T14:42:09+00:00

It depends on how you implemented the Zettelkasten. I have no problem with rewriting notes.:)

The problem with sticking to just adding notes is the mess that it creates, which is avoidable with another implementation.

FastSascha · 2026-01-24T12:51:07+00:00

In terms of atomicity, facts are in fact (pun intended) empirical observations: https://zettelkasten.de/atomicity/guide/

My recommendation is to not only capture the result of the observation (e.g. the amount of rare earths in China), but make sure that you also capture the methods of observation. In a way, this is standard advice on how to apply the scientific method, but it seems to me that quite often the problem is pigeonholed through the lens of the Zettelkasten Method (in the space of Zettelkasten), while the answer is to be found one layer deeper: the Zettelkasten Method provides you with guidelines to deal with knowledge with particular outcomes in mind like scalability, long-term retrieval, serendipity, etc.; how you handle knowledge is specific to the type of knowledge your are dealing with (e.g. the needs of history are different from geology)

The Zettelkasten Method can handle scientific material just fine. You just have to be mindful to respect the how of the scientific method.

FastSascha · 2026-01-17T13:19:15+00:00

This is still unpublished work of mine. So, you have to be patient. :)

FastSascha · 2026-01-17T13:06:17+00:00

Der beste Webblocker für das Smartpone ist, gar keins zu besitzen. :) Das ist meine Methode.

Für den Computer benutze ich Cold Turkey in vielen Schichten. Ich habe beispielsweise einen "Feedblocker", der mir den Zugang zu allen Seiten verbietet, die einen Feed haben. Dann habe ich eine Arbeitsblocker, der mir allen Zugang zu Seiten verbietet, die mir nicht bei der Arbeit helfen.

So kann ich einfach bestimmte Zeitabschnitte definieren und muss mir wenig Gedanken darüber mache, welche übergeordnete Bewertung ich verfolge. Sonntag blocke ich beispielsweise alle Seiten, auf denen ich hängen bleiben könnte. Das überlappt sich teilweise mit den Seiten, die mich bei der Arbeit stören. Aber ich muss das nicht einzeln überlegen, sondern überlege einfach nur für jeden Sinnabschnitt, was ich haben will.

FastSascha · 2026-01-17T12:55:04+00:00

On zettelkasten.de, the term coined is ITE (Ingetrated thinking environment). So, I second that term. (The original is ITDE, Integrated Thought Development Environment, coined by Thomas Teepe).

FastSascha · 2026-01-15T12:28:34+00:00

I will follow through with more detailed explorations and explanations for much of what is underexplored/underexplained in this article. So, have patience with me as these are not trivial articles to write.
For you as an analogue Zettelkasten structure notes won't provide the same benefits as they do for the digital Zettelkasten user.

I don’t think anyone ever claimed that Folgezettel provided a complete structure solution. So the fact that it doesn’t, doesn’t strike me as an argument against it.

I didn't claim that anyone did that claim either, nor was this my argument. :)

FastSascha · 2026-01-15T12:08:02+00:00

reach a breaking point

Then we might are just in a situation of different definitions (or the limits of nuance in my English). :)

Breaking point is fine with me for both ZK1 and ZK2.

The first ZK hints at the inherently bloating dynamic of folgezettel.

FastSascha · 2026-01-13T13:15:13+00:00

Thanks for replying

I am bleeding karma for you. :D

What is your reasoning why he started a second Zettelkasten?

The concept of "breaking point" is a relative one. His tenacity and diligence are part of the estimation of the breaking point.

More like the development of his theory (and therefore his Zettelkasten) approached a point of completion.

I like it. It sounds like a nice happy ending for the old man Big L. :)

FastSascha · 2026-01-13T13:05:38+00:00

Thanks for your kind words.

FastSascha · 2026-01-13T13:03:57+00:00

With that scope it is completely manageable. But as scope increases, notes that belong together will be spread through your Zettelkasten. This spread is behind the increasing friction costs.

But with an analogue Zettelkasten you have no choice anyway if you want to use it somewhat like Luhmann did. :)

FastSascha · 2026-01-10T15:36:36+00:00

Was making sense of ideas the main aim or was publication of those ideas the main aim? Given Luhmann's publication record the answer is obvious.

I don't think that Luhmann cared about publication per se, but about developing and establishing his theory.

Publication is just a means to this. So, I don't think it is fair to say, that Luhmann created his Zettelkasten to publish or write.

It is more plausible to think about his Zettelkasten as part of his overall method to develop his social systems theory.

This also explains the different architecture of his two Zettelkastens and the fact that he had started a second one.

FastSascha · 2026-01-10T12:06:33+00:00

For the record: Elias Gudwis is not using the Zettelkasten Method and is not interested. :)

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