July 17, 2025 • 57 mins
Ask Nigel Rawlins a question or send feedback, click the link to text me.
If you’ve ever underlined a passage, bookmarked an idea, or highlighted something brilliant—only to forget it—this episode is for you.
In this thought-provoking conversation, Sönke Ahrens joins host Nigel Rawlins to show how to turn a lifetime of learning into real, shareable value.
Sönke, best known for his book How to Take Smart Notes, shares how digital tools like Obsidian and Readwise can help professionals externalise their thinking, clarify their voice, and build a foundation for thought leadership.
This episode speaks directly to Wisepreneurs navigating career reinvention, writing, and solo work later in life—without getting overwhelmed by technology.
Resources Mentioned
How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens
Obsidian – Free note-taking tool used by Sönke
Readwise – Imports highlights from Kindle, web, and more
Zotero – Citation tool for researchers and writers
Connnect With Sönke Ahrens
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/soenkeahrens/
Website https://www.soenkeahrens.de/
How to Take Smart Notes with Obsidian
20% discount for Wisepreneurs listeners, which you can redeem with WISEPRENEURS (valid from now until the end of August, 2025) https://smartnotes.teachable.com/p/how-to-take-smart-notes-in-obsidian
Connect with Nigel Rawlins
website https://wisepreneurs.com.au/
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelrawlins/
Twitter https://twitter.com/wisepreneurs
Please support the podcast
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2311675/supporters/new
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nigel Rawlins (00:00):
Is your mind buzzing with a lifetime of
ideas, but the thought oforganizing them feels
exhausting.
What if the solution wasn't morediscipline, but a system that
works for you almost on its own?
In this episode, I speak withSönke Ahrens author of the
hugely influential book, How ToTake Smart Notes.
He offers a radical newapproach, not just for taking
(00:23):
notes, but for thinking.
It's a method designed to removepressure and make the messy,
brilliant process of developingideas feel natural and
effortless.
Sönke's philosophy istransformative, and as he says
in our conversation:
Sönke Ahrens (00:39):
And I think we cannot underestimate how much
easier it is to work onsomething intellectually when
you have it in front of youinstead of trying to do it all
in your head.
Nigel Rawlins (00:55):
If you are ready to build a thinking partner, not
just a filing cabinet, tune in.
Sönke, welcome to theWisepreneurs Podcast.
Can you tell us where you areand something about yourself?
Sönke Ahrens (01:08):
Thank you for having me.
I'm currently in Hamburg, myhometown, at my office.
Um, I used to be an academic,spent most of my time in
university, and since a coupleof years I am now freelancer and
(01:29):
I am focusing on my own writinguh, without the constraints of,
um, the institution.
And I am am the author of How toTake Smart Notes and Experiment
and Exploration and justfinished a course on How to Take
(01:52):
Smart Notes with Obsidian, um,which we might talk a bit about.
And yeah, I think that that'sjust the gist.
Nigel Rawlins (02:03):
I was in Hamburg in 1980, so that's a long time
ago.
Sönke Ahrens (02:08):
I think it has changed a little bit.
Nigel Rawlins (02:10):
it was very interesting those days.
Do the Germans still like todrink lots of beer?
Sönke Ahrens (02:16):
Uh, they do, yes.
But, um, the Brits even morewhen they come to visit Hamburg.
Nigel Rawlins (02:22):
Ah, okay.
Because I traveled for a yearwith my wife at the time and we,
we met a lot of people andthey'd often invite us back, so
we stayed with people in Munichand Hamburg, but Hamburg, we
went out to the beer halls.
So it was very friendly.
It was lovely.
I really enjoyed Germany.
I thought it was a veryorganized country.
(02:44):
We are a bit messy in Australia,I think.
Sönke Ahrens (02:45):
That part has changed for sure.
But Hamburg is still a lovelycity and green at the water we
have the harbor to look at.
Nigel Rawlins (02:58):
Now you have an office that you share.
I thought you were still anacademic, so in terms of that,
you don't work from home, you goto an office.
Sönke Ahrens (03:06):
Most of the time I work from office.
Um, I do have my home office aswell.
I need a special place to workat.
When I travel, I often miss mybooks, um, which is always an
issue, uh, I like workingremotely.
(03:27):
I like working from cafes even,but there's still something
about the physicality of yourenvironment, that yeah, makes it
necessary to have at least abase.
I, um, lived for a couple ofyears in Asia and go back in
Autumn, hopefully reconnect withsome people.
(03:50):
That's certainly a place, um,close to my heart and, um,
probably the only place whichfeels like home as well.
Nigel Rawlins (04:01):
Which country is that?
Sönke Ahrens (04:03):
Um, well I was based in Bangkok, Thailand and
traveled from there a lot.
So now in Autum, will go back toBangkok and then visit
colleagues in China, um, who arecurrently translating the
course.
And my publisher in, uh,Bangkok, which is fantastic
(04:26):
publisher, young studentorganization actually, very
involved in the democraticmovement there.
So I'm really honored that they,um, published my book there and
help to be somewhat supportive,uh, going there, doing a talk,
(04:47):
something like that.
Um, looking forward to that.
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (04:50):
Mm, they're interesting countries.
Okay.
I tend to focus on older,independent professionals,
mostly women, often 60 plus.
So the issue for them is they'veprobably got a lot of knowledge.
What I think we, we know iscrystallized intelligence.
So they've got a lifetime ofcareer capital and they've got a
(05:11):
lot of wisdom.
One of the problems they have,for example, if they decide to
stop working and they decidethey want to continue working
for themselves, they've been inan organization and now they're
gonna work for themselves.
One of their issues is they needto do some marketing.
In other words, they need to putout some information about
(05:31):
themselves.
So one of the problems they haveis reclaiming and activating
that knowledge that they have,the skills they've got in order
to share their insights.
And as we know, having read yourbook, we talk about it as
intellectual assets.
They have to become thoughtleaders and they have to be able
(05:52):
to define their niche.
And you talk about theZettelcasten as a way to do
that.
Can you talk about how maybe aperson later in their life who
probably hasn't done a lot ofnote taking can use the
Zettelcasten system to maybehelp spread their insights or,
(06:13):
uh, mine the knowledge thatthey've got.
Sönke Ahrens (06:16):
Yeah, I think that Zettelkasten, and maybe we go,
um, a little bit more into howit works and what it is, but
basically it is your personalspace to collect, combine,
develop your own knowledge, andthat puts the focus on knowledge
(06:39):
that really went through yourunderstanding, and is enriched
by your experience and thatenlarges this personal knowledge
space, you then can think andand develop something else from.
If you don't have something likethat, you are confronted with
(07:05):
the whole bunch of informationout there and have to rely on
your mind and what it is capableto process only.
Of course, we all have some kindof external spaces like
journals, notebooks, we have thetrail of emails and
(07:29):
conversations, but theZettelkasten is really about
structuring this personalthinking space in a way that
first of all, you always knowwhere to put a new good idea
into and that it expands on whatyou already have.
(07:54):
Um, that doesn't always mean toadd a piece more to it.
It often also means to confrontone piece of information with
another piece of information.
You know it's somehow related,but then actively putting these
two things together makes youaware of differences and you are
(08:21):
prompted by the system to figureout are these contradictions,
um, are these maybe twodifferent things that look the
same?
And it prompts you to basicallyengage in proper thinking in
writing.
(08:42):
And I think we cannotunderestimate how much easier it
is to work on somethingintellectually when you have it
in front of you instead oftrying to do it all in your
head.
So it's like an expansion ofyour personal space in which you
(09:03):
only have things you alreadythought through, somehow.
And when it comes to those witha lot of life experience, I
think they are very well awarethat information in itself isn't
worth much.
You have to enrich it withexperience.
(09:25):
Um, we all know these quotestaken out of context you find on
calendars or on top of blogposts and that they sound good,
but often trivial.
And the opposite can be alsotrue.
Only if you put some experienceto it and know how to apply that
(09:48):
they become meaningful.
And I think with young peopleoften they struggle the most
with their personal take oninformation.
While when you have a little bitmore experience probably a
little bit bolder in, um, beingselective and not taking on
(10:12):
something new right away.
But, thinking through it andfiguring out what that really
means, and the Zettelkasten isall about making that easier in
a structured manner.
Nigel Rawlins (10:27):
So it's basically a disciplined way of doing
something with any notes thatyou've taken,'cause there's a
good chance if somebody'sstarting out from scratch in
their sixties, they may havesome notebooks or maybe they
haven't read anything for awhile, or maybe they've got some
books and they've scratched somenotes in it.
Because whatever they're goingto do as an independent
professional, um, they have tohave a position or a niche that
(10:52):
they may want to earn some moneyin, and to stand out they have
to be able to write.
And it's better to have somenotes that they've been thinking
about, which is what we'retalking about here, but the
Zettelcasten is a disciplinedway of not just having a mass of
notes notes, but to interrogatethose thoughts and come up with
(11:12):
a clear idea, isn't it?
Sönke Ahrens (11:13):
Yes, and I wouldn't stress the disciplined
part too much because I'm not avery disciplined person.
In a way it helps me to havethese outer structure, to not
have to be so disciplined, um,because I know once I put
something into my externalbrain, my Zettelkasten, the
(11:38):
structure is there.
I, I don't need to disciplinemyself too much and I can leave
a topic for a while, come backto it, pick up where I left it.
But yes, it's about puttingideas into words, developing
them, and breaking down thesometimes overwhelming task of
(12:01):
writing longer pieces intosmaller steps and developing
ideas.
Not only for one project, butmaybe over multiple projects,
and hopefully combining them ina way that the mere act of
(12:24):
bringing ideas together sparksnew ideas.
Nigel Rawlins (12:28):
Which is the insights that we, that would
make people stand out becausethere's a lot of general writing
out there, which is just ho hum.
But if you're going to stand outas somebody who's going to make
a difference, you need to haveinsights, to say, well, here's a
way to think about it, thatmaybe you haven't been thinking
about it.
And that's where I think theideas come in.
(12:49):
I was thinking about your wholething about Zettelkasten and
came from Niklas Luhmann, wasit?
That guy must have been someincredible, I don't know,
genius,'cause apparently hewrote hundreds of notes.
Sönke Ahrens (13:02):
Well, 90,000 I think is the number of, um,
index cards or paper slips, hehad amassed, but yeah, he was
the one I studied the most atuniversity because I'm most
interested in his theory ofsocial systems.
(13:23):
So he is a, a system thinker andwasn't really that aware of his
Zettelkasten method.
It came later when I wonderedhow on earth someone can be that
productive without repeatinghimself too often and producing
(13:45):
genuinely interesting things inmultiple disciplines at the same
time.
So in Germany at least, and someother countries, he never really
picked up that much in theAnglosphere.
He was massively influential,not only in sociology, his home
discipline, but also inpedagogy, in law, in political
(14:10):
theory, basically written on allaspects of society because that
was his thing, um, developing atheory of society.
And obviously that's a hugelycomplex project and can easily
go wrong.
But he managed to externalizethe complexity of this project
(14:35):
in his Zettelkasten.
So naturally I became interestedin the practicalities of his
daily writing routine.
And I wasn't especiallyintrigued when he said in an
interview, about the discipline,he really never forces himself
(14:55):
to do anything.
So whenever he stops feelinglike doing something, he does
something else.
And the interviewer asks him,well, what, what do you do then?
Well, I write another book.
So he constantly had multiplemanuscripts in the making and he
(15:16):
made it sound easy, what Istruggled with a lot, um, that
that was intriguing to me.
Nigel Rawlins (15:25):
But he wrote many books and many papers based on
all of these notes that he had.
Sönke Ahrens (15:30):
He did.
And when you look at themanuscripts and look at, uh, the
notes, compare them, you seethat whole passages of the book
are already in writing.
Almost, not, not identical, butyou see where it comes from.
(15:51):
You see very well craftedpassages in the notes, which
stretch over multiple notes,obviously.
But that makes you realize hetook seriously the in-between
step.
We often skip or often writingguides gloss over.
(16:13):
The in-between step of writingis writing, but not writing on
the final manuscript and doing Xpages a day.
But the in between step is themessy place where you write a
lot.
But no, it's not going to be inthe final manuscript.
(16:34):
So I can still experiment withideas.
I can add new stuff in, eventhough I'm not sure if it really
should go in the finalmanuscript.
Um, so it relieves you a littlebit of the pressure, and it
makes you realize, well, theactual writing of the manuscript
is not the big thing in writing.
(16:54):
Not, not when you put thoughtinto it.
What takes most of the time iseverything that comes before,
the reading, the thinking, thetrying out stuff, um, shuffling
things around and giving that aplace.
This in between step is wherethe Zettelcasten comes into
(17:15):
play.
So in the end, you have yournotes, which are not perfect,
but in the end, you only have torewrite what you have already
written when you go to yourfinal manuscript, which is so
much easier than staring at ablank page and dreading the
(17:40):
moment you don't know what, whatsentence should come next.
Having the notes you can turn toand rephrase them, it's much
easier.
Nigel Rawlins (17:54):
A lot of these people who've been working maybe
in a corporate environment, theydo a lot of planning, but it's
top down planning.
But the Zettelkasten is aboutthings that emerge, uh, through
the connections but theZettelkasten is a bottom up
system of finding things towrite about.
Could you explain what thatmeans?
Sönke Ahrens (18:12):
Yes, when you look at writing guides, they often
have this imaginary, um,multi-step, uh, description.
You have an idea what you wantto write about, then you do some
research on that.
Then you extract what you found,you put it into order, and then
(18:35):
you write the final manuscript.
That sounds good, but it'srarely what actually happens
because the moment you startreading something, you realize,
oh, my initial idea wasn't thatgood actually.
Um, the problem is slightlydifferent.
Then you start writing and yourealize, oh, um, I, I need to
(18:59):
explain something more.
And then you start writingsomething else.
So it's a much more circular andmessy process, uh, which is
often driven by insight thatcomes in moments, you are not at
your computer writing, but whenyou have a walk or a
(19:23):
conversation, that inspires you.
So the Zettelkasten then isabout lowering the threshold of
capturing these ideas becauseyou only have to take a note.
And later when you have the timeand the focus, you then take
(19:46):
that idea and look what youalready have.
And see how it fits.
In my experience, often Irealize, oh, I already had this
idea.
Um, but that's an insight too.
And then you take what you haveand by looking at it structure
(20:10):
emerges over time.
So that has the advantage ofbeing a much more natural way of
writing.
But it also has the advantagethat when you collect your
ideas, um, let structure emergeand then write from what you
(20:32):
have, you have the materialalready there.
I.
When you start with an idea, youhave nothing.
You go and search only torealize it might not fit, and
suddenly you, um, you have thistrade off between I want to get
(20:54):
this done, even though I realizein the process another direction
would actually be better.
But that would mean I have to goback to reading, doing a little
bit more research, and suddenlyyou, you kind of alienated from
(21:16):
your, um, writing projectbecause you can't really adjust
it that much anymore because itgets in the way of getting it
done.
A bottom up process i much moreallows you to adjust it along
the way.
And in the end when you putthings together you put it
(21:37):
together from the material yougathered along the way, and you
have a surplus of ideas whichwon't go into the project, the
blog posts, the article you'vewritten because that's the
nature of, um, of writing anddoing research that you always
(21:58):
have a surplus.
But the good thing is then it'snot tied to this project alone.
You don't have to chuck it andstart from scratch all over
again.
You can use what you have foryour next piece of writing and
of course, when you work formany years, like Luhmann did you
(22:21):
have such a mass of notes?
It's easy to, to write multiple,um, articles drawing from that
pool.
Nigel Rawlins (22:31):
We should say that he made connections.
As part of his system he hadconnections between the, the
notes, so they were linked inmany ways.
And today we can do that with,um, digital programs, which we
will talk about.
So I'm assuming that some ofthose notes are just an idea
that you might have had when youwere walking along and that's
(22:51):
the thing we don't always do iscapture those little ideas.
They disappear.
By the time you get home, you'veforgotten it.
And it could have been a goodidea that goes into these little
notes systems.
But he did connect those notes,didn't he?
Sönke Ahrens (23:03):
Yeah, and that maybe stresses as the bottom up
approach as well because we tendto start with a structure.
I, I have my different topics, Ihave my different, um, uh, ideas
and then I collect underneathwhat I found.
So that's a folder structure youhave on your computer.
(23:25):
His method is different in thatthe structure emerges.
So the links between the notesare slightly different to the
hyperlinks on the internet, uh,or different to Wiki links,
(23:46):
which link to somehow relatedideas or ideas that fit
categorically.
Here it's much more aboutlinking to an idea that directly
expands on what you alreadyhave.
So it's more about this buildingof note sequences that you can
(24:11):
branch out when you feel okay,that goes into another
direction.
So it's a rhizomatic structure,a little bit like, like a tree
with your branches, you branchout from, and then you put
leaves onto it and that bringsyou closer to the linearity of
(24:33):
the output, which might also bea helpful image that you usually
start with linear text.
You read a book, which islinear, but your thinking is not
linear.
You, um, reflect on stuff.
You go back to it.
It's, it's more an iterationprocess.
(24:53):
You have this question youalways come back to, always a
little bit enriched through anew understanding.
So the Zettelkasten isnon-linear.
With all the links in between itenables you to, um, take
different ideas intoconsideration.
But they have this notesequencing, um, where ideas are
(25:18):
expanded upon.
Which in the end becomes alinear text again, which is
often a challenge to putnonlinear ideas in, in a linear
way.
But that's then the writing ofthe manuscript, um, process.
Yeah, that's his linking systemwas in analog form.
(25:40):
Very, um, unique.
First note just had the numberone, the second, number two, the
third, number three.
But if you want to add betweenone and two, another one,
because it expands on the firstnote, you would branch it out by
giving it an one A, and then youhave one B, one C with another
(26:06):
branch and.
You don't need that kind ofunique ID-ing system anymore
with the apps we have nowadays.
But nevertheless, the analog,the paper and writing by hand
still has an attraction to me.
And, is something that thedigital still hasn't fully,
(26:33):
replicated yet.
But still the advantages of thedigital are so great that it's
still worth doing it in digitalform, I think.
Nigel Rawlins (26:42):
Yes, a very different world from when we
were younger.
One of the problems I found isfrom my reading I took lots of
notes in books, and never lookedat them again, could never find
what I wanted.
Had multiple books.
And I read heaps of stuff on myKindle and because I use
Readwise, any highlight feedsinto Readwise and then feeds
(27:04):
into my note taking app, whichis Obsidian at the moment.
But I read all sorts of stuff,articles I read about marketing,
I read about websites, I readabout cognitive science, I read
about consciousness.
I read about philosophy.
I do read about business aswell, but, uh, I don't always
like to read about business.
(27:26):
What I've realized I've done isbasically I've got a notetaking
system full of archived notes.
They're not something I'vereally processed like the
Zettelkasten where he has onesimple idea where you've
actually put it into your ownwords.
You make a distinction betweenthat archivist mindset and a
(27:46):
writing mindset.
Would you like to talk a littlebit about that?
Sönke Ahrens (27:50):
Yeah, I mean, it grew out of my own frustration
facing similar challenges andrealizing I, I, I read so much.
I underline in books.
I make comment in the margins.
I collect a lot of articles and,um, have post-its on them.
(28:11):
But I, I realize I, I mean, it'ssuch a small percentage I
really, encounter later again.
I rarely went through my oldbooks to look for something.
And when you try to get writingdone in whatever output form
(28:35):
that might be, you have to relyon your brain to remember in
which book, on which page youhighlighted something.
Even in digital form, when yougo to Readwise, you have at
least to remember, okay, where,where can I find that?
And you have to remember thatyou highlighted something
(28:55):
somewhere, and my brain is notcapable of doing even a fraction
of that.
So to me, it was like most ofwhat I read and processed
somehow by highlighting,underlining, commenting was
lost.
And turning it into notes thatgo into the Zettelkasten doesn't
(29:23):
mean you are able to captureeverything that seems
interesting.
It, it's impossible, but thatthose highlights or ideas you
read and take from other peopleyou feel could inform something
(29:44):
you are working on or want towork on in the future.
They go into my inbox inObsedian.
I look at them.
Ideally in a timely manner whereI did not forget what the
context was.
And then I wonder, okay, um, towhat I already have, is this
(30:13):
relevant for and in what way?
And only in this moment where Ithen do something with it.
And doing something with thepiece of information means
looking for what I already have,where it might fit into, and how
(30:36):
I could connect two pieces ofinformation.
I feel like now I've done anactual step of bringing my own
ideas forward.
It's not just an idea of, oh,that's interesting, but it's
actually doing something with itthat brings my own thinking in
(30:57):
writing forward and is there tobe integrated in, in my work.
So nowadays when I justhighlight something, I
physically feel okay, that's notenough.
I, I need to bring it intocontext, otherwise it's lost.
(31:21):
Of course, reading is never awaste of time and it always does
something with yourunderstanding, but when you are
a creator, when you are someonewho wants to share what you have
in your mind, whatever that is,you need to go this step of
(31:42):
actually doing something withthe information, otherwise
reading is a very personalthing, which can be good.
But when you're a creator, whenyou want to put something out in
the world, you need to go onestep further.
Nigel Rawlins (31:59):
I think the main thing is to be discerning about
what you've read or what you'rereading.
What's happened is, for me is myKindle is just full of books
that looked interesting, but Idon't know if I'm going to get
to them, and I think I have tobe a bit smarter nowadays to
say, well, I'm nearly 70 now.
How much you know, how much moream I gonna be able to read and
actually use?
(32:19):
I mean, it might be time for meto start adding some depth to
those.
Now I started five years agowith Roam Research, which was an
online new high tech note takingsystem at that time.
I was an early adopter, so Ipaid for five years.
That finished this year and Ididn't want to continue'cause it
was too technical and, and Icouldn't recommend it to anyone
(32:41):
because of how technical it was.
I did use Obsidian and then Ifound it difficult to
understand, so I tried Logseqbut that didn't have enough
power.
So I moved back to Obsidian andthen I'm still learning
Obsidian.
And then, I've tried a coupleothers, one called Reflect,
which is an AI one and onecalled Craft, which I'm just
(33:02):
playing with, but I thinkObsidian is going to be the one.
So what we're talking about withour note taking system is to get
stuff out of our heads.
It's like a, a cognitiveextension of our brains.
So the issue is digital systems,these can be intimidating.
And I mean, I've been using, uh,technology and digital tools for
(33:24):
something like 20 years now, butfor somebody new it's gonna be
quite a challenge.
Do you wanna talk a little bitabout how they can focus on the
principles using a note takingapp like Obsidian, and then we
should say, where does AI fitinto it?
Sönke Ahrens (33:40):
Okay.
Well, I, I had a similarjourney.
I also used Roam for a while.
I'm not sure if it's too techy,but I, I felt it kept me in a
distance from my own notes andmy own thinking and thinking
about the technology interferedwith what I actually wanted to
(34:01):
think about.
And that is the content.
And I looked at Obsidian, foundit a little bit too difficult to
wrap my head around first too,but then immersed myself for
week-end and then it suddenlyclicked.
And I think the difficulty withObsidian is that it's so open to
(34:27):
all kinds of structures.
It's basically a canvas.
You need to figure out how togive yourself a scaffold.
You can add your notes to firstbefore you can get into the flow
of writing.
But after I figured out how tohave a basic structure in
(34:49):
Obisidan, the, the technologydisappears into the background.
And with Obsidian, I feel waymore than with Roam or other
tech I tried out, immersed in myown thoughts.
I feel it's much more naturalfor writing.
(35:10):
I can see multiple notes thatbelong together.
I have different ways ofaccessing my pool of ideas.
I have a simple query that showsme all the unprocessed, Readwise
highlights I have.
(35:30):
But I set it up in a way that itonly shows me the ones from the
last 30 days.
Everything else just disappearsfrom my view.
So it never feels overwhelmingto me.
It's a bit cheating, but I don'tremember wh ere I read it, but
the idea of you should treat thereading and information less
(35:50):
than a bucket you need to empty,but more like a river you can
pick stuff from.
I find that quite liberatingactually.
So Obsidian needs an initialstep of setting up a structure,
but once you figure that out asa technology, to me at least it
fades into the background andallows you to be immersed in
(36:15):
your own ideas.
And that led for me to not beinginterested in trying out other
note taking systems anymore.
I, I really don't feel the urgeto look for the new shiny thing.
Well, that was the reason I, Idid the course because many
(36:36):
people ask, well, how do you putthe structure of the
Zettelkasten in Obsedian?
And giving others a shortcut tonot have to go through the long
phase of figuring it out,experimenting with stuff only to
notice after a few thousandnotes it doesn't work with a
complex Zettelkasten anymore.
(36:57):
I wanted to provide someone a, ashort path into using Obsidian
as a Zettelkasten and I thinkyou can do it in a weekend.
And then you find your wayaround it.
Yeah, and it allows you to dothings like having Readwise feed
into it, but keep it separateinternally so you are not
(37:21):
filling up your Obsedian vaultwith external stuff.
But, just giving you the optionto pick from preselected pieces
of information.
Still have the context only aclick away, which I think it's,
(37:42):
it's so great that you, you canuse Readwise to go back to the
original source and look at theparagraph before, the paragraph
behind,'cause often when youhighlight stuff itself, it's
not, not that meaningful.
It's only meaningful within thecontext.
And then you can recontextualizeit into your own thoughts and
(38:03):
think, okay, what, what doesthis idea mean to what I already
have?
So that is my experience withObsidian and I feel most people
geared towards Obsedian at themoment.
So I hear a lot of stories frompeople here, try different apps
out and there are practicalreasons, but I mean, practical
(38:26):
reasons, like it's locallystored.
You have full control over yourdata.
It's not online and you have toworry about where it might end
up.
It's basically free.
You can always find ways tosupport the developers, but, you
are not locked into a system.
So there are multiple practicalreasons, but I think why most
(38:48):
people seem to migrate toObsidian or back to Obsidian is
because it feels intuitivelyun-techy in a way, techy in the
beginning, but it fades into thebackground.
I think it's this intuitivething in the end that is crucial
for the decision with what youwork with.
Nigel Rawlins (39:09):
We, we should say that when we put the notes into
obsidian, we can actuallyhighlight and tag some of those
words so they're connected toother articles using that word.
So you can pull out a range ofnotes that have the same keyword
or the same tag.
Yes, I do not use tags for, uh,organizing my content though.
(39:36):
I use tags that have a functionthat indicate a certain type of
note, but I try to use linksonly for organizing the content
So if I have a special keyword,like writing tools, for example,
(39:56):
I would put that into the squarebrackets that turn them into a
link to a note called writingtools.
And then on that note, it listedeverything else I linked to that
note from, and also it shows youall the unlinked notes which
(40:21):
have that particular keyword onthem.
I call that index notes.
But I think the main linkingfeature are links that are very
descriptive that highlight theconnection between two notes.
So I always try to embed linksin full sentences so I
(40:43):
immediately see how two thingsare connected, not just by
association, but in terms ofreasoning.
Yeah, I think that's the way togo.
Again, that's the differencebetween me being an archivist
and you being a writer, that youare figuring out a way that you
can get that note back out atsome stage, uh, on a project.
(41:04):
Well, this is a long game,taking these notes, it's not
something that's going to, well,it might have some fruition in
the first couple of weeks if youput a lot of notes in and you
know what you're doing.
But it is a long game, sothere's a different mindset for
this.
It's, uh, something that willcompound over time.
(41:24):
It's a continuous conversationwith our notes.
How can people come to valuedoing that, because it's
obviously, whether I call it adiscipline or a habit, to
continuously work with thosenotes and feed the notes.
Sönke Ahrens (41:38):
I think not having the focus on having the goal of
having a huge amount of notes,um, and then you can start
turning it into writing.
I think it's a better way tolook at it is you change your
habit, you, you change the waysin which you take notes, which
(42:00):
can be immediately beneficial.
In two ways.
First of all, you have to writeanyway, so it's just a different
form of writing, and you canstart with only writing what you
would write anyway for aparticular project, and then it
generates a surplus along theway.
(42:21):
But you, you don't have to treatit as filling up a space first
and then extracting from it, youcan right away think, well, I
only write for the project Ihave in mind, and I start to do
it in a different way.
That's one way of looking at it.
And the other way is on focusingmore on thinking and
understanding.
(42:41):
So you maybe have literature youfind challenging or you immerse
yourself in a new topic, whereyou still need to find your way
around.
Then you can use writing as aform of deliberate practice of
understanding and focus on whatwriting notes can do for, for
(43:09):
your, for your brain.
So, it makes a difference if youread something or if you read
something and try to put intowords, into your own words what
you understand this text was allabout.
It's this very similar to theexperience of explaining someone
else what you just read.
(43:30):
I think we all know thedifference between we read
something and think, yeah, okay,totally makes sense.
And someone asks, what's itabout you, you're reading there
and then you suddenly strugglebecause there is a difference
between understanding andactually understand it and
(43:51):
explaining something to someoneelse, um, is like a feedback
loop that puts the finger oneverything you haven't really
figured out yet.
And writing is like a, like asmall, personal, uh, equivalent
to that.
Just trying to put into your ownwords.
(44:13):
Um, your understanding ofsomething you read, confronts
you with missing pieces whereyou just thought you understand,
but really don't.
And that often leads to goingback to the original source and
(44:34):
reading a little bit moreclosely realizing, ah, I think
I, I saw something in there,what wasn't actually there.
So it's like a deliberatepractice of understanding and
you can just use it as, as atool like an external tutor, so
to speak, your personal, uh,tutor.
(44:55):
I, I mean that's, that's theimportance of writing that so
many thinkers often stress.
You, you cannot properly thinkwithout writing, uh, Luhmann
said, uh, and I think there issome truth to it.
Nigel Rawlins (45:11):
Well, if starting can be a barrier, so what would
you recommend as a first step orhabit to start, somebody who's
starting from zero?
Sönke Ahrens (45:21):
Well, if you have decided you want to do something
like that, I think a good firststep is to realize what you
already have achieved and whatyou already have on your mind
and don't need to figure outanymore.
Start with some kind of braindump.
(45:43):
Write down everything you areinterested in developing in the
future of writing, in thefuture, of thinking about in the
future.
Don't make the mistake of tryingto replicate what's in your
head.
Just write what you're currentlyinterested in, in deepening, and
(46:10):
then you have your, your, yournotes on, on, on what you had on
your mind.
You can sort it into a few mainareas of interest and you can
use that as the initial scaffoldto then hang new ideas onto.
(46:31):
And sometimes it's good to havesome initial notes that are a
little bit more extensive, um,like open questions you want to
explore further or maybe, deeplyheld beliefs about something you
(46:51):
want to challenge, somethingthat works well as a good
starting point, um, to developsomething from it.
And you don't need to writeanything down, which is
self-explanatory for yourself,which you already fully
understand.
So you can liberate yourselffrom reorganizing everything you
(47:15):
have.
You can just start a new habitof writing with new encounters
of ideas from your own brain orfrom the brain of others, um,
through the means of books andarticles, et cetera.
Um, I think that lowers thethreshold considerably.
(47:37):
I
Nigel Rawlins (47:37):
think that's a great way to start.
I never thought of that and Ithink that's excellent.
Well, we, um, one of my earlierguests was Eliška Šestáková who
spoke about note taking as well.
And you together produced acourse?
Sönke Ahrens (47:52):
Eliška was very helpful in in the development of
the course and she wanted totake over when I finished the
recordings, she now has a littlekid and is building a house and
has her own projects.
So we are still collaborating,but not as closely as in the
(48:12):
beginning.
She is the Zettelkasten expertin the Czech Republic and she's
really good at explaining stuff.
So, in, in a way, I, I wouldlove to have live sessions with
her, um, making introductions,because in, in many ways she's
better than myself in, um,explaining things to, to people.
(48:38):
But yes, she's using Roam, um,much more than I do, and she is
much more an expert in Roam.
So if you still use Roam, um, orplan to do that, I think she's
the person to turn to.
And maybe one day we do a courseon Roam as well.
(48:59):
But she's working with Obsidianmore now because of the course.
And we discussed, um, the prosand cons.
Maybe she'll come around aswell.
Nigel Rawlins (49:10):
So tell me about the course.
Sönke Ahrens (49:12):
Yeah, it's, as I mentioned before, um, the
attempt to give people ashortcut to a fully functioning
Zettelkasten system in digitalform with Obsidian.
It is for people who might ormight not have used Obsedian
before.
In some ways it might be easierfor people who haven't used
(49:35):
Obsidian because then you don'thave your own system, which
might collide with what Isuggest.
So it, it walks you through thebasics of, Obsidian, how to
install it, how to set the basicstructure up and how to edit
notes and how it works.
(49:56):
But then it goes into thedetails of how to apply the
principles of the originalZettelkasten in digital form.
So how to take the best of bothworlds, the analog and the
digital without the complicatedLuhmann numbering system.
(50:18):
And in a way that is pragmaticenough, uh, to get you into a
flow of writing and thinking sothat you quickly get to the
point where you don't have tothink about the technology that
much anymore.
There is a little part on how tointegrate Readwise.
(50:41):
That would be actually the onlypaid system, uh, because
everything else can be used forfree.
And it's only because Readwiseis, um, so beloved in the note
taking community.
And I think it has so manyadvantages it's actually worth
using.
(51:01):
It has a part on how toimplement an external reference
manager.
We use the example of Zotero.
This is probably moreinteresting for people who work
a little bit more academically,who need to properly site
sources.
But I feel, that might be my, myacademic bias.
(51:25):
Even non-academics can benefitfrom having one dedicated
reference system where you haveall your sources in a
standardized way.
So you can always give accountof where an idea came from.
So it it, it prevents you frommistaking other people's ideas
(51:48):
with your own, which so easilyhappen.
So when, when I read somethingintensely, um, I sometimes
believe some of the ideas weremy own and only to realize when
I look in my Zettelkasten ohshit, that that was someone
else.
So it prevents you fromaccidental plagiarism as well.
(52:12):
And so it describes how tointegrate that into into your
system.
But then, the main focus is ofcourse on building note
sequences, um, that gets youcloser to output and hopefully
makes you realize when you makethe step to your manuscript and
(52:36):
deciding you want to write nowthe blog post, the article, the
book you had on your mind, thatmost of the work is already
done.
So that that's the hope thatyour blank page was never really
blank, but is already prefilledwith your own writing that only
(52:58):
needs to be rewritten andedited, and then probably
multiple times, because that'sthe process of writing.
I
Nigel Rawlins (53:06):
think that's it, because the problem is, I think
we've gotta be aware, especiallyif we're older, that there are
so much things on our mind thatwe wanna make things simple.
And it's not always gonna besimple, but we need something we
could just plug in and userather than have to go through
the learning curve.
Now obviously with your course,there's a little bit of a
(53:27):
learning curve, getting set up,getting systems in place, but
you are putting in the packages.
So if you are reading on aKindle and you're using
Readwise, that it'll feed intoObsidian and then you've got
your note taking system inthere.
That's all people need.
Now a problem with being anindependent professional is
you're constantly having tolearn stuff, how to use a tool
(53:50):
and, and I think that's one ofthe things you write about in
your book.
You know, it's all very wellhaving a tool, but you've gotta
be able to use it.
And this is part and parcel, allof this.
So if you are going to stand outin your field, you do have to
write, but you, you need to haveideas that are original or
sourced and, and obviouslyZotero, I did try using it on
(54:12):
Roam but it seemed to break.
So if you've got Zotero workingon Obsidian, I think that's
really good.
'cause if we are writingarticles, I think it's really
good if we put some of thesources.
And I'll always do that when I'mwriting an article, where I got
it from.
And, I try and read all thebooks from all the people I
speak to, it's driving me mad atthe moment'cause they've got
another one on Friday, coming upin a couple of days and there's
(54:35):
no way I'm gonna be able to readthat one.
And it's a very interestingtopic.
The next topic is menopause,believe it or not.
Sönke this has been a greatconversation.
I'm hoping people understand howimportant it is.
If you are an independentprofessional, working for
yourself, you do need to standout.
You, you can't just, well ununless you're so famous that you
(54:56):
don't have to chase work, um,you still have to stand out and,
and this is to counter ageism aswell when we're older that you
can write good materials.
So Sönke where can they find thecourse and where can they find
out more about you online?
Sönke Ahrens (55:11):
I'm on Twitter, but rarely tweet.
I'm on LinkedIn but rarely postsomething, but these are
probably the ways to find me.
Nigel Rawlins (55:20):
That's great.
I'll put the links to the coursein the show notes.
And I would recommend doing thecourse'cause I think Obsidian is
nice and easy.
It's free, especially as you'reolder and, and unfortunately
when you start running abusiness, you've got all these
subscriptions and often they'rein American dollars that are
expensive.
So something that's free andvery useful is fantastic.
(55:42):
Well, Sönke thank you very muchfor being my guest.
Sönke Ahrens (55:46):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
Is your mind buzzing with a lifetime of
ideas, but the thought oforganizing them feels
exhausting.
What if the solution wasn't morediscipline, but a system that
works for you almost on its own?
In this episode, I speak withSönke Ahrens author of the
hugely influential book, How ToTake Smart Notes.
He offers a radical newapproach, not just for taking
(00:23):
notes, but for thinking.
It's a method designed to removepressure and make the messy,
brilliant process of developingideas feel natural and
effortless.
Sönke's philosophy istransformative, and as he says
in our conversation:
Sönke Ahrens (00:39):
And I think we cannot underestimate how much
easier it is to work onsomething intellectually when
you have it in front of youinstead of trying to do it all
in your head.
Nigel Rawlins (00:55):
If you are ready to build a thinking partner, not
just a filing cabinet, tune in.
Sönke, welcome to theWisepreneurs Podcast.
Can you tell us where you areand something about yourself?
Sönke Ahrens (01:08):
Thank you for having me.
I'm currently in Hamburg, myhometown, at my office.
Um, I used to be an academic,spent most of my time in
university, and since a coupleof years I am now freelancer and
(01:29):
I am focusing on my own writinguh, without the constraints of,
um, the institution.
And I am am the author of How toTake Smart Notes and Experiment
and Exploration and justfinished a course on How to Take
(01:52):
Smart Notes with Obsidian, um,which we might talk a bit about.
And yeah, I think that that'sjust the gist.
Nigel Rawlins (02:03):
I was in Hamburg in 1980, so that's a long time
ago.
Sönke Ahrens (02:08):
I think it has changed a little bit.
Nigel Rawlins (02:10):
it was very interesting those days.
Do the Germans still like todrink lots of beer?
Sönke Ahrens (02:16):
Uh, they do, yes.
But, um, the Brits even morewhen they come to visit Hamburg.
Nigel Rawlins (02:22):
Ah, okay.
Because I traveled for a yearwith my wife at the time and we,
we met a lot of people andthey'd often invite us back, so
we stayed with people in Munichand Hamburg, but Hamburg, we
went out to the beer halls.
So it was very friendly.
It was lovely.
I really enjoyed Germany.
I thought it was a veryorganized country.
(02:44):
We are a bit messy in Australia,I think.
Sönke Ahrens (02:45):
That part has changed for sure.
But Hamburg is still a lovelycity and green at the water we
have the harbor to look at.
Nigel Rawlins (02:58):
Now you have an office that you share.
I thought you were still anacademic, so in terms of that,
you don't work from home, you goto an office.
Sönke Ahrens (03:06):
Most of the time I work from office.
Um, I do have my home office aswell.
I need a special place to workat.
When I travel, I often miss mybooks, um, which is always an
issue, uh, I like workingremotely.
(03:27):
I like working from cafes even,but there's still something
about the physicality of yourenvironment, that yeah, makes it
necessary to have at least abase.
I, um, lived for a couple ofyears in Asia and go back in
Autumn, hopefully reconnect withsome people.
(03:50):
That's certainly a place, um,close to my heart and, um,
probably the only place whichfeels like home as well.
Nigel Rawlins (04:01):
Which country is that?
Sönke Ahrens (04:03):
Um, well I was based in Bangkok, Thailand and
traveled from there a lot.
So now in Autum, will go back toBangkok and then visit
colleagues in China, um, who arecurrently translating the
course.
And my publisher in, uh,Bangkok, which is fantastic
(04:26):
publisher, young studentorganization actually, very
involved in the democraticmovement there.
So I'm really honored that they,um, published my book there and
help to be somewhat supportive,uh, going there, doing a talk,
(04:47):
something like that.
Um, looking forward to that.
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (04:50):
Mm, they're interesting countries.
Okay.
I tend to focus on older,independent professionals,
mostly women, often 60 plus.
So the issue for them is they'veprobably got a lot of knowledge.
What I think we, we know iscrystallized intelligence.
So they've got a lifetime ofcareer capital and they've got a
(05:11):
lot of wisdom.
One of the problems they have,for example, if they decide to
stop working and they decidethey want to continue working
for themselves, they've been inan organization and now they're
gonna work for themselves.
One of their issues is they needto do some marketing.
In other words, they need to putout some information about
(05:31):
themselves.
So one of the problems they haveis reclaiming and activating
that knowledge that they have,the skills they've got in order
to share their insights.
And as we know, having read yourbook, we talk about it as
intellectual assets.
They have to become thoughtleaders and they have to be able
(05:52):
to define their niche.
And you talk about theZettelcasten as a way to do
that.
Can you talk about how maybe aperson later in their life who
probably hasn't done a lot ofnote taking can use the
Zettelcasten system to maybehelp spread their insights or,
(06:13):
uh, mine the knowledge thatthey've got.
Sönke Ahrens (06:16):
Yeah, I think that Zettelkasten, and maybe we go,
um, a little bit more into howit works and what it is, but
basically it is your personalspace to collect, combine,
develop your own knowledge, andthat puts the focus on knowledge
(06:39):
that really went through yourunderstanding, and is enriched
by your experience and thatenlarges this personal knowledge
space, you then can think andand develop something else from.
If you don't have something likethat, you are confronted with
(07:05):
the whole bunch of informationout there and have to rely on
your mind and what it is capableto process only.
Of course, we all have some kindof external spaces like
journals, notebooks, we have thetrail of emails and
(07:29):
conversations, but theZettelkasten is really about
structuring this personalthinking space in a way that
first of all, you always knowwhere to put a new good idea
into and that it expands on whatyou already have.
(07:54):
Um, that doesn't always mean toadd a piece more to it.
It often also means to confrontone piece of information with
another piece of information.
You know it's somehow related,but then actively putting these
two things together makes youaware of differences and you are
(08:21):
prompted by the system to figureout are these contradictions,
um, are these maybe twodifferent things that look the
same?
And it prompts you to basicallyengage in proper thinking in
writing.
(08:42):
And I think we cannotunderestimate how much easier it
is to work on somethingintellectually when you have it
in front of you instead oftrying to do it all in your
head.
So it's like an expansion ofyour personal space in which you
(09:03):
only have things you alreadythought through, somehow.
And when it comes to those witha lot of life experience, I
think they are very well awarethat information in itself isn't
worth much.
You have to enrich it withexperience.
(09:25):
Um, we all know these quotestaken out of context you find on
calendars or on top of blogposts and that they sound good,
but often trivial.
And the opposite can be alsotrue.
Only if you put some experienceto it and know how to apply that
(09:48):
they become meaningful.
And I think with young peopleoften they struggle the most
with their personal take oninformation.
While when you have a little bitmore experience probably a
little bit bolder in, um, beingselective and not taking on
(10:12):
something new right away.
But, thinking through it andfiguring out what that really
means, and the Zettelkasten isall about making that easier in
a structured manner.
Nigel Rawlins (10:27):
So it's basically a disciplined way of doing
something with any notes thatyou've taken,'cause there's a
good chance if somebody'sstarting out from scratch in
their sixties, they may havesome notebooks or maybe they
haven't read anything for awhile, or maybe they've got some
books and they've scratched somenotes in it.
Because whatever they're goingto do as an independent
professional, um, they have tohave a position or a niche that
(10:52):
they may want to earn some moneyin, and to stand out they have
to be able to write.
And it's better to have somenotes that they've been thinking
about, which is what we'retalking about here, but the
Zettelcasten is a disciplinedway of not just having a mass of
notes notes, but to interrogatethose thoughts and come up with
(11:12):
a clear idea, isn't it?
Sönke Ahrens (11:13):
Yes, and I wouldn't stress the disciplined
part too much because I'm not avery disciplined person.
In a way it helps me to havethese outer structure, to not
have to be so disciplined, um,because I know once I put
something into my externalbrain, my Zettelkasten, the
(11:38):
structure is there.
I, I don't need to disciplinemyself too much and I can leave
a topic for a while, come backto it, pick up where I left it.
But yes, it's about puttingideas into words, developing
them, and breaking down thesometimes overwhelming task of
(12:01):
writing longer pieces intosmaller steps and developing
ideas.
Not only for one project, butmaybe over multiple projects,
and hopefully combining them ina way that the mere act of
(12:24):
bringing ideas together sparksnew ideas.
Nigel Rawlins (12:28):
Which is the insights that we, that would
make people stand out becausethere's a lot of general writing
out there, which is just ho hum.
But if you're going to stand outas somebody who's going to make
a difference, you need to haveinsights, to say, well, here's a
way to think about it, thatmaybe you haven't been thinking
about it.
And that's where I think theideas come in.
(12:49):
I was thinking about your wholething about Zettelkasten and
came from Niklas Luhmann, wasit?
That guy must have been someincredible, I don't know,
genius,'cause apparently hewrote hundreds of notes.
Sönke Ahrens (13:02):
Well, 90,000 I think is the number of, um,
index cards or paper slips, hehad amassed, but yeah, he was
the one I studied the most atuniversity because I'm most
interested in his theory ofsocial systems.
(13:23):
So he is a, a system thinker andwasn't really that aware of his
Zettelkasten method.
It came later when I wonderedhow on earth someone can be that
productive without repeatinghimself too often and producing
(13:45):
genuinely interesting things inmultiple disciplines at the same
time.
So in Germany at least, and someother countries, he never really
picked up that much in theAnglosphere.
He was massively influential,not only in sociology, his home
discipline, but also inpedagogy, in law, in political
(14:10):
theory, basically written on allaspects of society because that
was his thing, um, developing atheory of society.
And obviously that's a hugelycomplex project and can easily
go wrong.
But he managed to externalizethe complexity of this project
(14:35):
in his Zettelkasten.
So naturally I became interestedin the practicalities of his
daily writing routine.
And I wasn't especiallyintrigued when he said in an
interview, about the discipline,he really never forces himself
(14:55):
to do anything.
So whenever he stops feelinglike doing something, he does
something else.
And the interviewer asks him,well, what, what do you do then?
Well, I write another book.
So he constantly had multiplemanuscripts in the making and he
(15:16):
made it sound easy, what Istruggled with a lot, um, that
that was intriguing to me.
Nigel Rawlins (15:25):
But he wrote many books and many papers based on
all of these notes that he had.
Sönke Ahrens (15:30):
He did.
And when you look at themanuscripts and look at, uh, the
notes, compare them, you seethat whole passages of the book
are already in writing.
Almost, not, not identical, butyou see where it comes from.
(15:51):
You see very well craftedpassages in the notes, which
stretch over multiple notes,obviously.
But that makes you realize hetook seriously the in-between
step.
We often skip or often writingguides gloss over.
(16:13):
The in-between step of writingis writing, but not writing on
the final manuscript and doing Xpages a day.
But the in between step is themessy place where you write a
lot.
But no, it's not going to be inthe final manuscript.
(16:34):
So I can still experiment withideas.
I can add new stuff in, eventhough I'm not sure if it really
should go in the finalmanuscript.
Um, so it relieves you a littlebit of the pressure, and it
makes you realize, well, theactual writing of the manuscript
is not the big thing in writing.
(16:54):
Not, not when you put thoughtinto it.
What takes most of the time iseverything that comes before,
the reading, the thinking, thetrying out stuff, um, shuffling
things around and giving that aplace.
This in between step is wherethe Zettelcasten comes into
(17:15):
play.
So in the end, you have yournotes, which are not perfect,
but in the end, you only have torewrite what you have already
written when you go to yourfinal manuscript, which is so
much easier than staring at ablank page and dreading the
(17:40):
moment you don't know what, whatsentence should come next.
Having the notes you can turn toand rephrase them, it's much
easier.
Nigel Rawlins (17:54):
A lot of these people who've been working maybe
in a corporate environment, theydo a lot of planning, but it's
top down planning.
But the Zettelkasten is aboutthings that emerge, uh, through
the connections but theZettelkasten is a bottom up
system of finding things towrite about.
Could you explain what thatmeans?
Sönke Ahrens (18:12):
Yes, when you look at writing guides, they often
have this imaginary, um,multi-step, uh, description.
You have an idea what you wantto write about, then you do some
research on that.
Then you extract what you found,you put it into order, and then
(18:35):
you write the final manuscript.
That sounds good, but it'srarely what actually happens
because the moment you startreading something, you realize,
oh, my initial idea wasn't thatgood actually.
Um, the problem is slightlydifferent.
Then you start writing and yourealize, oh, um, I, I need to
(18:59):
explain something more.
And then you start writingsomething else.
So it's a much more circular andmessy process, uh, which is
often driven by insight thatcomes in moments, you are not at
your computer writing, but whenyou have a walk or a
(19:23):
conversation, that inspires you.
So the Zettelkasten then isabout lowering the threshold of
capturing these ideas becauseyou only have to take a note.
And later when you have the timeand the focus, you then take
(19:46):
that idea and look what youalready have.
And see how it fits.
In my experience, often Irealize, oh, I already had this
idea.
Um, but that's an insight too.
And then you take what you haveand by looking at it structure
(20:10):
emerges over time.
So that has the advantage ofbeing a much more natural way of
writing.
But it also has the advantagethat when you collect your
ideas, um, let structure emergeand then write from what you
(20:32):
have, you have the materialalready there.
I.
When you start with an idea, youhave nothing.
You go and search only torealize it might not fit, and
suddenly you, um, you have thistrade off between I want to get
(20:54):
this done, even though I realizein the process another direction
would actually be better.
But that would mean I have to goback to reading, doing a little
bit more research, and suddenlyyou, you kind of alienated from
(21:16):
your, um, writing projectbecause you can't really adjust
it that much anymore because itgets in the way of getting it
done.
A bottom up process i much moreallows you to adjust it along
the way.
And in the end when you putthings together you put it
(21:37):
together from the material yougathered along the way, and you
have a surplus of ideas whichwon't go into the project, the
blog posts, the article you'vewritten because that's the
nature of, um, of writing anddoing research that you always
(21:58):
have a surplus.
But the good thing is then it'snot tied to this project alone.
You don't have to chuck it andstart from scratch all over
again.
You can use what you have foryour next piece of writing and
of course, when you work formany years, like Luhmann did you
(22:21):
have such a mass of notes?
It's easy to, to write multiple,um, articles drawing from that
pool.
Nigel Rawlins (22:31):
We should say that he made connections.
As part of his system he hadconnections between the, the
notes, so they were linked inmany ways.
And today we can do that with,um, digital programs, which we
will talk about.
So I'm assuming that some ofthose notes are just an idea
that you might have had when youwere walking along and that's
(22:51):
the thing we don't always do iscapture those little ideas.
They disappear.
By the time you get home, you'veforgotten it.
And it could have been a goodidea that goes into these little
notes systems.
But he did connect those notes,didn't he?
Sönke Ahrens (23:03):
Yeah, and that maybe stresses as the bottom up
approach as well because we tendto start with a structure.
I, I have my different topics, Ihave my different, um, uh, ideas
and then I collect underneathwhat I found.
So that's a folder structure youhave on your computer.
(23:25):
His method is different in thatthe structure emerges.
So the links between the notesare slightly different to the
hyperlinks on the internet, uh,or different to Wiki links,
(23:46):
which link to somehow relatedideas or ideas that fit
categorically.
Here it's much more aboutlinking to an idea that directly
expands on what you alreadyhave.
So it's more about this buildingof note sequences that you can
(24:11):
branch out when you feel okay,that goes into another
direction.
So it's a rhizomatic structure,a little bit like, like a tree
with your branches, you branchout from, and then you put
leaves onto it and that bringsyou closer to the linearity of
(24:33):
the output, which might also bea helpful image that you usually
start with linear text.
You read a book, which islinear, but your thinking is not
linear.
You, um, reflect on stuff.
You go back to it.
It's, it's more an iterationprocess.
(24:53):
You have this question youalways come back to, always a
little bit enriched through anew understanding.
So the Zettelkasten isnon-linear.
With all the links in between itenables you to, um, take
different ideas intoconsideration.
But they have this notesequencing, um, where ideas are
(25:18):
expanded upon.
Which in the end becomes alinear text again, which is
often a challenge to putnonlinear ideas in, in a linear
way.
But that's then the writing ofthe manuscript, um, process.
Yeah, that's his linking systemwas in analog form.
(25:40):
Very, um, unique.
First note just had the numberone, the second, number two, the
third, number three.
But if you want to add betweenone and two, another one,
because it expands on the firstnote, you would branch it out by
giving it an one A, and then youhave one B, one C with another
(26:06):
branch and.
You don't need that kind ofunique ID-ing system anymore
with the apps we have nowadays.
But nevertheless, the analog,the paper and writing by hand
still has an attraction to me.
And, is something that thedigital still hasn't fully,
(26:33):
replicated yet.
But still the advantages of thedigital are so great that it's
still worth doing it in digitalform, I think.
Nigel Rawlins (26:42):
Yes, a very different world from when we
were younger.
One of the problems I found isfrom my reading I took lots of
notes in books, and never lookedat them again, could never find
what I wanted.
Had multiple books.
And I read heaps of stuff on myKindle and because I use
Readwise, any highlight feedsinto Readwise and then feeds
(27:04):
into my note taking app, whichis Obsidian at the moment.
But I read all sorts of stuff,articles I read about marketing,
I read about websites, I readabout cognitive science, I read
about consciousness.
I read about philosophy.
I do read about business aswell, but, uh, I don't always
like to read about business.
(27:26):
What I've realized I've done isbasically I've got a notetaking
system full of archived notes.
They're not something I'vereally processed like the
Zettelkasten where he has onesimple idea where you've
actually put it into your ownwords.
You make a distinction betweenthat archivist mindset and a
(27:46):
writing mindset.
Would you like to talk a littlebit about that?
Sönke Ahrens (27:50):
Yeah, I mean, it grew out of my own frustration
facing similar challenges andrealizing I, I, I read so much.
I underline in books.
I make comment in the margins.
I collect a lot of articles and,um, have post-its on them.
(28:11):
But I, I realize I, I mean, it'ssuch a small percentage I
really, encounter later again.
I rarely went through my oldbooks to look for something.
And when you try to get writingdone in whatever output form
(28:35):
that might be, you have to relyon your brain to remember in
which book, on which page youhighlighted something.
Even in digital form, when yougo to Readwise, you have at
least to remember, okay, where,where can I find that?
And you have to remember thatyou highlighted something
(28:55):
somewhere, and my brain is notcapable of doing even a fraction
of that.
So to me, it was like most ofwhat I read and processed
somehow by highlighting,underlining, commenting was
lost.
And turning it into notes thatgo into the Zettelkasten doesn't
(29:23):
mean you are able to captureeverything that seems
interesting.
It, it's impossible, but thatthose highlights or ideas you
read and take from other peopleyou feel could inform something
(29:44):
you are working on or want towork on in the future.
They go into my inbox inObsedian.
I look at them.
Ideally in a timely manner whereI did not forget what the
context was.
And then I wonder, okay, um, towhat I already have, is this
(30:13):
relevant for and in what way?
And only in this moment where Ithen do something with it.
And doing something with thepiece of information means
looking for what I already have,where it might fit into, and how
(30:36):
I could connect two pieces ofinformation.
I feel like now I've done anactual step of bringing my own
ideas forward.
It's not just an idea of, oh,that's interesting, but it's
actually doing something with itthat brings my own thinking in
(30:57):
writing forward and is there tobe integrated in, in my work.
So nowadays when I justhighlight something, I
physically feel okay, that's notenough.
I, I need to bring it intocontext, otherwise it's lost.
(31:21):
Of course, reading is never awaste of time and it always does
something with yourunderstanding, but when you are
a creator, when you are someonewho wants to share what you have
in your mind, whatever that is,you need to go this step of
(31:42):
actually doing something withthe information, otherwise
reading is a very personalthing, which can be good.
But when you're a creator, whenyou want to put something out in
the world, you need to go onestep further.
Nigel Rawlins (31:59):
I think the main thing is to be discerning about
what you've read or what you'rereading.
What's happened is, for me is myKindle is just full of books
that looked interesting, but Idon't know if I'm going to get
to them, and I think I have tobe a bit smarter nowadays to
say, well, I'm nearly 70 now.
How much you know, how much moream I gonna be able to read and
actually use?
(32:19):
I mean, it might be time for meto start adding some depth to
those.
Now I started five years agowith Roam Research, which was an
online new high tech note takingsystem at that time.
I was an early adopter, so Ipaid for five years.
That finished this year and Ididn't want to continue'cause it
was too technical and, and Icouldn't recommend it to anyone
(32:41):
because of how technical it was.
I did use Obsidian and then Ifound it difficult to
understand, so I tried Logseqbut that didn't have enough
power.
So I moved back to Obsidian andthen I'm still learning
Obsidian.
And then, I've tried a coupleothers, one called Reflect,
which is an AI one and onecalled Craft, which I'm just
(33:02):
playing with, but I thinkObsidian is going to be the one.
So what we're talking about withour note taking system is to get
stuff out of our heads.
It's like a, a cognitiveextension of our brains.
So the issue is digital systems,these can be intimidating.
And I mean, I've been using, uh,technology and digital tools for
(33:24):
something like 20 years now, butfor somebody new it's gonna be
quite a challenge.
Do you wanna talk a little bitabout how they can focus on the
principles using a note takingapp like Obsidian, and then we
should say, where does AI fitinto it?
Sönke Ahrens (33:40):
Okay.
Well, I, I had a similarjourney.
I also used Roam for a while.
I'm not sure if it's too techy,but I, I felt it kept me in a
distance from my own notes andmy own thinking and thinking
about the technology interferedwith what I actually wanted to
(34:01):
think about.
And that is the content.
And I looked at Obsidian, foundit a little bit too difficult to
wrap my head around first too,but then immersed myself for
week-end and then it suddenlyclicked.
And I think the difficulty withObsidian is that it's so open to
(34:27):
all kinds of structures.
It's basically a canvas.
You need to figure out how togive yourself a scaffold.
You can add your notes to firstbefore you can get into the flow
of writing.
But after I figured out how tohave a basic structure in
(34:49):
Obisidan, the, the technologydisappears into the background.
And with Obsidian, I feel waymore than with Roam or other
tech I tried out, immersed in myown thoughts.
I feel it's much more naturalfor writing.
(35:10):
I can see multiple notes thatbelong together.
I have different ways ofaccessing my pool of ideas.
I have a simple query that showsme all the unprocessed, Readwise
highlights I have.
(35:30):
But I set it up in a way that itonly shows me the ones from the
last 30 days.
Everything else just disappearsfrom my view.
So it never feels overwhelmingto me.
It's a bit cheating, but I don'tremember wh ere I read it, but
the idea of you should treat thereading and information less
(35:50):
than a bucket you need to empty,but more like a river you can
pick stuff from.
I find that quite liberatingactually.
So Obsidian needs an initialstep of setting up a structure,
but once you figure that out asa technology, to me at least it
fades into the background andallows you to be immersed in
(36:15):
your own ideas.
And that led for me to not beinginterested in trying out other
note taking systems anymore.
I, I really don't feel the urgeto look for the new shiny thing.
Well, that was the reason I, Idid the course because many
(36:36):
people ask, well, how do you putthe structure of the
Zettelkasten in Obsedian?
And giving others a shortcut tonot have to go through the long
phase of figuring it out,experimenting with stuff only to
notice after a few thousandnotes it doesn't work with a
complex Zettelkasten anymore.
(36:57):
I wanted to provide someone a, ashort path into using Obsidian
as a Zettelkasten and I thinkyou can do it in a weekend.
And then you find your wayaround it.
Yeah, and it allows you to dothings like having Readwise feed
into it, but keep it separateinternally so you are not
(37:21):
filling up your Obsedian vaultwith external stuff.
But, just giving you the optionto pick from preselected pieces
of information.
Still have the context only aclick away, which I think it's,
(37:42):
it's so great that you, you canuse Readwise to go back to the
original source and look at theparagraph before, the paragraph
behind,'cause often when youhighlight stuff itself, it's
not, not that meaningful.
It's only meaningful within thecontext.
And then you can recontextualizeit into your own thoughts and
(38:03):
think, okay, what, what doesthis idea mean to what I already
have?
So that is my experience withObsidian and I feel most people
geared towards Obsedian at themoment.
So I hear a lot of stories frompeople here, try different apps
out and there are practicalreasons, but I mean, practical
(38:26):
reasons, like it's locallystored.
You have full control over yourdata.
It's not online and you have toworry about where it might end
up.
It's basically free.
You can always find ways tosupport the developers, but, you
are not locked into a system.
So there are multiple practicalreasons, but I think why most
(38:48):
people seem to migrate toObsidian or back to Obsidian is
because it feels intuitivelyun-techy in a way, techy in the
beginning, but it fades into thebackground.
I think it's this intuitivething in the end that is crucial
for the decision with what youwork with.
Nigel Rawlins (39:09):
We, we should say that when we put the notes into
obsidian, we can actuallyhighlight and tag some of those
words so they're connected toother articles using that word.
So you can pull out a range ofnotes that have the same keyword
or the same tag.
Yes, I do not use tags for, uh,organizing my content though.
(39:36):
I use tags that have a functionthat indicate a certain type of
note, but I try to use linksonly for organizing the content
So if I have a special keyword,like writing tools, for example,
(39:56):
I would put that into the squarebrackets that turn them into a
link to a note called writingtools.
And then on that note, it listedeverything else I linked to that
note from, and also it shows youall the unlinked notes which
(40:21):
have that particular keyword onthem.
I call that index notes.
But I think the main linkingfeature are links that are very
descriptive that highlight theconnection between two notes.
So I always try to embed linksin full sentences so I
(40:43):
immediately see how two thingsare connected, not just by
association, but in terms ofreasoning.
Yeah, I think that's the way togo.
Again, that's the differencebetween me being an archivist
and you being a writer, that youare figuring out a way that you
can get that note back out atsome stage, uh, on a project.
(41:04):
Well, this is a long game,taking these notes, it's not
something that's going to, well,it might have some fruition in
the first couple of weeks if youput a lot of notes in and you
know what you're doing.
But it is a long game, sothere's a different mindset for
this.
It's, uh, something that willcompound over time.
(41:24):
It's a continuous conversationwith our notes.
How can people come to valuedoing that, because it's
obviously, whether I call it adiscipline or a habit, to
continuously work with thosenotes and feed the notes.
Sönke Ahrens (41:38):
I think not having the focus on having the goal of
having a huge amount of notes,um, and then you can start
turning it into writing.
I think it's a better way tolook at it is you change your
habit, you, you change the waysin which you take notes, which
(42:00):
can be immediately beneficial.
In two ways.
First of all, you have to writeanyway, so it's just a different
form of writing, and you canstart with only writing what you
would write anyway for aparticular project, and then it
generates a surplus along theway.
(42:21):
But you, you don't have to treatit as filling up a space first
and then extracting from it, youcan right away think, well, I
only write for the project Ihave in mind, and I start to do
it in a different way.
That's one way of looking at it.
And the other way is on focusingmore on thinking and
understanding.
(42:41):
So you maybe have literature youfind challenging or you immerse
yourself in a new topic, whereyou still need to find your way
around.
Then you can use writing as aform of deliberate practice of
understanding and focus on whatwriting notes can do for, for
(43:09):
your, for your brain.
So, it makes a difference if youread something or if you read
something and try to put intowords, into your own words what
you understand this text was allabout.
It's this very similar to theexperience of explaining someone
else what you just read.
(43:30):
I think we all know thedifference between we read
something and think, yeah, okay,totally makes sense.
And someone asks, what's itabout you, you're reading there
and then you suddenly strugglebecause there is a difference
between understanding andactually understand it and
(43:51):
explaining something to someoneelse, um, is like a feedback
loop that puts the finger oneverything you haven't really
figured out yet.
And writing is like a, like asmall, personal, uh, equivalent
to that.
Just trying to put into your ownwords.
(44:13):
Um, your understanding ofsomething you read, confronts
you with missing pieces whereyou just thought you understand,
but really don't.
And that often leads to goingback to the original source and
(44:34):
reading a little bit moreclosely realizing, ah, I think
I, I saw something in there,what wasn't actually there.
So it's like a deliberatepractice of understanding and
you can just use it as, as atool like an external tutor, so
to speak, your personal, uh,tutor.
(44:55):
I, I mean that's, that's theimportance of writing that so
many thinkers often stress.
You, you cannot properly thinkwithout writing, uh, Luhmann
said, uh, and I think there issome truth to it.
Nigel Rawlins (45:11):
Well, if starting can be a barrier, so what would
you recommend as a first step orhabit to start, somebody who's
starting from zero?
Sönke Ahrens (45:21):
Well, if you have decided you want to do something
like that, I think a good firststep is to realize what you
already have achieved and whatyou already have on your mind
and don't need to figure outanymore.
Start with some kind of braindump.
(45:43):
Write down everything you areinterested in developing in the
future of writing, in thefuture, of thinking about in the
future.
Don't make the mistake of tryingto replicate what's in your
head.
Just write what you're currentlyinterested in, in deepening, and
(46:10):
then you have your, your, yournotes on, on, on what you had on
your mind.
You can sort it into a few mainareas of interest and you can
use that as the initial scaffoldto then hang new ideas onto.
(46:31):
And sometimes it's good to havesome initial notes that are a
little bit more extensive, um,like open questions you want to
explore further or maybe, deeplyheld beliefs about something you
(46:51):
want to challenge, somethingthat works well as a good
starting point, um, to developsomething from it.
And you don't need to writeanything down, which is
self-explanatory for yourself,which you already fully
understand.
So you can liberate yourselffrom reorganizing everything you
(47:15):
have.
You can just start a new habitof writing with new encounters
of ideas from your own brain orfrom the brain of others, um,
through the means of books andarticles, et cetera.
Um, I think that lowers thethreshold considerably.
(47:37):
I
Nigel Rawlins (47:37):
think that's a great way to start.
I never thought of that and Ithink that's excellent.
Well, we, um, one of my earlierguests was Eliška Šestáková who
spoke about note taking as well.
And you together produced acourse?
Sönke Ahrens (47:52):
Eliška was very helpful in in the development of
the course and she wanted totake over when I finished the
recordings, she now has a littlekid and is building a house and
has her own projects.
So we are still collaborating,but not as closely as in the
(48:12):
beginning.
She is the Zettelkasten expertin the Czech Republic and she's
really good at explaining stuff.
So, in, in a way, I, I wouldlove to have live sessions with
her, um, making introductions,because in, in many ways she's
better than myself in, um,explaining things to, to people.
(48:38):
But yes, she's using Roam, um,much more than I do, and she is
much more an expert in Roam.
So if you still use Roam, um, orplan to do that, I think she's
the person to turn to.
And maybe one day we do a courseon Roam as well.
(48:59):
But she's working with Obsidianmore now because of the course.
And we discussed, um, the prosand cons.
Maybe she'll come around aswell.
Nigel Rawlins (49:10):
So tell me about the course.
Sönke Ahrens (49:12):
Yeah, it's, as I mentioned before, um, the
attempt to give people ashortcut to a fully functioning
Zettelkasten system in digitalform with Obsidian.
It is for people who might ormight not have used Obsedian
before.
In some ways it might be easierfor people who haven't used
(49:35):
Obsidian because then you don'thave your own system, which
might collide with what Isuggest.
So it, it walks you through thebasics of, Obsidian, how to
install it, how to set the basicstructure up and how to edit
notes and how it works.
(49:56):
But then it goes into thedetails of how to apply the
principles of the originalZettelkasten in digital form.
So how to take the best of bothworlds, the analog and the
digital without the complicatedLuhmann numbering system.
(50:18):
And in a way that is pragmaticenough, uh, to get you into a
flow of writing and thinking sothat you quickly get to the
point where you don't have tothink about the technology that
much anymore.
There is a little part on how tointegrate Readwise.
(50:41):
That would be actually the onlypaid system, uh, because
everything else can be used forfree.
And it's only because Readwiseis, um, so beloved in the note
taking community.
And I think it has so manyadvantages it's actually worth
using.
(51:01):
It has a part on how toimplement an external reference
manager.
We use the example of Zotero.
This is probably moreinteresting for people who work
a little bit more academically,who need to properly site
sources.
But I feel, that might be my, myacademic bias.
(51:25):
Even non-academics can benefitfrom having one dedicated
reference system where you haveall your sources in a
standardized way.
So you can always give accountof where an idea came from.
So it it, it prevents you frommistaking other people's ideas
(51:48):
with your own, which so easilyhappen.
So when, when I read somethingintensely, um, I sometimes
believe some of the ideas weremy own and only to realize when
I look in my Zettelkasten ohshit, that that was someone
else.
So it prevents you fromaccidental plagiarism as well.
(52:12):
And so it describes how tointegrate that into into your
system.
But then, the main focus is ofcourse on building note
sequences, um, that gets youcloser to output and hopefully
makes you realize when you makethe step to your manuscript and
(52:36):
deciding you want to write nowthe blog post, the article, the
book you had on your mind, thatmost of the work is already
done.
So that that's the hope thatyour blank page was never really
blank, but is already prefilledwith your own writing that only
(52:58):
needs to be rewritten andedited, and then probably
multiple times, because that'sthe process of writing.
I
Nigel Rawlins (53:06):
think that's it, because the problem is, I think
we've gotta be aware, especiallyif we're older, that there are
so much things on our mind thatwe wanna make things simple.
And it's not always gonna besimple, but we need something we
could just plug in and userather than have to go through
the learning curve.
Now obviously with your course,there's a little bit of a
(53:27):
learning curve, getting set up,getting systems in place, but
you are putting in the packages.
So if you are reading on aKindle and you're using
Readwise, that it'll feed intoObsidian and then you've got
your note taking system inthere.
That's all people need.
Now a problem with being anindependent professional is
you're constantly having tolearn stuff, how to use a tool
(53:50):
and, and I think that's one ofthe things you write about in
your book.
You know, it's all very wellhaving a tool, but you've gotta
be able to use it.
And this is part and parcel, allof this.
So if you are going to stand outin your field, you do have to
write, but you, you need to haveideas that are original or
sourced and, and obviouslyZotero, I did try using it on
(54:12):
Roam but it seemed to break.
So if you've got Zotero workingon Obsidian, I think that's
really good.
'cause if we are writingarticles, I think it's really
good if we put some of thesources.
And I'll always do that when I'mwriting an article, where I got
it from.
And, I try and read all thebooks from all the people I
speak to, it's driving me mad atthe moment'cause they've got
another one on Friday, coming upin a couple of days and there's
(54:35):
no way I'm gonna be able to readthat one.
And it's a very interestingtopic.
The next topic is menopause,believe it or not.
Sönke this has been a greatconversation.
I'm hoping people understand howimportant it is.
If you are an independentprofessional, working for
yourself, you do need to standout.
You, you can't just, well ununless you're so famous that you
(54:56):
don't have to chase work, um,you still have to stand out and,
and this is to counter ageism aswell when we're older that you
can write good materials.
So Sönke where can they find thecourse and where can they find
out more about you online?
Sönke Ahrens (55:11):
I'm on Twitter, but rarely tweet.
I'm on LinkedIn but rarely postsomething, but these are
probably the ways to find me.
Nigel Rawlins (55:20):
That's great.
I'll put the links to the coursein the show notes.
And I would recommend doing thecourse'cause I think Obsidian is
nice and easy.
It's free, especially as you'reolder and, and unfortunately
when you start running abusiness, you've got all these
subscriptions and often they'rein American dollars that are
expensive.
So something that's free andvery useful is fantastic.
(55:42):
Well, Sönke thank you very muchfor being my guest.
Sönke Ahrens (55:46):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
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