Note Naming in a Zettelkasten (physical and digital)

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Another video specifically on the basics of building a paper-based zettelkasten is coming soon! It'll go more in depth on physical zettelkasten naming conventions and be more informed ☺️
Something I didn't mention: if you want to adopt a "software-agnostic philosophy" within your zettelkasten - meaning you don't rely on just Obsidian - then you might want to start with a time-date stamp. that way, if you choose to rename file names in the future, you don't risk them being the same. Obsidian automatically notifies me if I'm trying to name a note the same thing as one that always exists, though, so I don't worry about it.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - intro
2:22 - key takeaways
3:12 - physical note card naming
7:05 - digital note naming
7:45 - what IS a note, literally
9:20 - why i use dashes - case styles
11:33 - searchability - sources and regular expressions
13:27 - the title of your note
15:35 - conclusion

[@mypradasatthecleanerss]

Great video. Also if you write a descriptive title and it generally fits in space of the text of another note, but not quite grammatically, you can always use [[x|y]] where x is the actual note name and y is what gets displayed.

[@morganeua]

Aaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!! For real? I will try that, so cool!

[@MichaelaDrechselova]

i took a break from implementing [[x|y]] in my most recent notes to reply to the "random" comment that changed my obsidian game. thank you. this is a magnificent revelation. also, i really want to go back through all my notes... i shouldn't... i might end up doing just that as a form of rest activity. 🙈

[@mistersimeeec]

​​​@@morganeua if you frequently use a particular alias you can put that in the yaml. Look up obsidian aliases, it'll let you type the alias out and it'll autocomplete to a fully aliased link. Looks like vonhelster did a much more in depth comment on this topic.

[@twilson1240]

Oh! I needed this!!

[@muhammadtalhamuftee3500]

For a whole year I was using alias which took a lot of time. This is so much better!

[@praecorloth]

Glorious! Being a giant nerd, I love that you talk about the file system limitations in naming Obsidian files. And it's an absolute winner that you mention that a space character is a special character. They can ruin your day when trying to programmatically make changes to your files. Fun little tidbit you can throw out at parties. Only Windows requires a file extension to identify what a file is. The rest of the operating systems in the world utilize a little feature built into any file format called a magic number. The magic number is going to be the first couple of bytes of the file. If you open up a PDF in Notepad, you'll see that the file starts with %PDF-1.6 and some more weird characters. Got an MP4 video? You'll probably see ftypmp42 at the beginning of the file. ... I don't get invited to parties very often. :D

[@morganeua]

Oooh, ✨magic✨ numbers 😍 I dunno, sounds like a fun party to me!!

[@TheWooTubes]

I worked on DEC's/HP's VMS. It has file specifications that have file-types (but they can be null) and version numbers, so 'kitchen-at_parties.;' is the newest version of a file of unknown type.

[@bo_trilly]

I just put this in my obsidian haha thanks!

[@TheWooTubes]

@@bo_trilly Also the RSX-11 series & CP/M of course. That's where MS-DOS got the ideas that weren't copied from Unix :-)

[@haleymartin9342]

Love watching your stuff - I'm rooting for you as you work on your PhD!

[@ipshergill]

"Kebab case and Snake case" Amazed that there is an actual term for this. Looks like I have been using Snake case by default. Great video..

[@Etnoosfera]

As always, thanks for your video 😄

[@mossgatherer1797]

This is excellent! Thank you so much!

[@kitrit8445]

Great insight - making names of the notes stand out by using dashes, so you can easily differentiate between names and general text

[@mageprometheus]

The Obsidian search is case insensitive unless you click Aa so I don't really worry about the capitals. I think the less confident you feel doing a vault reorganisation, the more thought and care you need with the naming convention. Thanks for another great video. Learning Regex is valuable and I'm getting quite good with them after 35 years. 😄

[@projectmunchkins]

Thank you, Morgan! This is an excellent video on the mechanics of the notes themselves. It makes complete sense and I'm totally adopting it for my zettelkasten! 😊❤

[@morganeua]

Ah, glad it was helpful!

[@sophietwardus6636]

Confession I have used regex to solve wordle puzzles 😅 I love that you design your system in case you might want to program some day. Then again I watch your obsidian videos in case I want to use obsidian one day. It's always fun to learn about something new

[@anastasiapyrkh6156]

Another gem! ❤

[@luslab]

I studied Information Science and I put a lot of thought into the organization of files across different programs/software/systems. I use the same structure as you do for your sources (except without the first name) because I have it set up so the actual file name for the source (in my pdf library) is named that way too. It is nested in folders that go: Author Last Name/Year/filename(authorname-year-title.pdf). When I have that source in Obsidian I know exactly where the pdf is in my pdf filing system. My reference manager automatically organizes them that way if that information has been entered on the article/pdf/book/etc. I use ReadCube Papers for my pdf management, btw. I sometimes export highlighted articles to my Obsidian vault if I want to have quick access to them from there. On another note, if you are interested in a method for organizing files outside of your academic or general references, look into the "Johnny Decimal" method. Edit: Oh, and I uses dashes too :)

[@morganeua]

Ooh, this is validating! I am going to try to start using Zotero for pdf management and reading because you can convert your highlights and notes into markdown files for Obsidian. And I'm already a bit familiar with Zotero.

[@timbushell8640]

'dashes' or 'under strikes'? I have felt that the file name - and not always the title should 'look & feel' different from the text of the note, noting (ha ha ) that the literature note element can always be linked back to the fleeting/permanent note to give those full(er) and defined by others. And notes I have found benefit from a creation date as I often find the 'walking' through my memory to also suggest links yet made - are related both to an old project and/or a place in time. As often the realisation of 'done this or similar before' can come from either direction - but mostly I get 3 maybe 4 'projects' a year and sometimes 'one' will last a couple of years and be near exclusive in that period, so in 2008, and give me the month I can tell you 'instantly which project, etc., etc.

[@timbushell8640]

And as for 'last name' only... why too many Smiths Schmits Browns and Gruns. : )))) And that is before we bring non-European names in, I have 15 Lims in my phone list, but then also 80 Mohammeds - although some have different spelling.

[@morganeua]

@@timbushell8640 Ah, good point about the last names

[@luslab]

@@timbushell8640 A phone list would be a totally different use case for a naming of a "source". If you have the last name, year, and title you pretty much have a unique identifier. I thought about this when deciding on the organization of my references/pdfs and what it would mean for the file structure. I would have a multiple times more folders if I used first names in addition to last names. But that is for file structure for thousands of pdfs. I don't think using a first name is a bad idea at all, it just wouldn't play as nice with how I've organized my pdfs. Also, sometimes they don't give you the first name, just the initials. That was another factor in my decision.

[@CarrieAKouri]

Your videos are so helpful! I am back at grad school after a19 year break. Notetaking and study organization has changed so much since being an undergrad that it was a little overwhelming initially. Again, thank you SO much!

[@morganeua]

Yay, congrats on your grad school journey!

[@bo_trilly]

As a programmer, I also use dashes. I couldn't bring myself to put those spaces in file names. But aliasing everything slows me down a little, I'm not gonna lie. I'm hoping to use templater js to automate aliasing when I get around to it.

[@guy1234u]

As a Ruby programmer (more of a newbie, really), i_use_underscores.

[@Reddykills]

I use a combination of Zotero and the Citations extension for reference management. I set up a keyboard shortcut that links directly to the Zotero article, because I found that any note standing in for that reference would quickly collect 10-30 relationships, making my graph view super messy. Better adherence to Zettelkasten principles would probably solve this, but I enjoy a more ad-hoc approach. Thanks for the title-style advice! I think a more formulaic approach like this will make things much less noisy for me.

[@Haze_Loto]

I recently started to use Zotero, Obsidian and Zettelkasten and it was so confusing. One month later and I can see more the advantages of it. I am still learning how to form good conections and note naming, but enjoy the freedom to create my own process and see what works with my workflow.

[@1monki]

Not using spaces is a great idea. To future-proof your notes, you should avoid punctuation too. Programs like Neovim can follow links in standard text files. I've used it with my Obsidian notes, but that breaks at apostrophes. I had to go back and take them out in Obsidian. Luckily, I didn't have many.

[@cedargrace]

Brilliant. I’m so grateful I copied your note naming style when I started my ZK bc I love it for all the reasons you mentioned. Makes my ZK so clear and accessible. One thing I’ve been doing that I think I’m doing wrong is I link a new note to a source note and then in that new note I link it back to the source note 😂 I just want to make extra sure I’ll be able to find them

[@morganeua]

Nothing wrong with extra links! It's not enough links that is the problem!

[@MrJlindley3]

Great content, great organization, great delivery, great library (Neal Stephenson), great writing tools (Lamy Safari) ;-)

[@morganeua]

My next video will be about my writing tools, actually!

[@dinders0]

Thanks for the nice vid! :) Interestingly I started my Obsidian Zettelkasten using snake case because I do programming as part of my PhD and usually hate spaces in file names. However, later I switched to using spaces because Obsidian seems to render that more nicely. In the graph view, when using spaces, Obsidian breaks up long titles into several lines, which I find much more readable. And while I think the global graph is not very practically usable, local graphs make for great navigation through the Zettelkasten! I completely agree with your thoughts on how to choose titles! If you can't condense the main idea of your note into a single (concise) title, you should probably reorganize things.

[@morganeua]

Oh wow, I didn't know that about spaces putting things on multiple lines in graph view! That would've been good for me to mention, because I do use graph view and sometimes the titles overlapping is annoying!

[@marcfruchtman9473]

I use Underscores.. hehe for programming reasons. Thanks for the video.

[@oleksandrpachkal506]

3 mins into video just to realize that I was checking books on the shelf 😅 great collection. Noted smth for my next read

[@morganeua]

Thanks ♥📚

[@barnabas4608]

Nice watch, and video ofc.

[@andresviera5059]

I understand all the "problems" you are pointing on the video, but I think there are tools to solve that really faster, like a program that search and replace every space in every folder's name. With the title of the notes in obsidian, I would put all that info in the metadata and/or tags, and then are tons of plugins that let you search by any criteria.

[@ChrisAldrich1]

++ on the idea of not putting date/time stamps in titles. I have seen a few people using traditional Luhmann-esque numbers in digital contexts. The primary benefit here is that it forces one to create a link to at least one other note and creates small outlines over time. Otherwise one can end up with a large "scrap heap" of orphaned notes that make a lot less sense over time.

[@BernieAnderson]

This is actually really great. Here's what I'd love to figure out. Is there an easy(ish) way to clean up Obsidian when you started literally dumping everything into it and now have a huge mess? I'm wondering about starting over -- but dang. There's so much in there now. Your channel is so great. Thanks!

[@vonhelster8616]

Depends on what you mean by cleaning up. If you want to organize your existing notes in folders, you could use tags in the yaml frontmatter combined with the auto note mover plug-in. You could go through your notes and just copy-paste the yaml at the top and insert the relevant tag. The plug-in should then automatically move it to the folder you set it to. That's how I do it at least

[@robertstorlind2302]

IMO the "Find orphaned files and broken links" is worth a try for this

[@pacw1955]

How should i title my notes with 2 authors talking about the same topic?

[@DavidLindes]

9:47 - if and when you go down the path of programming, I wish you much success. 😊

[@morganeua]

Thank you, love the encouragement!!

[@DavidLindes]

@@morganeua gladly! And thank you for the Zettelkasten info. I was just using aspects of it today. :) Also, dunno if this overreaches, but… if you’d like a mentor for learning software development, that’s something I do sometimes… could be a possibility. :)

[@morganeua]

@@DavidLindes that is such a nice offer! I am fortunate in that I live in a very tech-heavy city, so I have a lot of friends and family that are software developers :P So I've got them to draw on!

[@DavidLindes]

@@morganeua Cool! I'm glad you have resources available to you. :) The offer stands, and yet I won't expect to hear more about it. ;) The initial comment stands, too, of course!

[@vonhelster8616]

Something I’ve found helpful is the use of aliases within the notes’ metadata in Obsidian. This gives you a lot more flexibility in how the name can be referred to. You could for example use the „kebab-case”-method as the original name and set the alias to „kebab case”. The link to „kebab-case” would then be [[kebab-case|kebab case]], showing up only as „kebab case”, like @cormacedauty said in one of the comments. Unlike Morgan, I like my notes to blend into the text in my other notes so I want to make the names fit in as many contexts as possible. You can pretty much set as many aliases as you want so an example could be: „morganeua-note-naming-in-a-zettelkasten” with the aliases „note naming”, „naming”, „video about naming notes”, „naming notes”, etc. It could also be as simple as just setting an alias for a plural. You would still get the content of the note without opening it but it becomes more legible when linked to in other notes. When searching the note in Obsidian, you can use either the note’s original name or one of its aliases. When linking to a note, typing "[[" should already suggest the alias to you so you can just hit "Enter". You can set aliases in the metadata like this: --- Alias: [Alias1, kebab case, third alias, this is the fourth alias] --- Maybe this helps someone out there. And thanks, Morgan, for introducing me to Obsidian and the Zettelkasten. Incredibly useful

[@morganeua]

Thank you for your detailed comment, it sounds like it has already helped people from what I've read in other comment replies!

[@obuyWw]

hi morgan, thanks for the video! just started learning the ZK system and your video on this topic are really helpful. admire your work and personality :) i have one question: how does the ZK system handle factual info? when learning i encounter facts in a field that i want to take notes on, but i am unsure if this should be a permanent note and put in the ZK system or should be a note on a different system than ZK. it can be a really simple fact like "the earth has 1 natural satellite"; what are your thought on the ZK system handling notes of factual info? thanks, yubo

[@morganeua]

I absolutely think you could use it for factual content. In fact, I would say most of my notes are actually factual content. For instance: "The author said, 'X.' I understand that to mean Y." In a note like that, I am not adding anything new, except for I'm putting the fact that the author said something into my own words, just to make sure I understand what they said. In your example, that's a good thing to have a note about because now you can link it to what a satellite is, and what a natural satellite is. And by creating that web of connections, you'll start to see the larger picture of what you're learning. And once you can see all those interconnections, you'll start to come up with your OWN ideas about that situation!

[@obuyWw]

@@morganeua thanks for the reply, also nice video you just posted :) to this original comment i left: I was thinking about this question all day. I feel like it should be avoided to create another Wikipedia in my notes, there should consequently be made a distinction between factual and conceptual(ideas/thoughts/opinions/insights/etc) information to be made a note into. (i’m actually not sure if “factual” and “conceptual” are the right words to describe what i mean) on the other hand, it is impossible to avoid factual information altogether, as many of the courses particularly in the basics of the sciences, teach primarily factual information; I understand your suggestion that creating a web of connections of all the factual knowledge I’ve learned can provide a larger picture, a higher abstraction that can help understanding systemically; but, should this be mixed with atomic notes of pure conceptual information (ideas/thoughts/opinions/insights/)? this question frustrates me, what are your thoughts on this? perhaps this could also provide you with some ideas in future videos 😂

[@GarryBurgess]

And new Apple Notes in iOS 17 in Sept 2023 will have the ability to link one note to another note, regardless of what folder they are in. I don't think that Apple Notes automatically creates a backlink like Obsidian though.

[@kyl7029]

Hello Morgan! I’ve been trying to find a video where you mention a book by Henri Lefebvre. You introduced his philosophy as “Earth as political actor.” Oh Damn that phrase stuck in my brain forever. If you remember, could you tell me what video it was? If not, the name of the book? I became desperate to read it😂

[@morganeua]

I think that was in a KZbin short and it was Bruno Latour! The book is Down to Earth! And he has some others I haven't read yet on that topic, including Facing Gaia

[@TheWooTubes]

It's true that spaces in file names were a problem when Microsoft first introduced them, because software stopped working but any modern software has to be able to cope with them because they exist. Obsidian can obviously cope with them. I did have a weird problem today though. I backed up my zettel directory to a USB stick (on Linux.) I'd accidentally created 2 files with the same name but some letters in a different case. The second one caused a copy failure :-/ I didn't like the manual zettel naming conventions because they created a 'primary' tree. I chose Obsidian to get away from hierarchies. If I create a 'MOC', I can create another one later that is just as important.

[@morganeua]

I agree - that's also a big reason why I like obsidian over a physical zettelkasten. It makes it easier to stop thinking my thinking is hierarchical or some notes have a special place above others. That's an interesting issue you had with your USB drive. Hopefully others see this comment and learn from it, too!

[@MarkieAurelius]

How the heck are you able to buy all those books as a student??

[@morganeua]

Lol, great question 😂 My PhD was funded, and I worked part-time throughout my degrees - either at the university, or at local businesses. And then, I just prioritize books over other luxuries in life!

[@morganeua]

And technically, I still have student debt, so technically I can't really afford these books 😂

[@joshuaellis7121]

Its your system. If you want it 1ab, then that's fine. Just make sure you don't confuse your future self.

[@morganeua]

❤️ Absolutely

[@JohnDoe-vp9ey]

You got really beautiful facial features , darl

[@foxgloved8922]

Bruh