Digital Zettelkasten: Principles, Methods, & Examples

by David Kadavy

I finally found a system that lets me leverage technology to connect the thoughts on the tip of my brain with things I just know I read about somewhere, but can't think of in the moment. Instead of using my brain power to try to remember things, I'm using it to write better articles, newsletters, and books. I finally found a bicycle for my mind.

Zettelkasten is German for "slip box" (Plural: Zettelkästen). In analog form, a Zettelkasten is literally a box filled with slips of paper, each slip with a note on it, as well as metadata used to organize those notes. The Zettelkasten method is a way of organizing paper in a non-hierarchical way. Instead of being restricted to keeping a note only under one category, or having to make multiple copies of the same note to put in various places, notes are organized so that you can arrive at one individual note through various routes, and that note can lead you to various other notes – much like today's internet, but in paper form.

The Zettelkasten method has been around since the sixteenth century, but its most famous practitioner was Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist who used it to write seventy books and hundreds of articles.

Retain what you read: No more forgetting what a book was about the moment you finish reading it. The Zettelkasten method helps break reading down into a series of engaging rituals that repeatedly expose you to the most interesting things you've read – thus helping you retain what you read.

Your brain's associative engine is even more active when you add keywords and link notes.

You probably won’t build the perfect Zettelkasten from the start.