Zettelkasten: Note-taking & the UNIX Philosophy

[@mischavandenburg]

For the article version of this video & more, check out my Substack: mischavandenburg.substack.com/

[@saeedxgholami]

I wish someone showes us modular note taking in action. for example going through Python official tutorial and take notes connect theme and recall them that would be awesome.

[@mischavandenburg]

Coming up! Stay tuned!

[@williamsantiago805]

Literally this, though I suppose it doesn't specifically have to be Coding and/or Python, but I am curious as to what a practical approach to studying with the notes I've put into the Zettelkasten would look like. Great content, looking forward to seeing more!

[@TheDeamonLo]

I'm guessing atomic refers to 'atomized' as in your notes are atomized in to small, individual parts.

[@jeremybuckets]

I have some hangups about how explicitly this system is tied to Obsidian. I know in theory it's all just markdown files so technically you have all your data, but it seems like with Zettelkasten it would be effectively impossible to make sense of your massive web of notes without the underlying tool that knows how to parse all the links. What would happen in the disaster scenario where you could no longer access Obsidian? For example, let's say in a few years the Obsidian team shuts down, and then a few years after that old Obsidian apps no longer work on MacOS. I'm not saying that's likely, but what would the recovery / migration strategy be? I'm really interested in projects like Neorg and zk which, while obviously far less powerful than Obsidian, are completely open source. I'm confident that in the worst case scenario, if I absolutely had to, I could reimplement either of those projects on a future OS because I have a full reference to all the code powering the linking and rendering. I'm sure with how much you've thought about note taking you've considered this before, and you've still decided to go all in on Obsidian so you must not be that concerned about it, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

[@mischavandenburg]

Marksman language server is able to handle the links. As the links correspond to the file names I’ll never struggle with finding my way. Links can easily be updated everywhere using sed or Python in case of a rename. And there is always logseq

[@freddales8697]

ok, now I am starting to see the value of obsidian. I was just using tabs in vim to develop my linking cards, but the canvas feature looks really great since it has a zoom feature. Thanks for the video!

[@mischavandenburg]

It’s a great addition to a vim based system, that’s why I’ll always keep it compatible with obsidian

[@philipcollier7805]

Good work, sir! I knew this was going to broaden my understanding when you connected Zettelkasten to the Unix philosophy. Modular notes which convey one unitary concept very well.

[@gustavoch33]

Good work, sir! In practice, do you write long documents (like the note about the bicep language you showed in the video) and then refactor it to permanent notes in the refine stage of your system, or do you write them separately from the beginning as fleeting notes as you described in you zettelkasten course? I got a bit confused about what your workflow looks like

[@yubeeee]

I like the idea of modular notes, but as soon as you introduce links it creates coupling between two ideas, and that note-unit doesn't describe only itself but additionally the context of the linked note. I think it's good for developing understanding but it does challenge the central theme and could be extended with a kind of arbitrary number of linked ideas

[@adriansrfr]

If your zettelkasten is all Atomic notes, then where do molecular notes (notes that combine Atomic notes) go? Maybe the same vault but the notes would different frontmatter i.e note: Atomic or note: molecular? Curious about your thoughts. Thanks

[@pravinkumarone]

using modular notes my notes are gonna be more focused and clear

[@will_1536]

Something I don't get about Zettelkasten compared to PARA notes is how you integrate your daily todos and longer term project checklists

[@alanwalendzik]

I agree, the organized nature of PARA is easier to grasp, rather than quite the broad nature of Zettlekasten. Wish he made a video where he integrates his daily to-dos or how he takes notes while studying something.

[@samifawcett4246]

paper & pen

[@TheWoodyTiger]

Modular is a better name, because you can build anything you want from modules that you create yourself. You probably won't build anything from individual atoms, except maybe Frankenstein.

[@skorotone]

Great content! Are you using vim or helix bindings?

[@mischavandenburg]

Thanks man! Vim bindings all the way :) Great guitar videos man, hope you get back to it

[@skorotone]

@@mischavandenburg Thanks a lot! My activities changed due to the war in Ukraine and moving to the USA, but I will get back to it for sure.

[@Metamoksha_]

what note taking app are you using?

[@fedpredev]

Obsidian

[@mirmarashi87]

Hello Mischa, is there a Videotutorial of you of how to use best Obsidian-App in regards of PARA-Method or even Zettelkasten?

[@mischavandenburg]

www.udemy.com/course/the-zettelkasten-method-in-obsidian/?referralCode=DD8063240FBC9F65E41E

[@HarryRybacki]

TIL you can extract part of one note to make a new note automatically in Obsidian AND expand a linked note by prefacing it with an exclamation point?! What other efficient moves am I missing out on @mischavandenburg??

[@tonyravindran]

Also, do we just list the related notes' links at the top of the current note or do we embed the connected note in the body of the current note or do we just add the link to that related note as a subheading in the current note? What are the pros and cons?