How to Take Smart Notes - Book on a Page

[@obscurus1344]

You are one of the few people on the PKM side of youtube that actually knows what he is talking about. Constantly making useful software and offering new insights. Thank you.

[@VisualPKM]

Thanks! Who are some of the others?

[@obscurus1344]

@@VisualPKM I had Nicole van der Hoeven and Linking Your Thinking in mind when writing this. Also, would you be interested in creating a development workflow if not a complete tutorial on plugin development any time soon?

[@VisualPKM]

@@obscurus1344 I am thinking about launching a Techno-Visual Obsidian course in the near future. A brief discussion about plugin development could be part of that.

[@mrparadox6878]

@@VisualPKM that would be great

[@Wingedmagician]

I totally get that impression. Ali Abdal is another one

[@rodking7501]

Wonderful review and presentation of the Zettelkasten (Notecard) system. Thanks for sharing.

[@nestor-162]

Thank you, I love the way you explain things and how you present the content in a graphical and organized way.

[@GeneBellinger]

A marvelous piece of work!!!

[@ksoonsoon]

Zsolt, I know it is likely you went through this effort and process primarily for yourself and may have created it regardless, but I just wanted to say thank you for your work. I just finished watching the interview with you and Nicole where you discussed Escalidraw and Excalbrain, among other things including your one-page summary of smart notes. I had this video already earmarked to come back to at a later date, but that interview lit a fire under me to do it sooner than later. Please keep those one page book reviews coming. They are outstanding in so many ways. Even if the only value was just in a book review they would be terrific, but integrating them with all the functionality of Excalidraw makes them not only more unique and valuable, but teaches us so much more about how we can use the tool in ways that benefit us. Thank you for that and please keep all the good work coming. You are such a valuable resource to the obsidian community. It is a joy integrating with a community that builds tools of value that actually make my life the lives of others better.

[@VisualPKM]

Thank you. It is heart warming to know that people get significant value out of my work. ...and regarding the Obsidian and wider PKM community, I couldn't agree more. This is a wonderful group of people.

[@ksoonsoon]

@@VisualPKM For me at least, there is no doubt how much value I pull from your videos and work. In the next couple of weeks I will be starting a new path moving from my most recent career as a COO into that of an owner/partner in what appears to be a very high growth and high margin business venture. I plan to push the Obsidian tool and all of the value of plug-ins associated with it to their limits to assist me in what will be a pretty sizable job I have ahead. One of the things I look forward to the most is putting into practice what I consider to be a relatively rare skill set (and practice of) of strategic work that these days is more often than not incorrectly practiced/executed as planning and not strategy efforts. I’m a big fan of Roger Martin, in case you know of him and his work assisting P&G with their strategic efforts and significant turnaround. Obsidian, Excalidraw and Excalibrain will be some of the significant components of the technology I use to pull my thoughts and work together. Thanks again for all of your efforts and contribution to what will absolutely impact my path forward. All the best.

[@ksoonsoon]

@@VisualPKM by the way, my odd username is a combination of “k:”, which is a prefix assigned to Kadena crypto transactions/addresses (huge fan of that incredibly underrated and undervalued crypto Block chain technology) and the term soonsoon, which sarcastically referrers to the late delivery of some of the important elements in that ecosystem, which when delivered will significantly impact the direction of that technology. Sometimes usernames can be similar to cryptic custom license plates where only the owner will ever really what they mean. ;)

[@VisualPKM]

@@ksoonsoon Thanks! I've added Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works to my reading list. BTW have you seen my video about Wardley maps? Convert Obsidian into a Workbench for Strategic Planning with Wardley Maps and Excalidraw kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJqYaaNjoLWegtU

[@geronimo6787]

I cannot emphasize enough how helpful and brilliantly made this piece of … artwork is. - In terms of the topic itself, the visualisation, the summary and all the small pieces of HowTo. - Thanks so much for sharing- this is very inspiring!

[@VisualPKM]

Thank you. I am glad you found this valuable!

[@1996pauleta]

Men, best explanation on the internet! Congratulations. The only thing I am really missing is to see real examples of the differente note types or of a real example of a more filled slip-box.

[@VisualPKM]

Take a look at this. You'll need to turn on auto translation in case you don't speak German. You can browse Luhmann's cards here: niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_1_NB_17_2_V

[@cedargrace]

This presentation was so helpful for me. The visuals really helped me to grasp the concept and technique.

[@timothygutierrez]

53:40 I found this overview helpful. Thank you. I plan to show this to my writing students instead of the usual brainstorming lesson.

[@VisualPKM]

Awesome. I am glad you found this helpful. I hope your writing students do as well.

[@HealthyLiv1ng]

Thank you for making and sharing this!!! 😁🤗

[@ympeng7969]

This is awesome, you clearly explained this book with fantastic visuals

[@laszlopetergyarmati6279]

Zsolt, really useful video. Clear and concise. Must have been tremendous work to make the visuals. Thanks!

[@MJS2376]

Thank you! Very helpful!

[@ThomasSchlesinger]

Very good overview about the key points of the book. Thank you very much for this video and for the drawing!

[@yohankoo4902]

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

[@starkxz]

Thank you. This book is the first on my list once finishing the setup of my vault.

[@directorserge]

Amazing information! Thank you very much. I actively practice Zettlekasten and your video helped me to summarize and structure my understanding of it even more. Thanks again for your efforts in making this video.

[@Vex-d1E]

Hey man. These and all your videos are great. Some of the best content out there. 💯 It would be amazing if you did David Allens Getting things done as a single page. I’d definitely rewatch couple times. 😎

[@jagadish_das]

Thank you so much for the deep and clear explanation! 5th day making notes )))

[@gregggullickson]

Beautifully explained.

[@hamdimohammedtaha]

Thank you so much for this video.Your explanation is really good.

[@shuilee2781]

Very good sharing. Thanks.

[@kenaar]

Incredible summary. Thank you.

[@ADarkDreamer]

Excellent work. This video is a great reference for me even though I've read the book already.

[@DariusNmN]

Thank you for sharing such a well thought through book summary. Excellent.

[@lauraramos8940]

Excellent explanation!!

[@paulomarinho279]

Amazing! Thank you!

[@robertodijo]

Thanks again for this brilliant explanation. I also have read the book, almost twice. But your explanation makes it more living. Maybe you already have explain this in another video, but how long did it took you to create this Excalidraw? I assume you had multiple itteration, before you came to this final piece. Did you start from the top left, to bottom right? Did you draw al the images yourself? In short, can you explain the process how you create a visual drawing like this one. Thanks for sharing, and keep up the good work!!!

[@VisualPKM]

I talk about my process in multiple videos. Here are a few: Slow reading: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e2Pdq4x7bq6lpLc Digest what your read: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r6qXk2mdmsqEibs 4D thinking with example of Feel Good Productivity BoaP: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnS1m3yLps5lpMk Behind the scenes of my BoaP for Building a Second Brain: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYXWqGNoZbB5nJI How to create a sketchnote summary of a book: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGTHk3tomJifZq8 plus I have a workshop / course that takes participants through the process: visual-thinking-workshop.com

[@dats7547]

I saw your video with Nicole van der Hoeven, and thought I would check out your videos. Wow! This was a great video! Very well done, and incredible content. Excited for your next book on a page, and will definitely check out the others on your channel!

[@VisualPKM]

Thank you! I do plan to get a book review out every 2 month, though this is not a promise only an aspiration.

[@MrFedericoraggi]

Very informative and useful

[@ep3867]

Thanks for sharing...

[@pst659]

Plz keep doing this

[@summerzhang1797]

Thank you!

[@magnum64759]

Thank You very much for this comprehensive summary and illustration book on a page Zsolt, please keep making this :) If I can make a request, please make On Wrting Well by William Zinsser 😀

[@VisualPKM]

Thanks. We'll see. For now, I'll add On Writing Well to my reading list.

[@jefjef418]

Thank you!

[@etheriousnoob]

underrated

[@fcohen8296]

First of all, excellent job on this video; the visual art really helps the understanding. Now my question (to anyone who can explain): It sounds so great to an estimated 6 cards a day, but just look at how much info I would have to store from this one book alone if I wanted to research/learn all about note-taking for remembering and finding the info when needed. It seems impossible to me to use this system of atomic notes in a practical way. I know I must be wrong since it seems like smarter people than I have used it so successfully. I need some help here

[@VisualPKM]

It's worth taking a look at the type of notes Niklas Luhmann created niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_1_NB_7-2_V (this page is in German, turn on google translate for the page to read a translated version). His cards are really short/summarized. 6 cards a day might be a bit of a stretch target, even one card a day is a challenge. However, the alternative is not creating cards... which is an even less compelling option. Until recently I've kept my literature notes as single large files for each book I read. Now I am moving to a process to create individual literature notes files per chapter. I find this approach better from a search and linking perspective, especially when it comes to visualizing those connections in ExcaliBrain. The part I find hardest to implement in practice from Luhmann's approach is linking a note to an existing sequence of notes in my ZK system. This is relatively easy if you are researching certain topics and you follow a line of questioning. This is really hard if you are consuming "random" information, guided by your interest, because often things don't link in a logical way to previous ideas.

[@farzadmf]

Please, if possible, make a video about what I call "random notes" (what I consider "resources"): a few examples: - You have a question, you search the internet, find the answer, and you keep it somewhere - You see a useful thing somewhere on the internet and you save it One big issue I have with these notes is that it happens a lot that a long time passes before I get to the "useful" thing or face the same issue as the first one. So, for the case of the "useful thing", it's somehow burried somewhere that I may never find it, and for the question, I need to repeat the process again. This time, if I realize that I had previously done the same, I just give up and don't keep anything, and I'm like "OK, hopefully I'll find the answer next time as I did now"

[@VisualPKM]

Why not create a permanent note that articulates the question you are searching for and the reason why this is important to you. Then you could add permanent notes under this note that summarize your findings and solution ideas. I am not an academic, nor am I a writer. I am exploring the Zettelkasten concept as a general note-taking approach. The index, the overview notes, the permanent notes linked to one another in hierarchies, etc... are all very much applicable for all sorts of note taking situations. I will have more videos on my journey to integrate ZK into my PKM and also making it more visual, so probably you will find some relevant examples from me in the future on this channel.

[@farzadmf]

Sure, your videos are SUPER useful. I think I'm wrong, but I feel like these note taking methods (Zettelkasten for example) mostly apply to cases when you're doing a research on a specific topic and you gather things around that specific topic and continue from there. I'm a developer/engineer, and I'm following Reddit/blogs/KZbin etc., and I always find "interesting" things here and there, sometimes about a library, sometimes about a tool, sometimes about something to be productive, and I try to keep track of these, but I'm having a hard time actually remembering what I had saved. A lot of times, I see the use of tags, but the issue with tags is (at least in my case) that I even forget what tags I used in the first place, and my new problem becomes: "OK, I know I have saved something about this, but which tag did I use" Anyway, sorry for the long comment, wanted to maybe make it more clear what I meant (if it was unclear)

[@VisualPKM]

@@farzadmf I think research is not limited to science or formal engagements, but it is simply about following your interest. The idea with taking atomic notes and linking them as suggested in ZK is to create a system in which you can develop your thoughts instead of going around in circles. I have some other videos (eg It's About Time) that look at note-taking in other situations such as meetings for example. Just as a last thought, in the context of software development, atomic notes are kind of similar to user stories in agile methodologies. I wonder how the marriage of ZK with the concept of Product Backlog might look like, and if it would lead to anything useful.

[@ElvenStone]

​@@farzadmf Hi there! I saw your comment and just wanted to add my 2 cents... I'm going to assume you already know/use Obsidian, since you're watching Zsolt's videos, but still provide an overview just in case. Out of the box, Obsidian is already great at bidirectional linking and tagging, which help navigate related notes (the side panels for that also help to keep track somewhat). But there are many community plugins that help even more for productivity and keeping track of things. The well known Dataview plugin helps for showing lists/tables and sorting things out by tags, metadata, etc., which can filter through your notes to only show you what you want. I, for example, have separate Dataview queries for books, authors, scientists, PKM notes, or notes related to my research (but you can do it based on topics or areas you want to keep track of, and tags definitely make it easier to use Dataview). There's also a lesser-known plugin called Completr, which autocompletes and gives you a drop-down list of the tags you've already written before when writing on a tag, so you can keep consistency. This has helped me immensely in this regard. In the terms of the process, I can definitely recommend Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain, which Zsolt has also reviewed. He commented on something that resonated with me, about being a curator of your own knowledge. Essentially, only consume what you think is important, what you think will be valuable for your future self. I've seen others recommend this as well so as to not overwhelm yourself with random notes, but keep only the essential ones or most valuable ones. In the same train of thought, I've seen many people recommend not just to consume, but to process the notes. Write about why you are collecting this information, why it is important to you, and how you will apply it, or just a short summary of the content in your own words. This way you're more likely to remember its content, and most probably, where you kept it since you spent time with your note. Hopefully, this helps with something. :)

[@davidwellman287]

Amazing. I have gone through the book and have not gotten what you have out of the book. Fantastic work.

[@VisualPKM]

Wow! Thanks for the compliment. Yes, it was not an easy read. Or rather it is a pleasant and easy read, but takes a bit of work to put the puzzle pieces together.

[@A4000]

Writing is a precursor to thinking. Reading is the origin.

[@VisualPKM]

I believe articulation is the precursor to thinking, or perhaps it is thinking itself. Until we express our thoughts in concrete terms - whether through words or even simple doodles - those thoughts remain abstract, leaving us with only a vague sense of what we're thinking. This is why I believe it’s so challenging to clearly verbalize our ideas: until we articulate them, we don’t truly know what we think; we just feel we know. Writing, of course, is a common and powerful way to facilitate this articulation.

[@A4000]

@@VisualPKM how much is 2+2?, most people can do that in their head. How much is 457*638? Most people have to write it out. By ‘thinking’ we mean critical thinking so complex that it must be written out to be sorted, analyzed, and concluded. That is why writing is a precursor to thinking. If you’re not writing to help you think, the thinking is not complex. I would be very surprised if someone could articulate their thoughts clearly without writing first.

[@ez7125]

Can somebody please explain me the, “washing the dishes” part? Around the 10:00 minute. Why does he say that by washing the dishes we would get instant gratification? I love this channel and his summaries. I want to understand this part. Thanks

[@VisualPKM]

The idea is that we like to do things that feel productive. Just sitting and thinking without our hands moving, without delivering something tangible does not feel productive. As a result we are tempted to do activities that feel productive in the moment instead of doing the thinking bit. The zettelkasten approach helps with this, as it breaks down the generation of a BIG idea into the generation of many small ideas that you record on cards... which feels productive in the moment as well as is productive on the long term. Washing the dishes is just one example of doing something that feels productive in the moment. Instead of washing the dishes think of any other activity (e.g. processing email, playing with the formatting of presentations, etc.) that satisfies your short-term urge to get something done...

[@AugustChaoTW]

very helpful, tkx

[@mageprometheus]

Good summarization. I like some of the ideas from the ZK system but not the IDs. I suppose if I was using real cards and boxes it would be totally different.

[@VisualPKM]

True, the numbering system developed by Luhmann was designed for the slipbox. However, a good file naming convention can go a long way in improving sorting, search and navigation.

[@mageprometheus]

@@VisualPKM And inserting a note between a parent and child is possible when you don't use hardcoded 1a1b5d style IDs. I think there is a bit of a holy war about this amongst practitioners. 😄

[@friklik25]

realy nice video

[@yellewwossenmoghes1643]

I once read a book on ultra learning-self directed learning. The learner essentially creates his/her own path. I wish I had known about Zettlekadten back then. My takeaway from this video: Zettlekasten is a powerful tool for self directed learning.

[@Dan-gs3kg]

You are the statue you are creating. Everyone sees a different path in the forest, and find themselves where they want to be.

[@tonyatlas5653]

In your opinion, is such an outline much more complicated and time-consuming than an ordinary outline? Thank you! Such work is done and it looks very nice.

[@VisualPKM]

There is some overhead to create such a sketch-summary, though I use many icons from the internet and reuse some visual concepts from earlier similar summaries - which definitely speeds up the process. In case of this book, it took me more time than usual to come up with a structure that I feel is logical and has a story line that I can present. Once the story line emerges organizing the images is not much more different to coming up with the right words. If you just create summaries for yourself you can save some time on cleaning up the drawing (like aligning text and images, harmonizing font sizes, etc.). I have 3 videos about creating such book on a page summaries. You might find them interesting. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYXWqGNoZbB5nJI kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6CQoGeZZ9Wtj6c kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGTHk3tomJifZq8

[@ez7125]

I have only one doubt. Do literature notes must contain just one idea per note? Permanent notes must have only 1 idea per note, but I did not understand if this rule apply for literature notes too.

[@VisualPKM]

The one idea per note recommendation applies only to permanent notes. I keep all my clippings (text highlights) for a book in a single file and create multiple permanent notes for different ideas triggered by the literature notes.

[@ez7125]

@@VisualPKM Thank you!! I really appreciate your answer.

[@lvt2050]

Hmm...I am having issue with connecting my notes all over the place. I need to think in hierarchy terms more.

[@randymartin9040]

Welcome Holy Spirit!

[@Das0000]

Why does this book has two types of a book cover - one is that you are showing in the video and the other one is with a blue cover.

[@VisualPKM]

I don't know. Many books have multiple covers. Sometimes this depends on country of release, sometimes reprints have a different cover, etc.

[@Das0000]

@@VisualPKM thank you I just saw this book with two different covers on Amazon so that is why I am so curios about it

[@VisualPKM]

@@Das0000 maybe one is a hard cover the other is paperback or kindle?

[@Das0000]

Thank you maybe it is like that​@@VisualPKM

[@seesmof]

please avoid going to hell! repent of your sins and believe on JESUS CHRIST our HOLY LORD GOD ALMIGHTY KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS ✝💝

[@a7mdx60]

Try read the Quran and you'll see the truth and our God ❤

[@theol1044]

Being German, I cringe every time I hear "settelkasten". It's pronounced "tsettelkasten", as in "tsunami". Sorry for being picky, even more so if you heard this for the umpteenth time. Otherwise, great work, thank you very much!