September 14, 2025 • 44 mins
Enter Zettelkasten: a powerful and sophisticated note-making system for more advanced users.
A secret superpower to help you be more productive, cut procrastination, have more and better insights, and streamline the research/writing process.
Here to teach us how to use the strategy is Dr Sonke Ahrens, author of How To Take Smart Notes and widely regarded as the world's top authority on the art of Zettelkasten note making.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert podcast.
Today I want to introduce youto what I think for many of you
might be a relatively newacademic technique really a
whole system if we apply it assuggested and that is the
Zettelkasten note-making method.
This episode follows insomething of an annual tradition
(00:29):
for us of thinking about ournote-making practices Longer
time.
Listeners may remember, lastSeptember we met George Arango
back in episode 165 talkingabout digital note-making
methods.
So, continuing with that todayand exploring other schools of
thought when it comes tonote-making, I think few are as
(00:49):
interesting and deeply thoughtout as the Zettelkasten method,
which we'll learn about today.
I consider this a relativelyadvanced topic.
It's quite a sophisticatedmethodology but also a very
powerful way to organise yourideas, particularly when your
goal is perhaps less aboutlearning for an exam and
(01:11):
memorising a lot of information,but rather you're looking to
organise your ideas when you'rereading and learning and
researching, with the final goalof perhaps producing a big
piece of extended writing, ofperhaps producing a big piece of
extended writing.
So for a younger learner, thiscould be an interesting
technique to experiment with forperhaps a more substantial
(01:32):
coursework or homeworkassignment or essay.
Maybe you're drafting a collegeessay or application, or
perhaps you're writing anextended project of some kind,
for example like the EPQextended project qualification
we sometimes do here in the UK,and I'd say the technique
perhaps comes into its own whenwe're looking at its application
(01:55):
to more kind of advancedacademic contexts.
So, for instance, especiallythe undergraduate essays and
dissertations and beyond that,the thesis, even the research
paper, even the book, that mightcome beyond that in your
academic future.
The idea in a nutshell involveskind of collecting your ideas.
(02:16):
Each individual idea goes on anindividual piece of paper, an
individual piece slip of paper,and then we want to look to kind
of connect the dots, draw thoselinks between those individual
ideas represented on thoseindividual bits of paper.
The word zettel in German meansslip, as in slip of paper, and
the original zettelkasten methodwas popularised by a remarkably
(02:40):
productive German sociologistcalled Nicholas Luhmann, which
we'll learn more about today,and he kept his note slips in
order in a box.
A slip box, a zettelkastenthat's what the word means.
Zettelkasten means slip box inGerman.
We don't have to use the oldschool paper implementation of
it.
In the modern times Many peoplewill implement their
zettelkasten through digitalnote-making methods such as the
(03:03):
Obsidian note-making tool.
Now there are many benefits toorganising your ideas using the
Zettelkasten method.
We'll be exploring those aspart of today's conversation.
We can benefit our productivity, so get things done more
quickly, more efficientlyovercome procrastination, be
more time efficient.
Our depth of thinking, ourcreativity, our ability to draw
(03:25):
links and generate insights cansometimes improve, and also the
quality of our writing thatresults at the end of the
process can often go up.
So my guest to help us explorethe Zettelkasten method is Dr
Zunke Ahrens, who is perhaps thebest-known advocate and
educator in the world on theZettelkasten method.
Zunker is a writer andresearcher in education and
(03:49):
social sciences and, having hadconsiderable success using the
Zettelkasten method himself, hasnow set out to teach it more
widely and has become quite wellknown in doing so.
He works out of Germany, but isin demand all around the world
as a speaker and a coachteaching the Zettelkasten method
, and his book how to Take SmartNotes has sold over 100,000
(04:12):
copies in numerous languages,including English, the English
translation, as well as in hishome country language of German.
So we're going to get quitepractical today in terms of how
to actually apply and implementthe technique.
So we're going to get quitepractical today in terms of how
to actually apply and implementthe technique.
But we're going to start with mykind of opening questions to
Zunker in a moment by justunderstanding a little bit more
about what, who, the techniqueis for and what it promises and
(04:35):
some of the successes thatpeople have with the technique,
so that you can evaluate foryourself whether it's something
you might like to experimentwith.
And then we'll get into some ofthe practical details of how we
actually do it and put it intopractice.
So, without further ado, let'swelcome Zunker to the podcast to
tell us more.
Zunker.
A very warm welcome to the ExamStudy Expert podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I wonder if you might just start with a brief
introduction to who you are andin particular your interest in
the Zettelkasten method.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Sure, I'm a former academic.
I worked at university for along time and since a couple of
years almost now I'm anindependent researcher.
I write yeah, I used theZettelk custom method to write
my last books and felt it issomething more people could
(05:31):
benefit from.
So while writing on myhabilitation which is, in
Germany, the second thesis afterthe dissertation it was a bit
of a procrastination project, tobe honest, to write about
writing instead of doing theactual writing, which, of course
, is also writing.
(05:51):
Now I'm really pleased that alot of people picked up on that
and feel they benefit from theideas, even though people use it
in very different ways for verydifferent projects.
I didn't expect that.
I wrote the book primarily forstudents because I haven't found
(06:19):
a good study guide I could handto my students and feel that's
really helpful.
So I felt the need to write oneI can hand to my students, but
it turned out they were not themost interested audience, at
least not the younger students.
The interest increases thecloser you get to your thesis
(06:46):
and to having to write longerpieces, and I think the main
interest comes fromprofessionals, both academic and
non-academics.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I was going to ask who is the Zettelkasten method
for?
You've half answered myquestion a little bit, but I
suppose for those that are newto the method it might be
interesting to just hear alittle bit about, I guess, the
kind of the role this is playingfor these various people so you
mentioned, particularlyinteresting for people kind of
(07:21):
either in academia or otherwiseworking on substantial written
and research projects.
So just give us a little bit ofa sense of what the system is
designed to do and how it helpsus to achieve that goal.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I think it's one of the things that are very
simple but not easy to do, andit comes from a professor in
Germany, niklas Luhmann, who Istudied with an interest in his
theory not with an interest inhis writing method, but due to
(08:03):
the fact that he was soincredibly productive that some
of his colleagues wished hewould retire because they can't
keep up with the reading so fasthe was writing.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I think you mentioned in the book that he's more
prolific after his passing,through his works that were
published posthumously, thansome psychologists are
productive in their whole, youknow, lifetimes that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
He.
He had so many manuscripts andin his office, half finished,
almost finished, and then what'sin the zettelkasten, which is
the main body of his work, so tospeak, because all his ideas
are on notes, like index notesof the classic index card size,
(08:50):
and they were roughly in orderto follow an idea.
So some have the fantasy ofusing his subtle cast to write
more books out of it.
But of course you have topersonally understand what you
have written.
(09:10):
You have to find your wayaround it.
It's a very personal thing, soit doesn't work like that.
But during his lifetime hespent most of his time writing
notes and writing manuscriptsand publishing them.
I wouldn't say it was anafterthought, but the main part
(09:31):
of the writing process happenedin this in-between space.
Most people, I believe, neglect.
They write notes, they read,they polish their manuscript,
but I think few peopleunderstand the importance of
(09:54):
taking proper notes andorganizing them in a way that a
manuscript, an argument, achapter can evolve out of that,
so that the work, when you facethe blank page and want to start
writing, is already filled withideas and the writing of the
(10:18):
manuscripts becomes somethingvery different.
It becomes a rewriting of whatyou already have, and I think
most of us know that, justpsychologically, it's much
easier to rewrite somethingthat's already there than facing
the blank page and dreading thefirst words and starting all
(10:42):
over again because it doesn'tsound right.
So I definitely was one of thepeople who had a lot of trouble
getting into the writing process, always rewriting the first
sentences and feeling a bitworried that it might not lead
to something.
And then, having alreadywritten pieces you put in order
(11:06):
rewrite, edit, lowers thethreshold of this task
considerably.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I was trying to sort of think about a summary of some
of the kind of the big benefitsof the method and then you've
just been alluding to some ofthem.
I guess I'm thinking there areat least three really good ones.
I mean one is, as you weresaying, because you've got a
clear, step-by-step system tofollow.
(11:35):
It can make you more timeefficient and, in Lerman's case,
incredibly productive.
You're able to come up with alot more output in the time
available compared to others.
So there's a time efficiencydimension.
I think again, because you'vegot that clear, step-by-step
process and something very clearand easy to do at each stage,
(11:59):
that can be helpful inovercoming procrastination,
because no one stage of its ownfeels overwhelming, it each
feels very doable.
And then I guess the third oneis about how it facilitates
coming up with original ideasand insights, drawing
connections.
I guess some of that, thatspice, that that can an
undergraduate level reallyelevate the quality of your work
(12:22):
far beyond sort of mediocrityand is really kind of essential
if you're going beyond that andgoing into professional research
and academia Does that feellike a reasonable summary to you
.
Is there anything significantyou think I've missed?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I agree on the three steps.
I don't think it's astep-by-step method.
I think it's a scaffold.
It provides you with structure,but it allows you to follow the
(12:57):
non-linear process of thinkingand writing.
And maybe that's even the maindifference to many study guide
methods, which are step-by-stepand telling you you start with
research, then you read, thenyou do a summary, then you come
(13:19):
up with an idea, et cetera.
Working with Zettelkasten isdifferent because thinking and
writing is a non-linear process.
You start with an idea, uh,usually, or you get from your
professor a topic to write aboutand then you start reading
about that and that usuallychanges, uh, your idea about
(13:43):
what you want to write.
What is the question here?
That's interesting to follow.
And then you start writingnotes and you discover it
doesn't lead anywhere.
So you need to read a bit more,then you write a bit more, then
you take notes.
So you go back and forth allthe time.
Back and forth all the time andinstead of um being on a 10
(14:11):
step path where you have troublegoing back to step two because
it feels like you're going back,um, this is more like a
dialogue between your notes andwhat you're doing and um, you um
go in a circle, a little bitlike Gardamer's homoerotic
circle, with a betterunderstanding and you come up
with better questions until youreach the point where you feel,
(14:34):
yeah, this is now worth sharingwith others.
So it's more like you'rewriting a manuscript which is a
snapshot of your currentunderstanding of a topic, and
your notes stay in thetattelkasten.
You never throw them away, soyou're absolutely able to
(14:57):
continue that thought.
That's a better idea of writingthat you never reach the point
where you know everything aboutsomething.
You finally understood howthings work.
Now you tell the world and thenyou move on to the next topic.
(15:18):
Usually it's more like, yeah,you understand something pretty
well and you can tell othersabout it, but then you go back
to the topic and understand it alittle bit better and find new
aspects to take intoconsideration and the next
publication is hopefully abetter understanding of it.
(15:39):
So I think it's an iterativeprocess and one of the
advantages is you don't chuckthe notes away when you've
finished one project.
They stay there, they're readyto take part in your ongoing
(15:59):
conversation and you don't haveto start from scratch again.
And maybe there's anotheraspect to it that when you read
something for one particularproject, you usually encounter a
lot of information that's alsointeresting, doesn't have
anything to do with the project,but then it's good to have a
(16:22):
place where you can jot downthat idea quickly because it
might be interesting for anotherproject.
So I wouldn't say the settlecustom method is for everyone
and I don't think it's the bestmethod to turn to if you are
(16:43):
facing your exam next week, nextmonth.
But it's a very good idea tobuild something like that long
term if you're interested incontinuing reading,
understanding, writing and maybepublishing more than just one
(17:03):
or two papers.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely, and so I
wondered if we could maybe usewhat you just said as a bit of a
starting point.
So maybe one of the benefits isyou don't have to start from
scratch each time.
But maybe we're listening tothis and brand new to the method
, never come across it before Ifwe are literally starting from
(17:28):
scratch.
This is day one.
What are the basics?
How do we get started?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, so in a way it's simple, but there is a
structure.
That is important, and thebasic structure is that there
are different types of notes.
And, um, I keep coming back tothat because modeling up the
(17:55):
different types of notes oftenmakes things considerably more
difficult.
So I differentiate betweenfleeting notes, which are just
the ideas you jot down on paper,on a napkin or in your journal,
whatever is at hand.
(18:17):
And we shouldn't underestimatethese scribbled notes, because
almost all great books startedwith one of these ideas you
scribble down in the morning orin a conversation with a friend
in a pub, but most of them don'tturn out to be that great.
(18:38):
They usually, after a day, turnout to be quite mediocre, or
you discover you already hadthat idea a couple of times
before, or it's not from you,it's from someone else, and so
it's good to write them all down, but it's also important to
(18:59):
filter them out.
So filter out everything thatis not worthwhile proceeding.
Fleeting notes are usually justreminders of what you have in
your head.
So you have a thought and youwrite down a reminder of that.
What is on paper is usually nota proper expression of the
(19:24):
thought, so they need to beprocessed pretty soon, otherwise
you forget to what more complexthought this fleeting note
referred to.
So you can call it an inboxwhere you put them and the next
(19:45):
step is to turn them intosomething that is worth keeping
permanently.
This would be the secondcategory permanent notes.
Permanent notes are what weusually refer to when we refer
to the notes or the zettel inthe zettelkasten.
(20:08):
In the Luhmann version it wasanalog on paper and usually
there's only one idea on onepiece of paper.
And instead of adding thesenotes into a hierarchy of
folders or sorting them bytopics or questions or field of
(20:31):
interest, luhmann would put thefirst note he wrote in the front
of his box and the second rightbehind that and he numbered
them one, two, three, four, five, and he numbered them 1, 2, 3,
4, 5.
And if he then continued with athought he has written on node
(20:51):
number 1, he would put the newnode that explicitly expands on
the idea of node number 1 rightbehind it, physically behind it,
and branch it out with his IDnumbering system.
So between one and two it willbe one a.
Then he can continue with thatnotes where you have note
(21:14):
sequences which are sometimesinterrupted by hundreds of notes
(21:36):
in between.
So to keep an overview overview, he already he also kept an
index.
So that's just an alphabeticalindex where he referred from a
term like complexity to the twoor three notes which are most
(22:00):
relevant for the topic ofcomplexity, not all of them,
just the ones that give you agood entry into a discussion,
into one of these note sequences.
So that is basically thepermanent note section, which is
the main part of it all.
(22:21):
And then you have a thirdcategory in which are project
notes.
Project notes are all notesthat are only relevant for one
particular project and you canchuck them after you have
finished that project.
But if you put that into thepermanent note section you would
dilute the permanent notes withirrelevant ideas which are only
(22:43):
relevant for one particularproject, just as you don't want
to have fleeting notes withfirst initial ideas in the
permanent notes section.
Otherwise you don't trustwhat's in the permanent notes
section.
You want to trust thateverything written on permanent
notes is well thought through,that you write it as if you
(23:07):
write it for someone else, whichis the reason.
When you look at Luhmann'sZettel, they almost like
published pieces.
So in his manuscripts you finda lot of sections which are
almost identical to what he hadin the permanent note section,
with quotes, with references,with proper citations.
(23:29):
So you need to trust that thisis well thought through.
And then, of course, you haveanother category, which is
literature notes.
These are just notes you writeto something you've read and,
like permanent notes, you cankeep them forever.
You keep them in a separateplace, but, like fleeting notes,
(23:55):
you have to do something withthem.
So it's not worthwhile writinga lot of notes on a book and
then not doing something withthat.
What's important is that you gothrough what you have written
about something you read andthink about it.
How does this inform?
How does this help withsomething I'm actively currently
(24:15):
thinking about in the permanentnote section, and then it's
usually not enough to copy andpaste that into that.
You have to think about howdoes an idea from the context of
the book I read is relevant forthe thought I develop in the
(24:36):
context of my own Zettelkastendevelopment, idea development,
and that usually requires arephrasing, it requires
sometimes more information.
It is an active process of doingsomething with what you read
and that's very different towhat most students and most
(25:00):
everyone reads and that ispretty passively doing a little
bit like highlighting,underlining, writing some
comments in the margins.
But the problem with that isyou don't actually develop your
own thoughts, or only in yourhead.
But the head is prettyunreliable.
(25:23):
But the hat is prettyunreliable, it doesn't hold too
complex thoughts.
If you want to think properly, Ibelieve you need to write, and
you need to write your own words.
You need to write your ownargument.
So as long as you don't intendto hand over the process of
(25:47):
thinking to AI or others, Ithink there is no way around
writing for yourself, and thewhole telecast method is about
putting you in a spot where youneed to write your own words
yourself, develop your ownthoughts, and that is the reason
why I said in the beginning,it's not for everyone.
(26:08):
Not everyone is interested indeveloping their own ideas and
it feels like a daunting task,but if you think about it, you
don't have anything else thanyour own understanding of
something.
It is a process hard todelegate to others for sure, for
(26:28):
sure.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think it's really interesting.
I mean, we've talked on thepodcast in uh, in recent times
over the last year or so aboutthe, the, the idea of cognitive
load theory, so this idea thatyou know, one of the important
implications of that being thatwe can kind of only kind of
think about or process so muchinformation in our own brain,
our own working memory, at anyone time.
(26:50):
And what I find reallyinteresting about the method and
I think when I was describingit as being step-by-step I
didn't mean it so much as it's alinear, strictly one, then two,
then three, then four, and youcan never go backwards I think
(27:11):
the aspect I was kind ofparticularly kind of excited by
was more that it's very sort ofsplit up into separate tasks.
You know, because so many of uswill sort of look at that blank
sheet of paper.
You know we might do thereading and maybe we'll, and
maybe something that looks a bitlike the fleeting notes.
We'll jot all that in a bigworkbook or digital file
(27:31):
somewhere and then we'll gostraight from that to writing up
the finished product and almostby adding those more steps and
adding, for example, that stepof permanent notes where we're
almost coming up with thoselittle essay fragments, where
we're almost coming up withthose little essay fragments you
know you were saying that youknow what's on the permanent
notes you know can often readquite like little fragments that
are in the final thing.
You know it's in your ownlanguage, it's in your own words
(27:53):
, it's referenced.
And then once you've done that,you've got these little
fragments that you can reorderand organise and come up with a
structure, come up with anargument, and then you can put
the final thing together andthen you can edit it.
So we're kind of breaking upwhat is, you know, kind of quite
a big unstructured task andadding a lot of structure and
(28:16):
kind of process along the way,breaking it down.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, that's well put yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
From your experience of teaching this.
What are some of the thingsthat people find difficult about
the method, or maybe kind ofpoints of friction, um, points
of points of challenge in termsof putting this into action, and
are there any ways, uh, to sortof overcome those, those
challenges?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
well, there are technical aspects and there are
psychological aspects.
So for the technical aspects,few people want to build their
own settled custom with pen andpaper like Luhmann did.
It just doesn't make sense formost people.
(29:01):
There are some who see thebenefits of writing by hand as
important enough to not have theadvantages of the digital.
So you can't do a full textsearch in your pen and paper
version, you can't copy andpaste in your pen and paper
(29:23):
version and after amassingthousands of notes it becomes a
logistical problem so you can'tmove any more as easily as
before or travel with it.
I had that problem when I livedin Asia for a couple of years.
(29:43):
I paid a lot of money to get allthe notes moved.
So that was one of the decisionsto go digital.
That's a technical aspect.
Then there are apps availableand I think there's more and
more development that is notbuilt from the mindset of folder
(30:07):
structures, letting topicstructure ideas emerge bottom up
, especially the apps that havebidirectional linking.
That means if you link to onenode you see on that node where
you link from.
That makes building a networkquite easy and nice to handle.
(30:35):
So there are Obsidian, thereare Tanner, there are Logsack,
rome Research, there are others,because many people ask how do
I do that exactly?
I spent a lot of time developingthis course where I teach to
put it into practice withObsidian, because I feel that's
(30:58):
the best app available at themoment and it's the most future
proof.
It's simple markdown files.
It's not stored in the cloud,but you can if you want to, so
you have full control over yournotes.
You don't have to pay asubscription and lose access to
(31:22):
your Lifeworks.
So I think there are a lot ofreasons to choose that app,
which is why I explained it onthat example and I use it myself
.
That hopefully answered a lotof the technical questions.
The psychological hurdle formost people and I'm not sure if
(31:45):
that's surprising or not is thechallenge of writing your own
ideas.
Many are trained in school togive a proper account of the
ideas of others, so you write anessay about the book you read
or you expand on an idea or aquestion you've been given, but
(32:08):
subtle custom forces you to askyourself what is worth writing
about?
What is the open question?
That is not answered in any ofthe books I've read and puts you
in the driver's seats of beinga researcher and I think
students are researchers as well, Even if you discover later
(32:30):
okay, someone else has alreadyfigured that out.
It's a discovery that involvesthe same kind of journey of
going out seeking informationand judging the information.
So this method really forces youto not circumvent the challenge
of thinking for yourself, and Ithink that's the most beautiful
(32:54):
part of it, but it's the mostchallenging.
And so many people wrote to mesaying, well, I really don't
know how to write notes, so Igive account of my own ideas,
and this is not to bemisunderstood as writing
opinions about something.
(33:14):
It should be rooted in factsand proper information and
arguments and it should hold upto scrutiny.
But there is this misconceptioneither writing about something
(33:38):
that's out there and reality andfact, or I write about my
opinions about that, and thatthat's not what this method is
about.
It's about immersing yourselfin your best understanding of
reality and what a topic isabout and then trying to push
your understanding of it.
And, yeah, I think that'schallenging, but I think, think
that's that's the challenge weseek when we learn and do
(34:00):
research yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Not not an easy skill to develop, but I guess the
more we can have a, have a goodstructure in which to which to
practice that and develop that,that's only gonna gonna help
nurture that, that skill.
I I guess, um, no, it's reallyinteresting.
Thank you, so I'm just out ofit.
You mentioned you had made theswitch to digital, I think
yourself.
So, uh, do you now?
(34:24):
Do you now use obsidian?
Is that your personal tool thatyou use?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
yes, quite a few years now.
I I switched three times and II don't intend to switch ever
again because it's always ahassle, I bet I I started with
an app deliberately designed toas a digital telecast and three
(34:50):
uh from someone I uh know fromuniversity.
We were in a lumen readinggroup together and I liked it,
but it's a bit old-fashioned,clunky and you never know if he
is able to develop it further.
So when Roam Research came out,I switched to that, but it
(35:12):
always made me feel like I'm ina distance to my notes.
So it's a weird feeling.
Some people have the samefeeling when they read books on
Kindle, that you're lessimmersed as if you read it
(35:33):
printed, and Obsidian allows meto immerse myself, to forget the
app.
So I don't think about Obsidianwhen I write in Obsidian, I'm
really focused on the writingitself, and it allows you to
(35:53):
have multiple notes open at thesame time so you can develop
your ideas on note sequences,which is maybe the most
important aspect of that,because it's always
contextualized.
So, yeah, I like that and um,that's that.
That's the reason I explain themethod on the example of
(36:16):
Obsidian.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So your work has obviously been followed by many,
many people and had a bigimpact on a lot of people.
I'm just curious have you hadany nice stories or kind of case
studies?
People have kind of adopted themethod and it's sort of really
clicked for them.
And it's sort of really clickedfor them.
I mean we obviously had theLumen case study and how
incredibly productive he wasable to be in his lifetime.
(36:40):
Any other kind of nice successstories you might be able to
share with us?
Well, it's nice to see Peoplehave adopted it.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, well, it's really nice to see your name in
the thank you notes of adissertation or published book.
And then there is one coachingclient of mine.
He used it not to write but todevelop ideas and keep notes
(37:09):
about his own coaching practice.
So he he used to send me anemail whenever he managed to
finish a contract for that manydollars Felt like.
That method helped him tosecure quite a considerable
amount of wealth just by havinghis ideas on hand if when needed
(37:31):
, so that's quite nice.
His ideas on hand if whenneeded, so that's quite nice.
But my heart is probably inacademia and when I feel that it
helps people to develop new,interesting ideas worth sharing,
(37:52):
yeah, having said that, it'snot for everyone, it's um, you
can also.
I think there's alsopersonality type you maybe need
to to like collecting stuff andplaying around with ideas,
putting them together.
I think there are personalitytypes which are much more
(38:15):
straightforward.
They like to put down an ideathey have in their head, collect
the stuff and not getdistracted by possible other
ways you can expand it to.
So it's good to think if youcan imagine yourself spending
(38:36):
time in a dialogue with your ownnotes and tinkering around with
ideas and hoping for thismoment where something clicks,
something magical happens andyou realize something, because
you stumbled upon an idea youhave written down a year ago and
(39:00):
it resonates with somethingyou're working on right now.
You need to like that process,I believe.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, really interesting, really interesting.
Well, zunker, thank you so muchfor being so generous with your
time and your wisdom on theZettelkasten method, this
episode.
It's certainly big food forthought for me.
I've been sitting herelistening to this and thinking
should I take the plunge and setup Zettelkasten in my world?
(39:31):
Because, as as you, as youmight know, I teach how to learn
effectively and how to studyeffectively for exams and that
bit perhaps you said you mightnot use a Zettelkasten for so
much.
That's, that's my speciality andI'm thinking, you know, I have
a lot of ideas on how to do itwell, and I teach that a lot to
my own coaching clients and hereon the podcast.
(39:52):
And you know, I'm sure there'sthings that I've thought about
or read or kind of insights I'vehad that have just kind of got
buried because I never recordedthem, and I'm thinking, you know
, maybe this could be quite agood thing for me.
So I will reflect on that andmaybe in a few years' time
you'll be in the dedicationsection at the front of my next
(40:13):
book.
So thank you so much once again.
If anyone is interested infinding out more about your work
and the method, perhaps isthere any way you might suggest
we go next.
And of course there's the, thebook which is up behind my left
shoulder you mentioned.
There's the obsidian course.
Yeah, feel free to just pointus in the right direction for
where we might go for moreinformation.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Probably the website takesmartnotescom.
If you as a student or an earlycareer academic, if you're
interested in the course, scrolldown to the bottom of the sales
page and you find a smallprinted link where you can get
(40:54):
students discount or earlycareer discounts.
So I try to to make itavailable um for for everyone.
Yeah, I think that that'sthat's the best way to start,
but, but what I hope to getacross is that it's all about
your ideas.
So this method doesn't teachyou how to think.
(41:14):
It just provides a structure toget these ideas lingering
somewhere in your head on paperand, hopefully, better the world
.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Thank you for joining me for that installment of the
Exam Study Expert podcast and Ihope you enjoyed learning about
the Zettelkasten method.
If you've enjoyed today'scontent, you may also want to
take a look at some of ourrelated material on note making
and other elements of theacademic research and writing
process.
In particular, I mentionedepisode 165 back in the intro,
(41:52):
withia rango.
Uh, that's a nice intro to tosome uh to the world of digital
note making generally and kindof a nice compliment to what
we've talked about today in thedeep dive on zettelkasten.
Um, I'd also highly suggestepisode 192, an academic writing
masterclass a really excellentoutline actually, of the key
steps to success in academicresearch and writing, helping
(42:15):
you streamline and be moresuccessful at the different
points.
I learned a lot from that.
That was with exam studyexperts very own academic
writing specialist coach, dralex hibble.
Alex also director of studiesat oxford university, so safe to
say she knows her stuff there.
Please be sure, as always, tofollow or subscribe to the
(42:35):
podcast if you haven't already,and leave us a five-star rating
in your podcast app.
These small actions just take amoment or two after this
episode for you and really,really help new listeners find
their way to us.
The biggest way new listenersfind us is the algorithm
(42:55):
suggesting the show to them.
How most people listening tothis?
Now, that's how you found itoriginally, so thank you if
you're able to just take thatsmall action to help us continue
to reach and help new studentsaround the world and keep doing
what we do and support studentsin studying smarter.
A growing number of platforms,including Spotify, now also let
you leave comments and interact,and we do read those and we
(43:18):
often reply to them, and it'sreally, really great to see your
thoughts there.
So if you're going to try outZettelkasten and want to share
that excitement, or maybe you'vealready tried it and want to
report back on how it's been foryou, for better or for worse,
we'd really love to hear fromyou.
So feel free to leave us acomment.
You can do that in Spotify, ofcourse.
(43:39):
If you're listening to uswatching us here on YouTube, you
can do that down in thecomments in YouTube too.
So please do that and we willlook forward to hearing what you
have to say about theZettelkasten method.
Thank you so much as always forlistening today.
It's been such a pleasure tohave your company and I look
forward to seeing you again nexttime.
Thanks ever so much and wishingyou every success in your note
making today.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
head to the website for a write-up of this episode,
as well as lots more top-notchadvice and resources.
That's examstudyexpertcom.
See you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert podcast.
Today I want to introduce youto what I think for many of you
might be a relatively newacademic technique really a
whole system if we apply it assuggested and that is the
Zettelkasten note-making method.
This episode follows insomething of an annual tradition
(00:29):
for us of thinking about ournote-making practices Longer
time.
Listeners may remember, lastSeptember we met George Arango
back in episode 165 talkingabout digital note-making
methods.
So, continuing with that todayand exploring other schools of
thought when it comes tonote-making, I think few are as
(00:49):
interesting and deeply thoughtout as the Zettelkasten method,
which we'll learn about today.
I consider this a relativelyadvanced topic.
It's quite a sophisticatedmethodology but also a very
powerful way to organise yourideas, particularly when your
goal is perhaps less aboutlearning for an exam and
(01:11):
memorising a lot of information,but rather you're looking to
organise your ideas when you'rereading and learning and
researching, with the final goalof perhaps producing a big
piece of extended writing, ofperhaps producing a big piece of
extended writing.
So for a younger learner, thiscould be an interesting
technique to experiment with forperhaps a more substantial
(01:32):
coursework or homeworkassignment or essay.
Maybe you're drafting a collegeessay or application, or
perhaps you're writing anextended project of some kind,
for example like the EPQextended project qualification
we sometimes do here in the UK,and I'd say the technique
perhaps comes into its own whenwe're looking at its application
(01:55):
to more kind of advancedacademic contexts.
So, for instance, especiallythe undergraduate essays and
dissertations and beyond that,the thesis, even the research
paper, even the book, that mightcome beyond that in your
academic future.
The idea in a nutshell involveskind of collecting your ideas.
(02:16):
Each individual idea goes on anindividual piece of paper, an
individual piece slip of paper,and then we want to look to kind
of connect the dots, draw thoselinks between those individual
ideas represented on thoseindividual bits of paper.
The word zettel in German meansslip, as in slip of paper, and
the original zettelkasten methodwas popularised by a remarkably
(02:40):
productive German sociologistcalled Nicholas Luhmann, which
we'll learn more about today,and he kept his note slips in
order in a box.
A slip box, a zettelkastenthat's what the word means.
Zettelkasten means slip box inGerman.
We don't have to use the oldschool paper implementation of
it.
In the modern times Many peoplewill implement their
zettelkasten through digitalnote-making methods such as the
(03:03):
Obsidian note-making tool.
Now there are many benefits toorganising your ideas using the
Zettelkasten method.
We'll be exploring those aspart of today's conversation.
We can benefit our productivity, so get things done more
quickly, more efficientlyovercome procrastination, be
more time efficient.
Our depth of thinking, ourcreativity, our ability to draw
(03:25):
links and generate insights cansometimes improve, and also the
quality of our writing thatresults at the end of the
process can often go up.
So my guest to help us explorethe Zettelkasten method is Dr
Zunke Ahrens, who is perhaps thebest-known advocate and
educator in the world on theZettelkasten method.
Zunker is a writer andresearcher in education and
(03:49):
social sciences and, having hadconsiderable success using the
Zettelkasten method himself, hasnow set out to teach it more
widely and has become quite wellknown in doing so.
He works out of Germany, but isin demand all around the world
as a speaker and a coachteaching the Zettelkasten method
, and his book how to Take SmartNotes has sold over 100,000
(04:12):
copies in numerous languages,including English, the English
translation, as well as in hishome country language of German.
So we're going to get quitepractical today in terms of how
to actually apply and implementthe technique.
So we're going to get quitepractical today in terms of how
to actually apply and implementthe technique.
But we're going to start with mykind of opening questions to
Zunker in a moment by justunderstanding a little bit more
about what, who, the techniqueis for and what it promises and
(04:35):
some of the successes thatpeople have with the technique,
so that you can evaluate foryourself whether it's something
you might like to experimentwith.
And then we'll get into some ofthe practical details of how we
actually do it and put it intopractice.
So, without further ado, let'swelcome Zunker to the podcast to
tell us more.
Zunker.
A very warm welcome to the ExamStudy Expert podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I wonder if you might just start with a brief
introduction to who you are andin particular your interest in
the Zettelkasten method.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Sure, I'm a former academic.
I worked at university for along time and since a couple of
years almost now I'm anindependent researcher.
I write yeah, I used theZettelk custom method to write
my last books and felt it issomething more people could
(05:31):
benefit from.
So while writing on myhabilitation which is, in
Germany, the second thesis afterthe dissertation it was a bit
of a procrastination project, tobe honest, to write about
writing instead of doing theactual writing, which, of course
, is also writing.
(05:51):
Now I'm really pleased that alot of people picked up on that
and feel they benefit from theideas, even though people use it
in very different ways for verydifferent projects.
I didn't expect that.
I wrote the book primarily forstudents because I haven't found
(06:19):
a good study guide I could handto my students and feel that's
really helpful.
So I felt the need to write oneI can hand to my students, but
it turned out they were not themost interested audience, at
least not the younger students.
The interest increases thecloser you get to your thesis
(06:46):
and to having to write longerpieces, and I think the main
interest comes fromprofessionals, both academic and
non-academics.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I was going to ask who is the Zettelkasten method
for?
You've half answered myquestion a little bit, but I
suppose for those that are newto the method it might be
interesting to just hear alittle bit about, I guess, the
kind of the role this is playingfor these various people so you
mentioned, particularlyinteresting for people kind of
(07:21):
either in academia or otherwiseworking on substantial written
and research projects.
So just give us a little bit ofa sense of what the system is
designed to do and how it helpsus to achieve that goal.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I think it's one of the things that are very
simple but not easy to do, andit comes from a professor in
Germany, niklas Luhmann, who Istudied with an interest in his
theory not with an interest inhis writing method, but due to
(08:03):
the fact that he was soincredibly productive that some
of his colleagues wished hewould retire because they can't
keep up with the reading so fasthe was writing.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I think you mentioned in the book that he's more
prolific after his passing,through his works that were
published posthumously, thansome psychologists are
productive in their whole, youknow, lifetimes that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
He.
He had so many manuscripts andin his office, half finished,
almost finished, and then what'sin the zettelkasten, which is
the main body of his work, so tospeak, because all his ideas
are on notes, like index notesof the classic index card size,
(08:50):
and they were roughly in orderto follow an idea.
So some have the fantasy ofusing his subtle cast to write
more books out of it.
But of course you have topersonally understand what you
have written.
(09:10):
You have to find your wayaround it.
It's a very personal thing, soit doesn't work like that.
But during his lifetime hespent most of his time writing
notes and writing manuscriptsand publishing them.
I wouldn't say it was anafterthought, but the main part
(09:31):
of the writing process happenedin this in-between space.
Most people, I believe, neglect.
They write notes, they read,they polish their manuscript,
but I think few peopleunderstand the importance of
(09:54):
taking proper notes andorganizing them in a way that a
manuscript, an argument, achapter can evolve out of that,
so that the work, when you facethe blank page and want to start
writing, is already filled withideas and the writing of the
(10:18):
manuscripts becomes somethingvery different.
It becomes a rewriting of whatyou already have, and I think
most of us know that, justpsychologically, it's much
easier to rewrite somethingthat's already there than facing
the blank page and dreading thefirst words and starting all
(10:42):
over again because it doesn'tsound right.
So I definitely was one of thepeople who had a lot of trouble
getting into the writing process, always rewriting the first
sentences and feeling a bitworried that it might not lead
to something.
And then, having alreadywritten pieces you put in order
(11:06):
rewrite, edit, lowers thethreshold of this task
considerably.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I was trying to sort of think about a summary of some
of the kind of the big benefitsof the method and then you've
just been alluding to some ofthem.
I guess I'm thinking there areat least three really good ones.
I mean one is, as you weresaying, because you've got a
clear, step-by-step system tofollow.
(11:35):
It can make you more timeefficient and, in Lerman's case,
incredibly productive.
You're able to come up with alot more output in the time
available compared to others.
So there's a time efficiencydimension.
I think again, because you'vegot that clear, step-by-step
process and something very clearand easy to do at each stage,
(11:59):
that can be helpful inovercoming procrastination,
because no one stage of its ownfeels overwhelming, it each
feels very doable.
And then I guess the third oneis about how it facilitates
coming up with original ideasand insights, drawing
connections.
I guess some of that, thatspice, that that can an
undergraduate level reallyelevate the quality of your work
(12:22):
far beyond sort of mediocrityand is really kind of essential
if you're going beyond that andgoing into professional research
and academia Does that feellike a reasonable summary to you
.
Is there anything significantyou think I've missed?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I agree on the three steps.
I don't think it's astep-by-step method.
I think it's a scaffold.
It provides you with structure,but it allows you to follow the
(12:57):
non-linear process of thinkingand writing.
And maybe that's even the maindifference to many study guide
methods, which are step-by-stepand telling you you start with
research, then you read, thenyou do a summary, then you come
(13:19):
up with an idea, et cetera.
Working with Zettelkasten isdifferent because thinking and
writing is a non-linear process.
You start with an idea, uh,usually, or you get from your
professor a topic to write aboutand then you start reading
about that and that usuallychanges, uh, your idea about
(13:43):
what you want to write.
What is the question here?
That's interesting to follow.
And then you start writingnotes and you discover it
doesn't lead anywhere.
So you need to read a bit more,then you write a bit more, then
you take notes.
So you go back and forth allthe time.
Back and forth all the time andinstead of um being on a 10
(14:11):
step path where you have troublegoing back to step two because
it feels like you're going back,um, this is more like a
dialogue between your notes andwhat you're doing and um, you um
go in a circle, a little bitlike Gardamer's homoerotic
circle, with a betterunderstanding and you come up
with better questions until youreach the point where you feel,
(14:34):
yeah, this is now worth sharingwith others.
So it's more like you'rewriting a manuscript which is a
snapshot of your currentunderstanding of a topic, and
your notes stay in thetattelkasten.
You never throw them away, soyou're absolutely able to
(14:57):
continue that thought.
That's a better idea of writingthat you never reach the point
where you know everything aboutsomething.
You finally understood howthings work.
Now you tell the world and thenyou move on to the next topic.
(15:18):
Usually it's more like, yeah,you understand something pretty
well and you can tell othersabout it, but then you go back
to the topic and understand it alittle bit better and find new
aspects to take intoconsideration and the next
publication is hopefully abetter understanding of it.
(15:39):
So I think it's an iterativeprocess and one of the
advantages is you don't chuckthe notes away when you've
finished one project.
They stay there, they're readyto take part in your ongoing
(15:59):
conversation and you don't haveto start from scratch again.
And maybe there's anotheraspect to it that when you read
something for one particularproject, you usually encounter a
lot of information that's alsointeresting, doesn't have
anything to do with the project,but then it's good to have a
(16:22):
place where you can jot downthat idea quickly because it
might be interesting for anotherproject.
So I wouldn't say the settlecustom method is for everyone
and I don't think it's the bestmethod to turn to if you are
(16:43):
facing your exam next week, nextmonth.
But it's a very good idea tobuild something like that long
term if you're interested incontinuing reading,
understanding, writing and maybepublishing more than just one
(17:03):
or two papers.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely, and so I
wondered if we could maybe usewhat you just said as a bit of a
starting point.
So maybe one of the benefits isyou don't have to start from
scratch each time.
But maybe we're listening tothis and brand new to the method
, never come across it before Ifwe are literally starting from
(17:28):
scratch.
This is day one.
What are the basics?
How do we get started?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, so in a way it's simple, but there is a
structure.
That is important, and thebasic structure is that there
are different types of notes.
And, um, I keep coming back tothat because modeling up the
(17:55):
different types of notes oftenmakes things considerably more
difficult.
So I differentiate betweenfleeting notes, which are just
the ideas you jot down on paper,on a napkin or in your journal,
whatever is at hand.
(18:17):
And we shouldn't underestimatethese scribbled notes, because
almost all great books startedwith one of these ideas you
scribble down in the morning orin a conversation with a friend
in a pub, but most of them don'tturn out to be that great.
(18:38):
They usually, after a day, turnout to be quite mediocre, or
you discover you already hadthat idea a couple of times
before, or it's not from you,it's from someone else, and so
it's good to write them all down, but it's also important to
(18:59):
filter them out.
So filter out everything thatis not worthwhile proceeding.
Fleeting notes are usually justreminders of what you have in
your head.
So you have a thought and youwrite down a reminder of that.
What is on paper is usually nota proper expression of the
(19:24):
thought, so they need to beprocessed pretty soon, otherwise
you forget to what more complexthought this fleeting note
referred to.
So you can call it an inboxwhere you put them and the next
(19:45):
step is to turn them intosomething that is worth keeping
permanently.
This would be the secondcategory permanent notes.
Permanent notes are what weusually refer to when we refer
to the notes or the zettel inthe zettelkasten.
(20:08):
In the Luhmann version it wasanalog on paper and usually
there's only one idea on onepiece of paper.
And instead of adding thesenotes into a hierarchy of
folders or sorting them bytopics or questions or field of
(20:31):
interest, luhmann would put thefirst note he wrote in the front
of his box and the second rightbehind that and he numbered
them one, two, three, four, five, and he numbered them 1, 2, 3,
4, 5.
And if he then continued with athought he has written on node
(20:51):
number 1, he would put the newnode that explicitly expands on
the idea of node number 1 rightbehind it, physically behind it,
and branch it out with his IDnumbering system.
So between one and two it willbe one a.
Then he can continue with thatnotes where you have note
(21:14):
sequences which are sometimesinterrupted by hundreds of notes
(21:36):
in between.
So to keep an overview overview, he already he also kept an
index.
So that's just an alphabeticalindex where he referred from a
term like complexity to the twoor three notes which are most
(22:00):
relevant for the topic ofcomplexity, not all of them,
just the ones that give you agood entry into a discussion,
into one of these note sequences.
So that is basically thepermanent note section, which is
the main part of it all.
(22:21):
And then you have a thirdcategory in which are project
notes.
Project notes are all notesthat are only relevant for one
particular project and you canchuck them after you have
finished that project.
But if you put that into thepermanent note section you would
dilute the permanent notes withirrelevant ideas which are only
(22:43):
relevant for one particularproject, just as you don't want
to have fleeting notes withfirst initial ideas in the
permanent notes section.
Otherwise you don't trustwhat's in the permanent notes
section.
You want to trust thateverything written on permanent
notes is well thought through,that you write it as if you
(23:07):
write it for someone else, whichis the reason.
When you look at Luhmann'sZettel, they almost like
published pieces.
So in his manuscripts you finda lot of sections which are
almost identical to what he hadin the permanent note section,
with quotes, with references,with proper citations.
(23:29):
So you need to trust that thisis well thought through.
And then, of course, you haveanother category, which is
literature notes.
These are just notes you writeto something you've read and,
like permanent notes, you cankeep them forever.
You keep them in a separateplace, but, like fleeting notes,
(23:55):
you have to do something withthem.
So it's not worthwhile writinga lot of notes on a book and
then not doing something withthat.
What's important is that you gothrough what you have written
about something you read andthink about it.
How does this inform?
How does this help withsomething I'm actively currently
(24:15):
thinking about in the permanentnote section, and then it's
usually not enough to copy andpaste that into that.
You have to think about howdoes an idea from the context of
the book I read is relevant forthe thought I develop in the
(24:36):
context of my own Zettelkastendevelopment, idea development,
and that usually requires arephrasing, it requires
sometimes more information.
It is an active process of doingsomething with what you read
and that's very different towhat most students and most
(25:00):
everyone reads and that ispretty passively doing a little
bit like highlighting,underlining, writing some
comments in the margins.
But the problem with that isyou don't actually develop your
own thoughts, or only in yourhead.
But the head is prettyunreliable.
(25:23):
But the hat is prettyunreliable, it doesn't hold too
complex thoughts.
If you want to think properly, Ibelieve you need to write, and
you need to write your own words.
You need to write your ownargument.
So as long as you don't intendto hand over the process of
(25:47):
thinking to AI or others, Ithink there is no way around
writing for yourself, and thewhole telecast method is about
putting you in a spot where youneed to write your own words
yourself, develop your ownthoughts, and that is the reason
why I said in the beginning,it's not for everyone.
(26:08):
Not everyone is interested indeveloping their own ideas and
it feels like a daunting task,but if you think about it, you
don't have anything else thanyour own understanding of
something.
It is a process hard todelegate to others for sure, for
(26:28):
sure.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think it's really interesting.
I mean, we've talked on thepodcast in uh, in recent times
over the last year or so aboutthe, the, the idea of cognitive
load theory, so this idea thatyou know, one of the important
implications of that being thatwe can kind of only kind of
think about or process so muchinformation in our own brain,
our own working memory, at anyone time.
(26:50):
And what I find reallyinteresting about the method and
I think when I was describingit as being step-by-step I
didn't mean it so much as it's alinear, strictly one, then two,
then three, then four, and youcan never go backwards I think
(27:11):
the aspect I was kind ofparticularly kind of excited by
was more that it's very sort ofsplit up into separate tasks.
You know, because so many of uswill sort of look at that blank
sheet of paper.
You know we might do thereading and maybe we'll, and
maybe something that looks a bitlike the fleeting notes.
We'll jot all that in a bigworkbook or digital file
(27:31):
somewhere and then we'll gostraight from that to writing up
the finished product and almostby adding those more steps and
adding, for example, that stepof permanent notes where we're
almost coming up with thoselittle essay fragments, where
we're almost coming up withthose little essay fragments you
know you were saying that youknow what's on the permanent
notes you know can often readquite like little fragments that
are in the final thing.
You know it's in your ownlanguage, it's in your own words
(27:53):
, it's referenced.
And then once you've done that,you've got these little
fragments that you can reorderand organise and come up with a
structure, come up with anargument, and then you can put
the final thing together andthen you can edit it.
So we're kind of breaking upwhat is, you know, kind of quite
a big unstructured task andadding a lot of structure and
(28:16):
kind of process along the way,breaking it down.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, that's well put yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
From your experience of teaching this.
What are some of the thingsthat people find difficult about
the method, or maybe kind ofpoints of friction, um, points
of points of challenge in termsof putting this into action, and
are there any ways, uh, to sortof overcome those, those
challenges?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
well, there are technical aspects and there are
psychological aspects.
So for the technical aspects,few people want to build their
own settled custom with pen andpaper like Luhmann did.
It just doesn't make sense formost people.
(29:01):
There are some who see thebenefits of writing by hand as
important enough to not have theadvantages of the digital.
So you can't do a full textsearch in your pen and paper
version, you can't copy andpaste in your pen and paper
(29:23):
version and after amassingthousands of notes it becomes a
logistical problem so you can'tmove any more as easily as
before or travel with it.
I had that problem when I livedin Asia for a couple of years.
(29:43):
I paid a lot of money to get allthe notes moved.
So that was one of the decisionsto go digital.
That's a technical aspect.
Then there are apps availableand I think there's more and
more development that is notbuilt from the mindset of folder
(30:07):
structures, letting topicstructure ideas emerge bottom up
, especially the apps that havebidirectional linking.
That means if you link to onenode you see on that node where
you link from.
That makes building a networkquite easy and nice to handle.
(30:35):
So there are Obsidian, thereare Tanner, there are Logsack,
rome Research, there are others,because many people ask how do
I do that exactly?
I spent a lot of time developingthis course where I teach to
put it into practice withObsidian, because I feel that's
(30:58):
the best app available at themoment and it's the most future
proof.
It's simple markdown files.
It's not stored in the cloud,but you can if you want to, so
you have full control over yournotes.
You don't have to pay asubscription and lose access to
(31:22):
your Lifeworks.
So I think there are a lot ofreasons to choose that app,
which is why I explained it onthat example and I use it myself
.
That hopefully answered a lotof the technical questions.
The psychological hurdle formost people and I'm not sure if
(31:45):
that's surprising or not is thechallenge of writing your own
ideas.
Many are trained in school togive a proper account of the
ideas of others, so you write anessay about the book you read
or you expand on an idea or aquestion you've been given, but
(32:08):
subtle custom forces you to askyourself what is worth writing
about?
What is the open question?
That is not answered in any ofthe books I've read and puts you
in the driver's seats of beinga researcher and I think
students are researchers as well, Even if you discover later
(32:30):
okay, someone else has alreadyfigured that out.
It's a discovery that involvesthe same kind of journey of
going out seeking informationand judging the information.
So this method really forces youto not circumvent the challenge
of thinking for yourself, and Ithink that's the most beautiful
(32:54):
part of it, but it's the mostchallenging.
And so many people wrote to mesaying, well, I really don't
know how to write notes, so Igive account of my own ideas,
and this is not to bemisunderstood as writing
opinions about something.
(33:14):
It should be rooted in factsand proper information and
arguments and it should hold upto scrutiny.
But there is this misconceptioneither writing about something
(33:38):
that's out there and reality andfact, or I write about my
opinions about that, and thatthat's not what this method is
about.
It's about immersing yourselfin your best understanding of
reality and what a topic isabout and then trying to push
your understanding of it.
And, yeah, I think that'schallenging, but I think, think
that's that's the challenge weseek when we learn and do
(34:00):
research yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Not not an easy skill to develop, but I guess the
more we can have a, have a goodstructure in which to which to
practice that and develop that,that's only gonna gonna help
nurture that, that skill.
I I guess, um, no, it's reallyinteresting.
Thank you, so I'm just out ofit.
You mentioned you had made theswitch to digital, I think
yourself.
So, uh, do you now?
(34:24):
Do you now use obsidian?
Is that your personal tool thatyou use?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
yes, quite a few years now.
I I switched three times and II don't intend to switch ever
again because it's always ahassle, I bet I I started with
an app deliberately designed toas a digital telecast and three
(34:50):
uh from someone I uh know fromuniversity.
We were in a lumen readinggroup together and I liked it,
but it's a bit old-fashioned,clunky and you never know if he
is able to develop it further.
So when Roam Research came out,I switched to that, but it
(35:12):
always made me feel like I'm ina distance to my notes.
So it's a weird feeling.
Some people have the samefeeling when they read books on
Kindle, that you're lessimmersed as if you read it
(35:33):
printed, and Obsidian allows meto immerse myself, to forget the
app.
So I don't think about Obsidianwhen I write in Obsidian, I'm
really focused on the writingitself, and it allows you to
(35:53):
have multiple notes open at thesame time so you can develop
your ideas on note sequences,which is maybe the most
important aspect of that,because it's always
contextualized.
So, yeah, I like that and um,that's that.
That's the reason I explain themethod on the example of
(36:16):
Obsidian.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So your work has obviously been followed by many,
many people and had a bigimpact on a lot of people.
I'm just curious have you hadany nice stories or kind of case
studies?
People have kind of adopted themethod and it's sort of really
clicked for them.
And it's sort of really clickedfor them.
I mean we obviously had theLumen case study and how
incredibly productive he wasable to be in his lifetime.
(36:40):
Any other kind of nice successstories you might be able to
share with us?
Well, it's nice to see Peoplehave adopted it.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, well, it's really nice to see your name in
the thank you notes of adissertation or published book.
And then there is one coachingclient of mine.
He used it not to write but todevelop ideas and keep notes
(37:09):
about his own coaching practice.
So he he used to send me anemail whenever he managed to
finish a contract for that manydollars Felt like.
That method helped him tosecure quite a considerable
amount of wealth just by havinghis ideas on hand if when needed
(37:31):
, so that's quite nice.
His ideas on hand if whenneeded, so that's quite nice.
But my heart is probably inacademia and when I feel that it
helps people to develop new,interesting ideas worth sharing,
(37:52):
yeah, having said that, it'snot for everyone, it's um, you
can also.
I think there's alsopersonality type you maybe need
to to like collecting stuff andplaying around with ideas,
putting them together.
I think there are personalitytypes which are much more
(38:15):
straightforward.
They like to put down an ideathey have in their head, collect
the stuff and not getdistracted by possible other
ways you can expand it to.
So it's good to think if youcan imagine yourself spending
(38:36):
time in a dialogue with your ownnotes and tinkering around with
ideas and hoping for thismoment where something clicks,
something magical happens andyou realize something, because
you stumbled upon an idea youhave written down a year ago and
(39:00):
it resonates with somethingyou're working on right now.
You need to like that process,I believe.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, really interesting, really interesting.
Well, zunker, thank you so muchfor being so generous with your
time and your wisdom on theZettelkasten method, this
episode.
It's certainly big food forthought for me.
I've been sitting herelistening to this and thinking
should I take the plunge and setup Zettelkasten in my world?
(39:31):
Because, as as you, as youmight know, I teach how to learn
effectively and how to studyeffectively for exams and that
bit perhaps you said you mightnot use a Zettelkasten for so
much.
That's, that's my speciality andI'm thinking, you know, I have
a lot of ideas on how to do itwell, and I teach that a lot to
my own coaching clients and hereon the podcast.
(39:52):
And you know, I'm sure there'sthings that I've thought about
or read or kind of insights I'vehad that have just kind of got
buried because I never recordedthem, and I'm thinking, you know
, maybe this could be quite agood thing for me.
So I will reflect on that andmaybe in a few years' time
you'll be in the dedicationsection at the front of my next
(40:13):
book.
So thank you so much once again.
If anyone is interested infinding out more about your work
and the method, perhaps isthere any way you might suggest
we go next.
And of course there's the, thebook which is up behind my left
shoulder you mentioned.
There's the obsidian course.
Yeah, feel free to just pointus in the right direction for
where we might go for moreinformation.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Probably the website takesmartnotescom.
If you as a student or an earlycareer academic, if you're
interested in the course, scrolldown to the bottom of the sales
page and you find a smallprinted link where you can get
(40:54):
students discount or earlycareer discounts.
So I try to to make itavailable um for for everyone.
Yeah, I think that that'sthat's the best way to start,
but, but what I hope to getacross is that it's all about
your ideas.
So this method doesn't teachyou how to think.
(41:14):
It just provides a structure toget these ideas lingering
somewhere in your head on paperand, hopefully, better the world
.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Thank you for joining me for that installment of the
Exam Study Expert podcast and Ihope you enjoyed learning about
the Zettelkasten method.
If you've enjoyed today'scontent, you may also want to
take a look at some of ourrelated material on note making
and other elements of theacademic research and writing
process.
In particular, I mentionedepisode 165 back in the intro,
(41:52):
withia rango.
Uh, that's a nice intro to tosome uh to the world of digital
note making generally and kindof a nice compliment to what
we've talked about today in thedeep dive on zettelkasten.
Um, I'd also highly suggestepisode 192, an academic writing
masterclass a really excellentoutline actually, of the key
steps to success in academicresearch and writing, helping
(42:15):
you streamline and be moresuccessful at the different
points.
I learned a lot from that.
That was with exam studyexperts very own academic
writing specialist coach, dralex hibble.
Alex also director of studiesat oxford university, so safe to
say she knows her stuff there.
Please be sure, as always, tofollow or subscribe to the
(42:35):
podcast if you haven't already,and leave us a five-star rating
in your podcast app.
These small actions just take amoment or two after this
episode for you and really,really help new listeners find
their way to us.
The biggest way new listenersfind us is the algorithm
(42:55):
suggesting the show to them.
How most people listening tothis?
Now, that's how you found itoriginally, so thank you if
you're able to just take thatsmall action to help us continue
to reach and help new studentsaround the world and keep doing
what we do and support studentsin studying smarter.
A growing number of platforms,including Spotify, now also let
you leave comments and interact,and we do read those and we
(43:18):
often reply to them, and it'sreally, really great to see your
thoughts there.
So if you're going to try outZettelkasten and want to share
that excitement, or maybe you'vealready tried it and want to
report back on how it's been foryou, for better or for worse,
we'd really love to hear fromyou.
So feel free to leave us acomment.
You can do that in Spotify, ofcourse.
(43:39):
If you're listening to uswatching us here on YouTube, you
can do that down in thecomments in YouTube too.
So please do that and we willlook forward to hearing what you
have to say about theZettelkasten method.
Thank you so much as always forlistening today.
It's been such a pleasure tohave your company and I look
forward to seeing you again nexttime.
Thanks ever so much and wishingyou every success in your note
making today.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
head to the website for a write-up of this episode,
as well as lots more top-notchadvice and resources.
That's examstudyexpertcom.
See you next time.
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