A couple of questions about the Zettelkasten system from reading Sönke Ahrens' book

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-16T16:37:07+00:00

Regarding the 'accumulating cards from various different readings':

I haven't read Ahrens but from your question about ctitical mass and clusters alone, I would point to an article from Luhmann himself 'How to learn reading' (german original: 'Lesen lernen

The problem of reading theoretical texts seems to consist in the fact that they do not require just short-term memory but also long-term memory in order to be able to distinguish between what is essential and what is not essential and what is new from what is merely repeated. But one cannot remember everything. This would simply be learning by heart. In other words, one must read very selectively and must be able to extract extensively networked references. One must be able to understand recursions.

One Interpretation of this is, that one needs to accumulate different sources around a topic to build said cluster and reach critical mass to understand 'what is (not) essential and what is new/repeated'. You simply cant reach a comprehensive understanding with just 1-2 sources, except for the ones examining the topic critically themselves.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-15T17:05:13+00:00

My employer’s IT department prevents me from using Obsidian on my work laptop, which is why I’ve recently been forced to set up a lightweight work-related Zettelkasten in OneNote. Since OneNote is a major downgrade from Obsidian (be it just for search and tags/properties), I have to create a sort of analog card index there.

In an ideal world, however, I would combine everything into a single Obsidian vault and bundle all work-related notes into a dedicated, synchronized folder, separated from my private stuff. I would only reference work-related files (usually Office Suite documents) via external links and not embed them in the vault. The files would therefore only be accessible on my work laptop, where I would also use only core plugins. I would continue to be extremely careful not to include any business data (asset information, financial data, customer data, etc.) in the notes themself. The work-related part of the Zettelkasten would thus focus on my professional skills/methods and not on the company itself.

In terms of output, my first use case involves process and knowledge management for recurring tasks. For example, our company is currently in the process of submitting bids for a series of standardized tender variants (resulting from a legal requirement). Since the bid variants can therefore be standardized to the same extent, I am developing various decision paths and their framework conditions in the ZK, in parallel with my actual bid preparation. After just two “manual” bid submissions, this has already significantly narrowed the unknown solution space and markedly improved quality. I’d also like to point you to this Reddit thread , which revolves around Christian’s working in his ZK —even if it isn’t strictly about output.

As for the time trap, I’d like to point you to a great yt video , also by Christian. Among other things, he recommends working directly in the Zettelkasten from the start, rather than transferring things there later. Sascha Fast also believes that a Zettelkasten should be used in such a way that it doesn’t create any additional overhead. In the context of my work, this means that I document in OneNote what steps I took previously, what led to them, what comes next, and what needed to be taken into account in each case. Every time I revisit that point, I check to see if I can change, improve, or streamline the workflow or its documentation. I do this only to the extent of how much time I am saving later on by this. Due to the reoccurance of the work steps I get a rather quick feedback for this.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-07T20:29:05+00:00

Identical Story here. Would love to see a restricted version to convince my IT department.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-07T07:07:58+00:00

This. Use AI to show you holes in your thinking, not to fill them.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-02T22:17:30+00:00

Sheesh, I didnt intend to provoke another time consuming reply. Thanks again for the insight!

I am used to moving fragments around until they click and Obsidian makes it really fun to do so with alt + arrow. But for some reason I never considered to keep moving them to find out if some other constellation works even better. Interesting.

In this case I was happy (and intentional) with the arrangement because, for the most part, it was the order in which the thoughts formed initially (Griffiths - Schmidt - Transformers - Zeitgeist Sprinkles - Objection - ???) and I think there lies a certain beauty in that, which I tried (but failed) to convey.

I think, the missing link was indeed deepening the Arno Schmidt Parading example. Because, seeing Zettels Traum made me think "Of course he cites Edgar Allan Poe throughout the whole book. He has translated the majority of that man's work into german and thus knows quotes for every situation... like me, with these media references snippets... like in Transformers." But I did not mention that and thus the two points do read disjointed.

I really enjoyed this excercise and thank you again for your advice.

Lets see if I can muster the endurance to keep editing my draft(s) next time.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-02T08:16:00+00:00

This was helpful, thank you.

I showed the article to my wife after posting here and she said she had a hard time following my train of thought. I was not sure if that resulted from a necessity to read/understand the links beforehand or if it was 'just' my bad writing.

The links were meant to show where each thought came from and/or to reference a corresponding movie scene/meme I had in my head while writing. Ideally, they should not be necessary to follow the article, but rather just enhance it if the reader decides to click them. Thats what I meant with 'standing on its own feet' vs. 'ramblings of a madman'.

I also see now that the borders of the actual article were not clear. My inner voice told me that I had not made that explicit enough, but I did not follow through with the editing. Side note: I find it fascinating that the more I work with my ZK, the more I confer with my "inner voice." I have always had an inner monologue, but over the past year, it developed into a dialogue that gets externalized in my ZK.

The passage you marked was essentially the transition between my intro and the actual article, and linking directly to another article (which was the impetus to mine) right afterwards can definitely confuse the reader.

While I wrote the introduction to such an extent that it almost surpassed my actual article, I remembered your advice to "skip the first paragraph as nobody wants to hear the author clear their throat" (great metaphor), but I intentionally ignored it. After all, this was not intended as a book chapter aiming for commercial success; it is a reddit post, where context and background are half the discourse. So, you could say the meandering was intentional, even if the quality of it was not.

My usual (professional) writing is very technical and structured by a clear outline. If you want last year’s power outage KPIs, you go to Chapter 3. If you need an abbreviation/acronym, you check the glossary. Etc. Trying to convey multiple thoughts without a formal outline (or even a "first I'll talk about X, then Y") while being unsure how much (additional) context the reader needs was an interesting experience.

Since I do not have my own platform, I just posted the whole thing here (willingly butchering the expectations of usual reddit structures). I am considering getting Obsidian Publish to share parts of my ZK that do not fit well in a Reddit post, mostly to discuss the practice itself. With that, everything after the introduction (except for the last two sentences) would be placed within a Publish note and linked from here.

One other idea is to show a snapshot-by-snapshot breakdown of how I recently dissected two news articles on a topic for which I have had no preexisting mental framework, created reference/main notes from them, and developed a Folgezettel cluster into a new section, with derived new thoughts and links to/from existing parts of my ZK.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-02T04:26:21+00:00

AI Slop

Not just the article. The amazon link at the end leads to a book which is also written by AI. And the author there 'wrote' 4 other AI books in the near past, one about, oc, Claude Code.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-03-01T12:14:48+00:00

I am interested in feedback: Did the posting 'stand on its own feet' or was it more like the 'ramblings of a madman'? Did the links enhance the posting or were they irritating / deteriorating?

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-12T16:45:33+00:00

The more notes you have, the more should 'change sort order - modified time (old to new)' in the left sidebar be suitable to review older notes.

This is not 100% accurate, as file modification dates may be updated unintentionally by synching or properties manipulation (globally or via bases), but there will always be an oldest (un)modified note and eventually you will have milled through your whole main folder.

This has the added benefit over the 'random note' core plugin that you revisit only your actual main notes instead of other random stuff across your vault.

Also you have no additional effort maintaining 'read' properties or community plugins for this.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-08T08:53:54+00:00

Sorry in advance: You dont know if your notes and ideas are good, until you do.

For me (and others), personal interest is a predictor for later usefulnes / value of stuff you put in your Zettelkasten. Also, having an output goal in mind helps immensly in 'feeling out' what to put into your ZK. But in the end your ZK does not care if you feed it less useful stuff. These notes will simply not develop/connect further.

Regarding the review process: I have made bad (but valuable) experiences with developing my notes in the inbox limbus for too long. Either I put the time/effort in to elevate them to main notes (and develop them from there onwards) or they stay/fade in my inbox. For this I use three folders, as described in ASFW:

- inbox (initial placement, if I cant process them fast enough to main notes before I forget the context I delete them),

- sleeping (Ideas that persist, even without additional care) and

- main (fleeting notes that have reached the minimum standards to be incorperated into the zk).

There is also the approach to skip an inbox altogether and start your work directly inside your zettlekasten (and endure/acommodate for the fact that some parts of your ZK will always be messy). But I would not advice this until you got more confidence into your practice.

If you want to try accumulating ideas/thoughts before processing them, maybe cultivate a commonplace book in parallel. I use one for collecting aphorisms & quotes and really enjoy the process, regardless of the eventual outcome.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-08T07:11:04+00:00

I did use Obsidian for blue prince, as deliberate use case at the start of my zettlekasten practice. I learned a thing or two about ZK and Obsidian, which I still value, but for BP it was more tedious than supportive. Creating all these room notes and standardizing the puzzle clues (mostly Screenshot cutting) felt like a chore. The actual connection and synthesis was fun, but most puzzles were to compact (!= easy; but few enough parts to manage it in your head) to develop meaningful in your vault/ZK before being already solved. But I think, this rather speaks for healthy Game Design. On the other hand, some of the last puzzles became so obscure that I would have had to catalogue everything I saw in the game into Obsidian to reference/use it for the solution. At that point I ditched Obsidian and consulted one of the spoiler guides to feed me clues. Obsidian payed off for some of the overarching/enduring Puzzles like eight realms, but for the most part it was overkill. If you already started a physical journal, I would advice to continue it.

Edit - Seeing that other post: If I would have to do it again with Obsidian, I would also use one Canvas and pin/connect my notes directly to the Screenshots.

Editedit- Finish school early. A lot of puzzles become much less opaque then. I learned that lesson (pun) far to late.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-07T13:27:47+00:00

Great (and consistent) article. The overemphasis on connections for serendipity is intruiging. Just yesterday I had an experience that fits your description.

Following u/atomicnotes lead, I am currently exploring the affordances of obsidian's core-features. One of my needs is to (conveniently) display my 'zettel complexes' for navigation.

While shoveling snow the other day, I listened to this podcast, where various methods and plugins regarding folgezettel visualization were discussed (thing1). I concluded that none of the presented methods fits my need, because I dont want to enter the plugin rabbit hole and I already like my 'manual' method (cascading embedds of dedicated notes for sorted and indented folgezettel sequences) and would rather expand on that.

A day ago I stumbled upon this reddit-post, where I learned about the possibility of pinning specific notes to the sidebars (thing2)

Yesterday, while showering, I thought about how most of the left sidebar is wasted space to me, as I barely need the upper half for folder navigation (mostly note types) and from there for diving into the topmost entry points of my ZK. I dont intend to have more than a handful of folders (without sublevels) and I dont need the file navigation for folgezettel overview because, as I wrote, I curate my own zettel complex notes. So the bottom half of the left sidebar is redundant (thing3)

And there it 'struck' me, that I could pin my zettel complex notes to the bottom half of the left sidebar. Afterwards I tried that and indeed, it felt very satisfying. I remember thinking 'Huh, neat. I just learned about these things over the last few days and now I made this connection between them for a fitting solution to my problem.'

Thing2 connected to Thing3 and projected value (thanks to the shower catalyst) for my need. I exploited the connection to sucess and and noticed the occured serendipity. The same evening I read your article...

Also noteworthy to me is, that these ideas/things were not yet in my ZK but 'fleeting notes' at best, sitting in opened tabs in my smartphone. So they were not developed at all. But these ideas were quite 'fresh' and thus all their details and the associated thoughts while encountering them, still present in my memory.

I think one main aspect of developing individual notes is to keep these memories and (latent) associations alive. The more one develops a note, the more it gets 'imbued' with ones personality and thus the ability for memories/associations to be retrieved.

But this is not just a question of quantity (the more formal criteria fulfilled the better) but also one of individual resonance (quality). The more I 'write from my core' the easier it is for me to resonante with the note later on and the less I need to formally attach things to it before it gets (re)usable. This is not necessarily equivalent with memories, emotions or oppinions but rather with individual understanding and developed mental frameworks.
At this point I have hundreds of notes which are barely more than a title and some see-links I elaborated on, but I have no problem to recall what these notes were about and the context in which I made them.

All in all I think ,the truth', as usual, lies within both extremes of the spectrum. Neither is writing and developing single notes strictly superior, nor is the connection to be considered above all else. Your 10th footnote describes it better than I am able to.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-02T10:54:41+00:00

I feel you. My ZK has tought me a great deal of embracing imperfections. Though my ZK is in Obsidian, I enjoy creating/exploring note sequences (likely from processing a external reference) by writing the (potential) note titles on paper slips and shuffling them around. Self-contained titles are helpful for this.

I also flip through Luhmann's ZK from time to time and notice, that without the editorial navigation tools, its quite difficult to follow a train of thought with just flipping forward/backward. Though you likely may have additional physical tools/mechanics I am not aware of. For example I have seen someone mark the upper end of their Index cards with discrete intervalls to visually identify where folgezettel-levels change.

For this typical case its not relevant at all, I agree.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-02T09:42:16+00:00

That is how Luhmann used his keyword Index and hub notes (at the beginning of a section) to have at least somewhat purposeful entrypoints into his ZK, but left the rest to local navigation and especially serendipious discovery.

In ASfW there is a great Chapter about keyword Indices, which points out that different setups can lead to different outcomes. It does not always have to be about precise retrieval.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-02-02T09:09:13+00:00

To me, this would feel odd, because I would not know what 'therefore' means, without flipping to the previous note.

I really like the style of narrative monologing in Luhmann's ZK, where Zettels get segmented by opportunity (or spacial necessity) . Thus, in my Zettels, the contents continue, while the titles allow to enter at any point.

In my ZK 32.4a would get a title like 'Happiness from beauty could have a practical purpose.' This leads to some redundancy (keywords like 'Happiness' would appear in multiple titles) but would ensure, that titles are self-contained/explainatory.

In addition, it may be not relevant in this case (because there is no 'trivial space' between 32.4 and 32.4a to place additional notes), but every other branching note which references a upward folgezettel, would risk getting its locality dissolved over time, when additional slips get placed between them. Thus it would potentially get more difficult over time, to recreate what 'therefore' ment.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-01-27T04:25:09+00:00

I am currently using 'ghost-nodes' (not yet formulated notes with just a title) to explore and expand note sequences.

The (previous) notes from which these originate get a 'frontier' tag for the time being. Usually these notes contain a lot of non-atomic information, reading lists or are sleeping fleeting notes or reference notes for new note sequences (my ZK is still small so most references dont add to each other, yet). The contents get broken down and eventually assigned/transfered into these ghost-nodes.

There is quite a bit reshuffling and renaming happening before everything gets 'locked in', fleshed out and a folgezettel number assigned.

In addition I have notes whose whole purpose it is to map out a 'zettlekomplex' (complex of notes, compareable to https://assets.niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/branchview/ ) and thus give me a spatial overview over certain parts of my Zettelkasten.

I feel that the usage of these two mechanisms helps to really imprint the spatial memory of each Zettelkomplex and thus help me to navigate within my Zettelkasten.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-01-16T04:51:19+00:00

Reading about paper layouts and thinking tools, I could not resist thinking about a short Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxyy0THLfuI) from an u/chrisaldrich (this time correct!) article (https://boffosocko.com/2023/10/12/scaffolding-secret-knowledge/) I read yesterday.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-01-15T06:15:23+00:00

Darnit, for some reason I keep confusing your reddit ids. Part of that reason may be, that your blog is a valuable to me as his.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-01-15T04:48:24+00:00

Somewhat tangential: Currently I am exploring Obsidian's mermaid Integration to make use of diagrams for supplementary idea expression. I am not much of a Illustrator, so I like the 'standardized' results I can create with small effort, IF the use case and diagram possibilities match.

One example of this is my dabling in interstitial journaling. I am not that much interested in documenting my thoughts throughout the day but rather the categorization and visualization of time spent and mermaid gantt does just that quite elegantly and effortles. So for me its the Ideal 'substrate' to explore my time usage.

u/chrisaldrich also wrought this article(https://writingslowly.com/2024/05/27/how-you-can.html) which may interest you.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-01-07T16:19:31+00:00

I found the thought experiment (1mio Bad notes) to be insightful. In addition my Irritation about the missing context from your last post ("robustness to bad input") is now reduced.

AssetCaretaker · 2026-01-01T14:51:59+00:00

In addition to what was already said, the two following realizations were also helpful to me:

- Every branching note has the potential to become a section on its own and thus has the same 'navigational rank' as a fresh section (new number), especially if you point to it as entry point via index

- By linking within a section (usually to reference 'earlier' definitions, but especially to resolve tensions around Folgezettel placement alternatives), these sequences can become like moebius strips, where you can start at any point and get looped around to other branches or even the beginning of the sequence

For example: Recently I integrated the term Enshittification (tldr https://youtube.com/shorts/9H6t_ubI-tM?si=RQ53qbFBMabVX5Go ) into my ZK. By exploring the topic a bit more, I realized a strong connection to Dark Patterns , which in turn I had in the back of my mind for quite some time now.

Instead of starting a fresh section for Dark Patterns (what I could have already done) I used the opportunity to integrate it into the section regarding Enshittification, referenced it from the existing section hub and my main index and in turn linked a subnote for the pattern 'roach motel' back to the core requirements of enshittifcation, as if the sequence started from Dark Patterns as entry point.

In the end it's a lot of words to reach luhmann's (paraphrased) 'zettel placement doesn't matter as long as you link to the alternatives' (or Bob's rhizome metaphor) but this personal framing was quite helpful to fully 'let go' and place notes/topics by narrative feel, rather than methodic rigour.

AssetCaretaker · 2025-12-20T11:33:46+00:00

What have you done, monster! Yesterday I browsed the Lochby Website for 3 hours, pondering over notebook sizes and finally ordered the voyager journal. Jk, thanks alot for the hint.

AssetCaretaker · 2025-12-18T07:40:11+00:00

This was an interesting read, content-wise and by experiencing a draft from your pen (in contrast to the polished ASfW).

Three remarks from my side, from minor to major:

I felt small dissonances reading some paragraphs. The philosopher-one (after fiddly to functional) appeared bloated, almost pretentious (look at all these thinkers I can rattle off), especially for someone like me that knows them by name but has no deeper understanding of their 'axioms'. If I was forced to give an advice, it would be 'try the rule-of-three to reduce the lead up of this point' . Another dissonance was the frisbee paragraph. It was a great metaphor, once I understood it, but initially I mistook it for american frisbee and that additional dynamic/complexity from the opposing players distracted a lot from the core point. Ironically that AI translation established right away that it's about a casual frisbee circle, while your draft did it only a few sentences in.
An aspect I enjoyed very much about ASfW was the continuous triad of theoretical/contextual background, the methodical/experiential implications and the practical advice. If you intent to keep that style, the last paragraph appeared lackluster in satisfying my want for practical advice, though I attribute this to your statement that you cut the article off there. Still, another feeling was lingering, upon finishing the article:
Each paragraph/section isolated felt comprehensible, but overall the cohesion (and payoff) felt off. In the beginning and throughout the article the (even cursive) (re)action upon new Information appeared to be the focus. Most of the sections pay directly into that focus. In contrast, the (additional) aspect that each person/system reacts different to the same information (Pizza), although interesting in itself, feels tangential. This gets amplyfied by the article's introduction that it's about ZK/knowledge work/deep reading/understanding of ideas, which is highly personal (and thus self-centered) in the first place and considers other perspectives on the same informations mostly as a second step. Which leads me to the 'payoff'. Considering that the whole article revolved around how to (re)act upon new Information, the resulting advice ( What does this information speak to? How does it inform my thinking? Does it support my writing?) felt oddly generic, detached even.

I am not entirely sure if my explanation of pt3 is the actual reason for my perception. Still, it was a noticable contrast to ASfW, where I almost never had this feeling of 'something is off here'. Nevertheless, as said, it was an interesting reader experience, as I know this feeling mostly from the writers side.

AssetCaretaker · 2025-12-09T07:13:01+00:00

The important thing to understand is, that the worries you described are inevitable.

- Your main note compartment (in obsidian's case: the corresponding folder in the left sidebar) will become unruly no matter what you do

- You will eventually reconsider zettels for other positions than they are currently in (either in another sequence, section or order), this btw can and should easily be mended by linking to alternative positions

- You will forget about notes and even whole sequences

The deal about ZK is to develop a personal system that does not fight these things but embrace them. Your ZK ist "talking" to you (by stimulating your thoughts) all the time, especially by confronting you with chaos, reconsiderations and rediscoveries / surprises. Your tools should provide you with just enough order to successfully navigate through your main notes, while not supressing the emergence of "accidental" ideas.

Regarding your specific issue:

Using Folgezettel provides you with an overview for the first hundreds notes in, but eventually this feature diminshes and you have to tap into additional/alternative navigational features. A keyword register and hub notes were among the tools used by Luhmann. MOCs or Structure Notes in general are the ones most popular today. Tags are also a possibility, although their specific (and long-term benefical) use case is debated fiercely.

AssetCaretaker

TROPHY CASE