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📚 Knowledge Management

Your First Five Steps to Set-Up a Slipbox in Obsidian

January 26, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim


Take smart digital notes with the Zettelkasten approach.

Photo by Daniel Öberg on Unsplash

I recently switched to Obsidian because it beats RoamResearch in terms of speed and data privacy.

Similar to Roam, Obsidian is a note-taking software many people use for knowledge management.

While both tools use markdown and share some functionalities, they look and work differently.

Here are the first five steps I took to set up my slip-box (aka Zettelkasten) in Obsidian.


1) The basic commands you want to know

In your left panel, you can create a new folder and a new note.

For formatting your notes, there are a couple of commands you might want to keep in mind.

For writing italics, utilize the *this* or _this_ command. For bolding the text use a double combination like ** this** or __ this__ .

Hashtags set the size of your heading. Make sure to include a space after the hashtag otherwise you create a tag.

Source: Obsidian Help Desk

The last basic command you need is the [[ ]] for linking. Similar to Roam, Obsidian will create a new note out of an existing note, if you bracket a word or sentence. Yet, you need to click on the bracketed word to actually create the note. You can also use files and links and tags and embed notes in others.


2) Create the templates for different notes

To quickly create the three different Zettelkasten note types, you want to use templates. Here’s a quick recap about the different types of notes in a Zettelkasten:

  • Fleeting Notes: Fleeting notes are ideas that pop into your mind as you go through your day. They can be really short, just like one word. You don’t need to organize them.
  • Literature Notes: You capture literature notes from the content you consume. It’s your bullet-point summary from other people’s ideas. I create these notes for all books, podcasts, articles, or videos I find valuable.
  • Permanent Notes: When you create permanent notes, you think for yourself. In contrast to literature notes, you don’t summarize somebody else’s thoughts. You don’t just copy ideas but develop, remix, and contradict them. You create arguments and discussions. By writing your idea down, you put pressure on your thinking and transform vague thoughts into clear points.

In Obsidian, templates work differently from the ;; command in Roam. But once you set it up it’s quite intuitive.

First, you create a new folder and call it “Templates”. Then, head to “Settings” on the bottom left corner, select “core plugins” and enable the Templates.

Lastly, head back to the settings, scroll to the very bottom, select “Templates” and assign the Template folder location to your newly created page “Templates.”

Next, you can create templates for your literature notes and your permanent notes. Depending on your preference and slipbox structures, yours might look different.

Here’s how I set up mine: Similar to my Roam Zettelkasten, I use an orange icon for literature notes and a green book icon for permanent notes. Here’s the exact structure:

The nested tags in the status help me see items I have to finish as a tree instead of a flat list.

Source: obsidian help desk

3) Set up your slipbox structure

Next, you might want to set up three new folders: one for your fleeting notes, another for your literature notes, and one for your permanent notes.

The fleeting notes will serve the same function as my default option for noting down any atomic idea or note.

The literature notes are the highlights imported from Readwise (more on that in the next steps) with additional notes. The permanent notes folder contain my original writing.

I don’t use a content map and I’m not planning to number the notes. I used to do this in RoamResearch but it has been slowing me down and I don’t see many benefits.


4) Connect Readwise to Obsidian

Readwise was the superpower behind my Zettelkasten in Roam and will hopefully remain the superpower in Obsidian as well.

In essence, it is a service that imports all your highlights (e.g. from books, kindle, Twitter, podcasts, medium articles, browser) and exports them in a customized format to your note-taking tool (e.g. Notion, Roam, or Obsidian).

I see it as my personally curated search engine. It contains all highlights from the past 100 books and 1000 articles I read and highlighted within the last two years.

To connect Readwise to Obsidian, you want to launch your obsidian vault, click on settings, select “community plugins” in the left panel, and toggle off Safe mode.

Then, search for “Readwise Official”, click install and enable. In the panel, scroll down to “Readwise Official” and click on connect. Weirdly I had to wait for around two days until the import was fully functioning.


5) Create a workflow that works for You

The most sophisticated tool is useless until you integrate it into your processes.

In the beginning, you might ask yourself whether you’re doing it right. The setup options you have with tools like Obsidian can distract you from actually using them.

With 25 core plugins, 439 community plugins, and 113 themes, plus custom styling, you can adapt Obsidian to work and look exactly to your needs.

One thing that has helped me is not worrying too much about the perfect structure. The researchers who digitized Zettelkasten’s inventor’s notes found inconsistencies in his labelling and interlinking — his Zettelkasten was far from perfect and still made him one of the biggest scientific contributors of his time.

Start using Obsidian and you will soon discover whether you need more functionalities or a better design. There’s still much to discover and I’m excited about the features it offers.


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Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, obsidian, Productivity

Why and How to Switch From RoamResearch to Obsidian

January 12, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim


A 3-step process to migrate all of your notes.

Photo by Fabian Irsara on Unsplash

I’ve been a RoamResearch power user for over a year before I fell out of love.

Roam is an online workspace for organizing and evaluating your knowledge. Unlike linear cabinet tools, the software allows you to remix and connect ideas, where each note represents a node in a dynamic network.

Networked note-taking with Roam transformed my writing process and cut my research writing time in half. It increased my productivity and helped me think better and have more original ideas.

Yet, about half a year ago, I fell out of love. Here’s why and how I switched from Roam to Obsidian.


Two Reasons Why I Switch From Roam to Obsidian

My entire writing process used to happen within Roam. Every morning, I’d start by opening my headline practice template. Once I decided on the headline, I’d create a page for the chosen title and use my article template to get started.

How I start writing an article using my Roamkasten (Recording by Eva Keiffenheim).

Performance issues and slow load time

About 50% of the time, when I started my writing process, Roam wouldn’t load. I’d need three to five attempts reopening the software until my graph finally loaded.

Roam’s performance issue is not new. Other users reported having slow load time as well, and a Reddit user writes: “I’m concerned that this is an issue at this level of product maturity and wonder if there’s any roadmap to resolve these issues.”

Alexander Rink measured Roam’s performance times and writes: “Roam Research is still usable with the 10,000 pages data set, but you need good nerves when using the high-linked pages because the application keeps you waiting and jerks.”

Ten thousand pages might seem like a lot, but it isn’t. If you’re an avid reader and connect Readwise to RoamResearch and consistently create permanent notes, you’ll soon have a few thousand pages with page links.

Rink concludes: “I’m pretty sure that Roam Research will need some algorithmic enhancements to reduce the bottlenecks at references and backlinks because they will be even more dramatic the bigger the database (and the number of backlinks) gets.”

Data security

The other issue around Roam is data security. Even though Roam is a cloud service, the software doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption. A hack, or anyone guessing your single password, would make your private data vulnerable.

A leak of my notes about book summaries wouldn’t worry me. But Roam serves as my second brain and contains sensible personal information.

I’m not alone with this concern. Mark Mcelroy writes: “If you care at all about the integrity and security of your personal knowledge management system, Obsidian may be a better solution than Roam.”


The 3-step Process to Migrate All of Your Notes

1) Export Files from Roam

First, click on the three dots on the top right corner and select “export all” and the “markdown” format. All you have to do afterwards is to unzip the file “Roam-Export-xxxxxxxxxxxxx.zip”.

2) Download Obsidian and Open Folder as a Vault

Next, click on “Open” next to open folder as vault. Pick the folder you just unzipped to.

3) Use the Markdown Format Converter to format your Notes

In Obsidian, on the left side, click “Open Markdown Importer.” Turn on the first three options and start the conversion.

Obsidian now converts from Roam’s variations of Markdown format and link convention to Obsidian format. For example, it will turn #tag into Obsidian [[links]] and also convert Roam’s ^^highlight^^ into Obsidian’s ==highlight==.

Optional: Connect Readwise to Obsidian

To connect Readwise to Obsidian, you want to launch your obsidian vault, click on settings, select “community plugins” in the left panel, and toggle off Safe mode.

Then, search for “Readwise Official”, click install and enable. Then, in the panel, scroll down to “Readwise Official” and click on connect. Here is a short video tutorial by Readwise.

Before you initiate a sync, you want to ensure to enable a couple of options: set the resync frequency to your desired interval (I chose 1 hour). If you want to review your highlights in your daily notes, check out this article.


In Conclusion

Even if I fell out of love with RoamResearch, I admire the software. I’m grateful it introduced me to the power of networked note-taking and bi-directional linking.

If at some point, they resolve the performance and data issues, I might return to the software. Until then, I’ll start getting acquainted with Obsidian. And I’m in good company — with more than 45,000 members in their Discord chat and 20,000 members on their forum, Obsidian has one of the largest note-taking communities.


Do you want to build a consistent writing habit?

Pre-register for the next cohort of the writing online accelerator. You will transform into a consistent writer to attract an audience, create career opportunities, and become a better person. Find more details about the next launch date here.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, obsidian, roam

How I Built a Book Brain with RoamResearch

August 4, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


Here’s how you can do it, too (templates included).

Image credit: Model-la.

Have you ever read a book only to forget the quintessence three weeks later? Human brains don’t work like recording devices. When we read things a single time, we’ll likely forget them. Even the densest non-fiction books become mere entertainment.

I read a book a week for some years now and encounter many interesting ideas. Yet, I often struggled to find the content when I needed it. Researching sources for my articles, my weekly newsletter, podcast interviews, or panel discussions was a long and frustrating process.

Building a book brain in Roam helped me find what I need within seconds. As a result, I no longer spend hours searching for ideas from books. Instead, I have everything at a single digital place ready for usage.

Whether you’re struggling to organize your thinking, want to make more of the books you read, or look for inspiration to organize your reading, this article is for you. Here are the exact steps you can follow to find what you need when you need it by building a book brain with RoamResearch.

The Setup

I built a book brain using my Kindle, Readwise, and RoamResearch.

Disclaimer: I'm not sponsored by Roam or Readwise. I pay $15/month for RoamResearch and $8/month for Readwise. Free alternatives to RoamResearch include TiddlyWiki, Obsidian, RemNote, Amplenote, and Org-roam. The only alternative to Readwise is importing highlights manually.

Kindle

I was an e-reading enemy until I read my first e-book. Before, I’d argue you can’t smell and dog-ear the pages, scribble your questions in the margins, or sketch out the concept you just learned.

And while these arguments still hold, technology-assisted learning makes most of them irrelevant. Now that I discovered how to use my Kindle as a learning device, I wouldn’t trade it for a paper book anymore.

Your Kindle Notes page shows all your book highlights (for books purchased via Amazon). This feature is essential for the process that follows.

The kindle notes page (screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim).

Readwise

Readwise is an online service that helps you retain books better. You can resurface your highlights through spaced repetition on their website. In addition, the program also allows you to tag, annotate, search, and organize your highlights.

The only Readwise feature I use is highlight syncing. You can sync your Kindle highlights to Evernote, Notion, and Roamresearch. Once it’s set up, Readwise syncs your highlights with notes automatically every day.

This is how I customized my Readwise to Roam integration:

Readwise configuration page (screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim).

Here’s the code I used for the page metadata. Feel free to copy or adjust it to your needs.

{% if category == "tweets" %}
#twitter 🐩
{% elif category == "books" %}
{{"{{"}}[[TODO]]{{"}}"}} #ToProcess create literature notes for this book
{{"{{"}}[[TODO]]{{"}}"}} #ToProcess create permanent notes for this book
{{"{{"}}[[TODO]]{{"}}"}} #ToProcess write a summary for my blog and publish it
{% else %}
podcast or article
{% endif %}
Author:: [[{{author}}]]
Tags:: #readwisesync
Full Title:: {{full_title}}
Type:: #{{category}}
Recommended by::
Import Date:: {{date}}
{% if document_tags %}Document Tags:: {% for tag in document_tags %}#[[{{tag}}]] {% endfor %} {% endif %}
{% if url %}URL:: {{url}}{% endif %}
{% if image_url %}![]({{image_url}}){% endif %}

RoamResearch

RoamResearch is an online workspace for organizing your knowledge. In essence, it’s a note-taking app that works in line with your brain.

To understand why RoamResearch is superior to most note-taking apps, let’s understand how our memory remembers things. Harvard researchers describe a three-step process:

  1. Through encoding, your memory learns new information, either visual (see), acoustic (hear), tactile (feel), or semantic (mean).
  2. Everything you encode is first stored in your short-term memory and then, through spaced repetition, in your long-term memory.
  3. Through retrieval, you can access and recall what you stored in your brain.

Hence, to retrieve and access what you learned, you first need to encode and store it in a way that helps with this process.

The more details and the stronger you connect new knowledge to what you already know, the better. By doing so, you’re generating more cues. Computer-scientist and lifelong learner Helmut Sachs writes in his book, “The more we know, the more information (hooks) we have to connect new information to, the easier we can form long-term memories.”

Networked note-taking encodes information into your long-term memory more effectively. It can be advantageous to relate the material to a personal experience or to something you already know, explaining the idea to someone else, and explaining how it relates to your life.

And this is where Roam comes into play. While traditional note-taking tools, such as Notion or Evernote, operate within a hierarchical structure for linear thinking, Roam was built around networked thinking. Through bi-directional links and the daily notes default, the platform is built for connecting and interrelating your book notes and ideas.

Created by Eva Keiffenheim via Canva.

The Workflow

One of the biggest hurdles in building a book brain is actually taking the time to do it. Unfortunately, it’s more tempting to start a new book than work with the one you just finished.

But whenever I rush to the next book without pausing to think and reflect, I won’t remember nor apply most of what I read. Hence, I block an hour each Monday to go through the book I just finished.

Within this weekly hour, I do three things: write literature notes, permanent notes, and publish a book summary. To make sure not to miss a book, the three steps show op in my Roam [[ToDo]] page. When I’m done, I tick them off. In case you want different ToDos or # to show up in your database, configure the code above.

Roam [[ToDo]] page (screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim).

1) Create Literature Notes

You might have heard of the Literature notes from the Zettelkasten method. But you don’t need to understand the complex system for knowledge management to create them.

Literature notes are brief, contain your own words, and sometimes bibliographic references. When writing literature notes from a book, I answer two questions:

  1. What is so interesting about this?
  2. What is so relevant it’s worth noting down?

First, I try to recall everything from my memory (an exercise that supports my memory in transforming information from the short-term to the long-term memory).

When I’m done with this brainwriting, I’ll go through the highlights from the book. Readwise synced the book’s highlights to my RoamResearch database, so I don’t have to pick up my Kindle. If I find something noteworthy I hadn’t thought of, I’ll add it to the literature note.

Three examples for my Roam literature notes (screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim).

2) Create Permanent Notes

While literature notes are your summary of someone else’s ideas, permanent notes are your own ideas. You combine what you read with your area of interest and focus. Literature notes serve as a stepping stone for your thinking.

While your literature notes are bullets and fragments, your permanent notes should sound like written prose. A reader of your permanent note (e.g., your future self) should understand it without reading the source that led to your idea.

These notes are called permanent notes because they’re supposed to be permanently useful to you.

Created by Eva Keiffenheim based on “How to take smart notes.”

3) Write a Summary to Learn in Public

Writing is one of the most effective ways to embed information in your mind. Before you write, you have to take several steps: filter relevant information, organize this information and articulate them using your own vocabulary.

In short: When you write, you have to understand and think for yourself.

Scientists call this the ‘Generation effect.’ In 1978, researchers discovered that information is better remembered if generated from one’s own mind rather than read. And while research is still unclear about why it works, it has been shown to accelerate learning and remembering information.

I committed to learning in public. Hence, I publish my book summaries on my website. This is a way to hold me accountable to show up each week and support people who want to become lifelong learners. And that’s it — the process I use to create a book brain in Roam.


In Conclusion

Books are incredible — you can learn about anything, travel in time and place, and become anyone you want.

With a book brain, you can remember and use anything you want from the books you read. If you’re new to Kindle, Readwise, and Roam, it might take a day to set it up. Yet, once in place, it can save you hours. Depending on how much you read, it will take you one to four hours a month to make the most of what you read.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, Productivity, Reading, roam

The First 5 Steps to Unlock Roam Research’s Potential

July 6, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


And transform your personal knowledge management.

Image created by the author via Canva.

Roam is an online workspace for organizing and evaluating your knowledge.

Unlike linear cabinet tools, Roam allows you to remix and connect ideas, where each note represents a node in a dynamic network.

Just like Excel, Roam has a low floor but a high ceiling. You can use Excel for simple things like a grocery list, or you can run your entire business from one sheet.

Roam’s strategy is to attract people who are willing to invest time using a power tool. And the effort is worth it.

Once you know your way around Roam, you’ve unlocked the best tool for knowledge management. This article will teach you the first five steps to get started.


Step 1: Learn the most important shortcuts

Don’t waste your precious lifetime by navigating with your mouse.

With shortcuts, you’ll bring a 3-second action down to a 1-second. And because you repeat those actions hundreds of times each week, you’ll save hours. These are the Roam Research shortcuts I use every day:

  • [[ or # → Reference or create a new page
  • ⌘+ opt + 1 → Heading 1
  • ⌘+opt + 2 → Heading 2
  • shift+click → open page in the right sidebar
  • / → Show quick commands
  • tab → Indent block
  • shift + tab → unindent block
  • ⌘+ u → find or create a page
  • three formatting shortcuts:
Screen recording by the author.

How to apply this:

Within your first week, force yourself to use the shortcuts instead of using your mouse. While this will feel slow first, you’ll soon save hours every week.


Step 2: Always start on the daily notes page

Every time you open Roam, you will find yourself on the Daily Notes page.

Think of it as your entryway to work on your personal knowledge management system.

There’s no reason to be afraid of the missing folder structure — networked note-taking accelerates your learning. Here’s why.

Networked thinking includes interactions and relationships between thoughts. Because you don’t have to decide for parent topics, you’ll stumble upon interrelated ideas.

Image created by the author.

By seeing your daily notes page first thing whenever you open your Roam Research graph, you can focus on your thoughts and ideas instead of wasting brainpower on storage structure. In Roam Research, information is fluid and interconnected.

How to apply this:

Whenever you take a note on your daily page, make sure to add a label. For example, if you capture an idea relevant to one of your projects, add a hashtag with your project label and another one for the topic.

The next time you’re looking for your thoughts on the project, all you need to do is use ⌘+ u to see all your ideas in a single place.


Step 3: Unlock the power of bidirectional linking

You can create new pages with brackets [[]] and hashtags #.

Both commands have the same function, but they look different. You can use either one. All pages are tags, and all tags are pages. Here’s what it looks like:

Screen recording by the author.

Here’s an example of how you can use it on your daily page: I have a page called [[quote]] where I collect my favorite quotes. This morning, I saw a quote I liked and typed it into my daily notes. I added #quote behind it. When I now click on #quote (or [[quote]]), it shows up with all the other quotes I labeled with this tag.

Screen recording by the author.

Plus, what makes pages even more powerful is that Roam suggests links you haven’t referenced. So when I click on the “Unlinked References” on my [[quote]] page, I see potentially related bullets and can add them to my page by clicking “Link.”

Screen recording by the author.

This function is networked thought in action and the reason you don’t need folders. When you create a page Roam automatically adds all related blocks from your database as references to your page.

How to apply this:

Whenever you write a note, add a tag to connect it with existing notes. After a few weeks, you built an index for your personal library. Your Roam Research Graph will work as your second brain.


Step 4: Create templates

Templates save you time and make your structure consistent. To create a template, follow the following structure:

‱ TemplateName #roam/templates
‱ [[Template Title]]
‱ Your template's content

When you want to use your templates, you type ;; and the template name will show up.

Here’s what it looks like in my workflow when creating a permanent note for my Zettelkasten.

Screen recording by the author.

Another template I frequently use is the book summary template. Feel free to steal it.

‱ Book Summary #roam/templates
‱ [[**Book Summary Title** 📘 #learntrepreneur]]
‱ 📚 3-Sentence-Summary
‱ 💭 What I think about it
‱ đŸ€€ Who benefits from reading this book?
‱ 🧬 How the book changed my life
‱ ✍ Favorite Quotes

How to apply this:

Whenever you want a repeatable structure (e.g., reflection questions, note-taking templates, or metadata), create a template for it.


Step 5: Get clear about your intentions

Why are you using Roam Research? Do you want to build your second brain? Accelerate your writing process? Structure your thinking? Showcase a digital garden?

While the first four steps are necessary for any Roam Research endeavor, the next steps depend on your needs.

How to apply this:

Learn what you need to learn. Here are some suggestions on the next steps:

  • Writing → How to use Roam to outline an article in under 20 minutes.
  • Knowledge management → Building a second brain with Roam.
  • Learning in public → Creating a digital garden with Roam.
  • Personal development → How to use Roam as a self-therapy and journaling tool.

You can do a zillion things with Roam Research, but these five steps will help you get started. Then, if you feel curious, you can type / inside your database and discover more useful functions, such as TODOs, date pickers, sliders, and a Pomodoro Timer.

“Roam is simple but not easy,” founder Conor White Sullivan said in an interview. It’s worth sticking through the steep learning curve. May Roam Research be as useful to you as it is for me.


Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. I read a book and 50 articles a week, and each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, Productivity, roam

The Complete Guide for Building a Zettelkasten with RoamResearch

May 25, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim



This is how networked thought transformed my writing process and cut my research writing time in half

Conceptual illustration of a person holding a drawing of a brain.
Purchased by the author via Canva.

“Are you sure reading all those books is worth your time?” my fiancĂ© asked me last fall. He found a weak spot. I’d been contemplating my reading habits for quite some time.

While I knew how you could remember what you read, I felt my reading was inefficient.

I read a book, along with 50 articles a week, and encounter many interesting ideas. While I had a method to remember what I read, I felt my reading and creative workflow was inefficient.

But when it comes to writing, it often happened that I knew I read something about the topic somewhere. Despite my summaries, I struggled to recall where the information was, making it difficult to reference. I’d spend half an hour browsing through side notes in a book’s margins, digital notes, and bullet journals without a result. I’d continue without the information, frustrated.

So when my partner asked the question, my answer was unconvinced, “Reading is great. I just haven’t found the right system to work with it yet.”

That’s why something clicked when I first heard the term “Zettelkasten” in one of Ali Abdaal’s videos. Yet, I struggled to summarize the Zettelkasten — even Ali admitted that he hadn’t grasped it fully.

Whenever I’m hooked, I enter a tunnel. I watched and read every tutorial I could find on the internet, read the original German texts, studied Sönke Ahren’s how-to guide, researched coaches, and hired one. Since March, I also help my coaching clients set up their system.

I’m so in love with my Zettelkasten, my fiancĂ© sometimes feels betrayed. These are the ways my digital brain has transformed my thinking, learning, and writing.

  • Increased productivity. I write and create faster. I no longer waste time searching for sources. Instead of using my brain to browse through books and digital bookmark notes, I have everything in one place. A research-based 1,300-word article used to take me three hours to write— with Zettelkasten, it takes me one and a half.
  • Original ideas. Whenever I write or research a topic, I browse through my Roamkasten and find what I’m looking for, plus connections between domains I hadn’t thought about in the first place.
  • Better thinking. New information challenges my thinking and helps me overcome cognitive biases. I gain a deeper understanding of everything I read.
  • Maximum retention. I have a place that stores everything valuable from what I watch, read, or listen to. It helped me develop my worldview by comparing evidence, ideas, and arguments.

What follows is a crisp description of how the Zettelkasten works and the exact system I follow to set it up in Roam. Everything you’ll need to set this up is in this article.

Table of Contents
1 Zettelkasten - What Is It and How Does It Work?
1.1 Luhmann’s Zettelkasten as fuel for his productivity
1.2 Zettelkasten's three types of notes
1.3 Zettelkasten's 4 core principles
2 Roam Research- What Is It and How Does It Work?
2.1 Roam's Value Proposition
2.2 RoamResearch functions you need for building a Zettelkasten
3 Roamkasten - How to Set up Your Zettelkasten in Roam
3.1 How to capture fleeting notes
3.2 How to take great literature notes
3.3 How to create permanent notes
3.4 Tying it all together in the index of the permanent note
4 How I Use the Roamkasten in My Writing Process
4.1 How I seek great content
4.2 How I block out consumption time
4.3 My automated capturing process
4.4 How I use new ideas for networked thought
4.5 How I write to learn

1. Zettelkasten — What Is It and How Does It Work?

What follows is a brief description of its origins, the four types of note hierarchies, and the key principles.

1.1 Luhmann’s Zettelkasten as fuel for his productivity

Niklas Luhmann was a social scientist and philosopher, and researchers consider Luhmann one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century.

During his life, he wrote 73 books and almost 400 research articles on various topics, including politics, art, ecology, media, law, and the economy.

When someone asked him how he published so much, Luhmann replied, “I’m not thinking everything on my own. Much of it happens in my Zettelkasten. My productivity is largely explained by the Zettelkasten method.”

“Zettel” is the German word for paper slip, “Kasten” means cabinet or box. During his lifetime, he wrote and kept 90,000 index cards in his slip box. All notes were digitized by the University of Bielefeld in 2019, and the original German version is available online. But this is what it originally looked like:

What the original Zettelkasten looked like.
Image created by David B. Clear (CC BY-SA 4.0)

1.2 Zettelkasten’s three types of notes

At its core, the Zettelkasten has different levels of note-taking. I wrote an entire article about the notes hierarchy. Here’s the quintessence of the three different note types:

Fleeting Notes: Fleeting notes are ideas that pop into your mind as you go through your day. They can be really short, just like one word. You don’t need to organize them.

Literature Notes: You capture literature notes from the content you consume. It’s your bullet-point summary from other people’s ideas. I create these notes for all books, podcasts, articles, or videos I find valuable.

Permanent Notes: When you create permanent notes, you think for yourself. In contrast to literature notes, you don’t summarize somebody else’s thoughts. You don’t just copy ideas but develop, remix, and contradict them. You create arguments and discussions. By writing your idea down, you put pressure on your thinking and transform vague thoughts into clear points.


1.3 Zettelkasten’s 4 core principles

You want to keep in mind a few core principles to make the most of your Zettelkasten.

1) Context and Connection. A note is only as useful as its context. A note’s true value unfolds in its network of connections and relationships to others. You don’t tag notes in the context you found them. Instead, tag them in the context in which you want to discover them. By connecting new notes with existing notes, you broaden your thinking.

2) The usefulness grows with time. When you store more, the connections and interlinks grow stronger. The Zettelkasten becomes more useful as it grows because you can discover related ideas you hadn’t thought of in the first place. As Sönke Ahrens writes: “The more content it contains, the more connections it can provide, and the easier it becomes to add new entries in a smart way and receive useful suggestions.”

3) Networked instead of hierarchical note-taking. The problem with traditional note-taking approaches (even with apps such as Notion or Evernote) is the linear structure. Ideas get locked in a folder and, with time, are forgotten. With the Zettelkasten, it’s different.

As Luhmann writes: “Given this technique, it is less important where we place a new note. If there are several possibilities, we can solve the problem as we wish and just record the connection by a link or reference.”

Can you see it’s the same number of thoughts but more connections?

Illustration shows linear thinking and networked thinking. Networked thinking includes interactions and relationships between thoughts.
Created by Eva Keiffenheim via Canva.

Networked thinking includes interactions and relationships between thoughts. Connecting notes leads to new ideas and better ways of thinking. As you will see in some minutes, the Roamkasten has an inbuilt feature (tagging and bi-directional linking) that will help you make more connections between individual thoughts. Thereby, you create a larger web of ideas.

Science supports the value proposition of networked note-taking. As researchers state: “Studies suggest that nearly all non-linear note-taking strategies (e.g. with an outline or a matrix framework) benefit learning outcomes more than the linear recording of information, with graphs and concept maps especially fostering the selection and organization of information. As a consequence, the remembering of information is most effective with non-linear strategies.”

4) Idea Serendipity. Because of the interconnection, the increased value with growth, and the networked note-taking, you tumble upon ideas you have never thought of. Day by day, the slip box will transform into an idea generation machine. You’ll be more creative as you find past ideas and new connections.

Luhmann writes: “The slip box provides combinatorial possibilities which were never planned, never preconceived, or conceived in this way.”


2. Roam Research — What Is It and How Does It Work?

2.1 Roam’s Value Proposition

Roam is an online workspace for organizing and evaluating your knowledge. Unlike linear cabinet tools, Roam allows you to remix and connect ideas, where each note represents a node in a dynamic network.

This leads to vast application opportunities. As Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes: “Roam Research is a tool powerful enough to manage an end-to-end writing workflow, from research and note-taking (input) to writing an original article (output).”

To give you a sneak peek of what you can expect, here’s an example of how I wrote this paragraph using Roam.

How the author wrote a paragraph using Roam.
GIF created by Eva Keiffenheim

Disclaimer: I'm not sponsored by Roam or Readwise. I pay for both tools 23$ a month (15$ for Roam and 8$ for Readwise). You can also work with TiddlyWiki (free and open-source), Obsidian, RemNote, Amplenote, and Org-roam. And alternative to Readwise is importing highlights manually. 

2.2 The only five RoamResearch functions you need for building a Zettelkasten

Think of Roam like Excel. It has a low floor but a high ceiling. You can use Excel for simple things like a grocery list and create a table. Yet, some functions allow entire businesses to run off Excel sheets.

“Roam is simple but not easy,” founder Conor White Sullivan said in an interview. Unlike Notion, Roam didn’t dumb down to the lowest common denominator. Roam’s strategy is to attract people who are willing to learn using a power tool.

Once you know your way around Roam, you’ve unlocked a programming language for personal productivity and development. Here are the five key things you need to know about Roam to set up your Zettelkasten.

#1 The Daily Notes

Every time you open Roam, you will find yourself on the Daily Notes page. Think of it as your entry door whenever you want to start working with your Zettelkasten.

If you’re used to hierarchical note-taking apps such as Notion, or Evernote, missing folders might feel weird first. But you’ll soon understand how this structure accelerates your learning.

You don’t need folders to store a specific note because you link them with each other. In Luhmann’s words: “We can choose the route of thematic specialization (such as notes about governmental liability), or we can choose the route of an open organization.”

Why it’s relevant: Whenever you capture something, just type it as a bullet in your daily notes page and use tags or pages to connect it with existing notes.

#2 Formatting text

These are the three ways I use Roam to format text: ^^highlighting^^, **bolding**, and making text _italic_. Here’s how it works with shortcuts:

Formatting text through shortcuts.
GIF recorded by Eva Keiffenheim.

Why it’s relevant: You’ll use these functions when you go through your literature notes or want to highlight specific parts of your text.

#3 Creating pages (and bi-directional links)

See how you can create new pages with brackets [[]] and hashtags #. Both ways have the same function; they just look different. You can use either one. All pages are tags, and all tags are pages.

Note: Pages are case-sensitive. For example, [[Brain]] and [[brain]] will exist as two separate pages, the one called “Brain” and the other “brain.”

Creating pages.
GIF recorded by Eva Keiffenheim.

This function is networked thought in action and the reason you don’t need folders. When you create a page Roam automatically adds all related blocks from your database as references to your page.

For example, I have a page called [[quote]] where I collect my favorite quotes. This morning, I saw a quote I liked and typed it into my daily notes. I added #quote behind it. When I now click on #quote (or [[quote]]), it shows up with all the other quotes I labeled with this tag.

The author shows their page called [[quote]] where they collect their favorite quotes.

Plus, what makes pages even more powerful is that Roam suggests links you haven’t referenced. When I click on the “Unlinked References” on my [[quote]] page, I see potentially related bullets and can add them to my page by clicking “Link.”

Roam suggests links you haven’t referenced.

Why it’s relevant: You will need pages to create your literature and permanent notes. Moreover, you’ll use them to find relevant references whenever you write or research something. Pages are the engine for bi-directional linking.

#4 Opening a sidebar

See how the sidebar opens by shift-clicking on a page. You can open as many pages on the sidebar as you like.

Opening a sidebar.
GIF recorded by Eva Keiffenheim.

Why it’s relevant: This is extremely useful when you research or write. When you’re working on one article, you can open the sidebar and find all the relevant pages. You can simply pull notes from them.

#5 Using Templates

To create a template, you can use the following structure:

‱ TemplateName #roam/templates
‱ [[Template Title]]
‱ Your template's content

When you want to use your templates, you simply type ;; and the template name will show up. Here’s what it looks like in my workflow when creating a permanent note.

Using templates when creating a permanent note.
GIF recorded by Eva Keiffenheim.

Why it’s relevant: You’ll use templates for your literature and your permanent notes. Templates save you time and make your structure consistent. I’ll share my templates with you in a bit.

Extra tweaks

There are way more things you can do with Roam, but these five functions are all you need for building your Zettelkasten in Roam.

Suppose you’re curious what else you can do type/inside your database. You’ll discover some more useful functions, such as TODOs and a Pomodoro Timer.

When you click on the question mark in the top right corner, you’ll discover more shortcuts. For future inspiration, you might want to bookmark RoamBrain’s resources. But as a start, I suggest you go with the above and ignore the rest.


3. Roamkasten — How to Set up Your Zettelkasten in Roam

Now you know how Zettelkasten works (see 1) and the key Roam functions to build your own (see 2). This part will outline how you can build your slip box in Roam.

3.1 How to capture fleeting notes

Fleeting notes collect the ideas from your mind as you go through your day. My fleeting notes are sometimes really short, like a single word. Fleeting notes serve as idea reminders. They don’t require a fancy workflow. You just need a way to capture them.

I use a simple notebook or add notes on the books I read, in my bullet journal, or my Kindle notes. A preinstalled notes app works as well. Alternatively, you can also use Roam on your smartphone.

Don’t stress about fleeting notes — they are simply your stepping stones for turning literature notes into permanent notes.


3.2 How to take great literature notes

Create these notes whenever you find something valuable in the content you consume. You can take literature notes from books, podcasts, articles, online courses, videos, or even conversations.

There are three rules for taking literature notes: make them brief, use your own words, and note bibliographic references.

Whenever I create literature notes, I follow the template’s structure. Feel free to copy and edit it in your own database.

To do so, I suggest you create a page called [[templates]]. You’ll have all templates in one place. Once you have the [[templates]] page, simply copy the following lines into it.

‱ LN 📙 Template #roam/templates
‱ [[
LN 📙 <BookTitle>]]
‱
Author:: <Firstname Lastname>
‱
Tags:: # (In which circumstance do I want to find this
note? What would I google for to find this note (not a
general single term), When and how will I use this
idea?)
‱
Type:: #book #article #podcast #video #onlinecourse
‱
Status:: #ToCreate #ToProcess #Reviewed
‱
Recommended by:: <Firstname Lastname>
‱ Source::
‱ **What's interesting about this?**
‱
‱ **
What’s so relevant it’s worth noting down?**
‱

The “Tags” are crucial for your Zettelkasten’s quality. As stated in the core principles, a note is only as valuable as its context. I borrowed the questions in “Tags” from Sönke Ahren’s How to Take Smart Notes. They will help you create good cross-references.

Assign tags by thinking about topics you’re working on, not by looking at the note in isolation. By using helpful tags, you unlock the bi-directional linking power. Once you search for answers with a question in mind, the Roamkasten will give you all the answers and related ideas.


3.3 How to create permanent notes

You create permanent notes drawing inspiration from your literature and fleeting notes. Ideally, you create them once a day (I never meet that goal and feel super proud with 4–5 permanent notes a week).

When you write down a permanent note, make sure it contains only a single idea. If you have a train of thought, create multiple permanent notes. By using the principle of atomicity, you can better link your ideas.

When you create permanent notes, you don’t write a full paper. You write ideas. That’s how your permanent notes become reusable.

While your literature notes are bullets and fragments, your permanent notes should sound like written prose. A reader of your permanent note should understand it without reading the source that led to your idea.

If you’re a writer, the number of permanent notes you write in a day might be the single best metric to track your progress.

Again, here’s my template for your reference. I remove the #ToFile once I filed the permanent note with a number to my existing index, as I’ll show in 3.4.

‱ PN 📗 Template #roam/templates
‱
[[PN 📗 X.x.X.X <Insert Note> ]]
‱
References:: <Source> by <Firstname Lastname>
‱
Keywords::[[permanent notes]] + #Tags (In which
circumstance do I want to find this note? What would I
google for to find this note (not a general single
term), When and how will I use this idea?)
‱
Relevant other PNs:: (link PNs that relate to this
note: How does this idea fit your existing knowledge?
Does it correct, challenge, support, upgrade, or
contradict what you already noted?)
‱ #ToFile

In the beginning, I struggled to write permanent notes. I thought of them as a holy grail. But they aren’t — permanent notes are a work in progress.

Don’t be afraid to write them. You can change and update them whenever you want: what permanent really means is that they’re permanently useful to you.

Differences between literature notes and permanent notes.
Created by Eva Keiffenheim based on “How to take smart notes.”

3.4 Tying it all together in the index of the permanent note

As there are no folders, you need an index or register to keep an overview. In Luhmann’s words: “Considering the absence of a systematic order, we must regulate the process of rediscovery of notes, for we cannot rely on our memory of numbers.”

You can label your permanent notes as you like and build indefinite internal branches. As Luhmann writes: “We do not need to add notes at the end, but we can connect them anywhere — even to a particular word in the middle of a continuous text. A slip with number 57/12 can then be continued with 57/13, etc. At the same time, it can be supplemented at a certain word or thought by 57/12a or 57/12b, etc. Internally, this slip can be complemented by 57/12a1, etc.”

Here’s an example of the branching I use for my permanent notes in my notes index:

An example of the branching the author uses for permanent notes in their notes index.
Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim.

“Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note.”

— Sönke Ahrens


4. How I Use the Roamkasten in My Writing Process

There are five steps to my creative workflow: seek, consume, capture, network, and write.

4.1 How I seek great content

My creative process starts with the search for great content. To do so, I rely on my friends’ recommendations and my curiosity. I also use content discovery tools like Feedly, Bookshlf, GoodReads, Refind, Inoreader, Flipboard, or Mailbrew. When you feed your brain with good content, it will develop good ideas.

4.2 How I block out consumption time

I block undistracted consumption time, mostly an hour of no phone book reading time before lunch and bed. That’s how I read around 50–60 books a year.

Yet, I don’t focus on quantity and keep Naval Ravikant’s advice in mind: “Reading a book isn’t a race — the better the book, the more slowly it should be absorbed.” Slow reading for deep learning helps you read better.

4.3 My automated capturing process

While reading, watching videos, or listening to podcasts, I always take a few notes (unless I’m reading fiction for fun). My inner metacognition dialogue sounds like “This concept relates to
,” “This argument conflicts with
,” “I don’t know how
 .”

I take my notes within the source. I use my Kindle for book notes, Readwise for analog notes and web highlights, Textsniper for capturing text from images and slides, Reclipped for videos, and Airr for podcast notes.

I’m generous with my notes. According to evidence, the more notes you take, the more information you can remember. From my Readwise account, all highlights and notes are imported to my Roam database.

Created by Eva Keiffenheim via Canva.

4.4 How I use new ideas for networked thought

The imported highlights and notes within Roam serve as a starting point for creating literature and permanent notes. Whenever I finish a book, I sit down with my laptop and use the roam template for literature notes (see 3.2).

To make sure I don’t forget to work with my highlights, I customized my Readwise to Roam integration like this.

The author customized their Readwise to Roam integration.
Readwise export to Roam setup. (Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim.)

Here’s the code I used for the Page metadata. Feel free to copy it (and let me know if you have some ideas for improvement):

{% if category == "tweets" %}
#twitter 🐩
{% elif category == "books" %}
{{"{{"}}[[TODO]]{{"}}"}} #ToProcess create literature notes for this book
{{"{{"}}[[TODO]]{{"}}"}} #ToProcess create permanent notes for this book
{{"{{"}}[[TODO]]{{"}}"}} #ToProcess write a summary for my blog and publish it
{% else %}
podcast or article
{% endif %}
Author:: [[{{author}}]]
Tags:: #readwisesync
Full Title:: {{full_title}}
Type:: #{{category}}
Recommended by::
Import Date:: {{date}}
{% if document_tags %}Document Tags:: {% for tag in document_tags %}#[[{{tag}}]] {% endfor %} {% endif %}
{% if url %}URL:: {{url}}{% endif %}
{% if image_url %}![]({{image_url}}){% endif %}

From this import, my Roamkasten process begins. I use the ;; to retrieve the literature note template (see 3.2). While and after creating literature notes, I create permanent notes (see 3.3). Whenever I’m done with this work, I tick off the TODOs from my import template.

4.5 How I write to learn

Writing to me means not only thinking but also learning, creating, evolving. It means getting at the deeper meaning of everything around me. For me, it’s the best way for life-long learning.

My entire writing process happens within Roam. I start by brainstorming ten headline ideas and let my mastermind groups pick their favorite ones.

On my daily notes page in Roam, I create a page for the chosen title and use the article template to get started. Here’s how I start my writing process almost every morning.

How the author starts writing an article using their Roamkasten.
How I start writing an article using my Roamkasten (Recording by Eva Keiffenheim).

I create an outline with subheads and then search for interesting ideas and thoughts to add to my articles by opening the sidebar.

Once I’m done writing (which typically takes two times 50 minutes), I copy the Roam text to this free tool to remove the markup language. Then, I copy the text into a new Medium story and go through two rounds of editing.


“Writing is not what follows research, learning or studying, it is the medium of all this work. [
] Those who take smart notes will never have the problem of a blank screen again.”

— Sönke Ahrens


5. Final Thoughts

You won’t see the benefits within the first weeks. To reap them, your Zettelkasten must mature. But after some months, the power will unlock. Or, as Luhmann writes: “The slip box needs a number of years in order to reach critical mass. Until then, it functions as a mere container from which we can retrieve what we put in.”

In the beginning, you might ask yourself whether you’re doing it right. Even if you mix up some structures, it doesn’t really matter. The researchers who digitized Luhmann’s Zettelkasten found inconsistencies in his labeling and interlinking — his Zettelkasten was far from perfect and still made him one of the biggest scientific contributors of his time.

You’ll never again encounter a blank page and have no idea what to write about. Instead, you receive useful suggestions of previous ideas that you’ll have too much to write about.

If you follow the above steps, you can learn better, think better, publish more, and be more creative. My Roamkasten transformed my creative process. I hope it will do the same for you.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, Productivity, roam, slipbox, tutorial

5 Proven Ways You Can Use Notion to Organize Life and Work

May 23, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim



Productivity, life-long learning, relationships, and much more.

Image created by the Author via Canva.

I’ve been using Notion almost every day for the last year, and it has supercharged my creativity and organization.

Notion went live in 2016 and has since become a popular note-taking and organization tool with 4 million users in 2020. Here’s how I use it to improve my productivity, health, and organization.

1) Unlock the Power of a Weekly Review

If you don’t set your agenda, somebody else will. Without a weekly reflection, it’s easy to be busy without moving the needle. Productivity consultant David Allen wrote:

“The Weekly Review will sharpen your intuitive focus on your important projects as you deal with the flood of new input and potential distractions coming at you the rest of the week.”

Here’s how I use Notion to prepare for a productive and healthy week.

This end-of-week review takes me 60 minutes every Sunday evening. While a weekly review might feel like an additional burden, it’ll help you become more aware of how you live and spend your time.


2) Supercharge Your Learning with This List

Continuous learning is one of the most powerful habits you can build. Naval Ravikant once said:

“The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner.”

While life-long learning pays great dividends, many people stop learning after school. They don’t know how to learn or where to start.

A great motivator to continue learning is a long list of stuff you’ve always wanted to know more about. Similar to a want-to-read shelf, your want-to-learn list creates urgency. You’ll feel there’s so much you’re curious about and only limited time left to pursue your dreams.

Here’s how my want-to-learn list in Notion looks like.

Notion Want to Learn List (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

Don’t worry if you start with a blank page. Repeatedly ask yourself what you want to learn to find the answers. You’ll go through the world with a beginner’s mind, and the list will grow organically.

You can then specify what you want to learn. When I click on ‘Playing the Guitar’ I’m directed to an overview page with 30 songs I want to learn. The emojis indicate whether I’ve started practicing the song (đŸŒ±), can play chords and rhythm (🌿), or even sing along while playing (🌳).

Notion Guitar List (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

3) Get Inspired by Your Favorite Recipes

I used to be a lousy food planner. I always thought about what I wanted to eat when I was already hungry. I checked the fridge but then felt uninspired. Often, I settled for a mediocre random meal.

Thanks to my recipe collection, things changed. I included pictures, and they help me figure out what I’m craving. On Sundays, I drag the necessary ingredients to my shopping list.

Screen Recording by Eva Keiffenheim)

I filter the recipes by duration, seasonality, course, or theme. When friends come over for dinner, I have an easy time finding meals to cook.

Recipe Tags (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

4) Offer Gifts that Improve Your Relationships

People have always exchanged gifts to show appreciation and improve interpersonal bonds.

Even though birthdays, religious traditions, and consumerism have kept this tradition alive, most of us struggle to give decent gifts. We have a lot on our plate, and finding a present can often feel like a burden.

I love delighting other people, yet I’ve been guilty of gifting random souvenirs.

Since I read Scott Stockdale’s idea of using spreadsheets, I became a better gift-giver. Here’s how the idea list looks like in my Notion (I changed the names and ideas because some of my friends will read this):

Notion Birthday Present Ideas (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

Whenever I spend time with friends and have an idea for a gift they might love, I write it down. It helps me take the focus away from what the gift says about me to what it means for my friend.


5) Keeping Track with Your Ideas and Plans

Another way I use Notion is to track my ideas and plans. One strategy I borrowed from Janel is to use an idea hub for my newsletter editions.

Each Wednesday morning, I’ll browse through the following list, where I store everything that might be worth sharing with my subscribers.

Notion Newsletter Idea Hub (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

All you need to do is note down any idea you come across into this table, then move your idea into a newsletter issue.

If you don’t run a newsletter, you can still use Notion to keep track of the projects you’re working on. Here’s how I use a simple kanban board for one of my bigger projects

Notion Kanban Board (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

What I Don’t Use Notion For

There are a few things I don’t use notion for. Either because it lacks functionality or because there are tools that better fit my needs.

  • Idea Management. I stopped using Notion as an idea management tool. Instead, I switched to Milanote. The user interface helps me become more creative.
  • Food shopping. I don’t like the Notion App. Instead, I switched back to Google Keep. It syncs more reliably with my partner’s account, and the mobile version looks cleaner.
  • Personal Knowledge Management. For my creative workflow, I use a Zettelkasten note-taking system within RoamResearch. Through networked thought, it helps me build a second brain.
My outdated Readwise Notion connection. (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

Final Thoughts

Use these proven ways to organize your life and work. The effort is worth it: you’ll save a lot of time and feel in control.

Here’s how to do it:

  • Create a weekly review process.
  • Elevate your learning with a want-to-learn list.
  • Eat your best meals thanks to your recipe collection.
  • Give better gifts.
  • Tracking your ideas and plans.

Instead of feeling discouraged by all the ideas about what you could do with Notion, enjoy experimenting at your own pace. Keep what works for you, and screw the rest.

Choose one or two new ways until you find a pattern that helps you on your journey to health, wealth, and wisdom.


Sign up for the Learn Letter and get weekly inspirations on reading, learning, and growth.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: Productivity, Time management, Work From Home

These 3 Practices by Bill Gates Will Change How You Read

May 3, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim



Reading gives you access to the smartest brains on earth. Learning from the greatest people is the fastest way to become healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Charlie Munger, self-made billionaire, and Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner, once said that he hadn’t known any wise person who didn’t read all the time. None, zero.

Yet, reading per se doesn’t make you a better person. You can read 52 books a year without changing at all.

It’s about what and how you read that will improve your life’s quality and enhance your mind.

I read a book a week for more than two years now and continue to look for ways to improve my reading. Recently, I listened to Bill Gates sharing his free, yet priceless lessons on how he reads books.

Here are his top three reading practices and how to apply them:

1. Take side notes

In our distracting world, it’s tempting to shift focus at light speed. When phones are within a hand reach, it’s easy to switch tasks without even realizing it.

Taking side notes in the margins is a simple yet effective way to stay present. With a pen in your hand, it’s your default option to engage with the book in front of you. You’ll find it easier to focus on the thoughts at hand.

Moreover, scribbling on the pages will make it easier for you to remember what you’ve read. You ensure you link the new knowledge to what you already know. This helps you to think hard about what’s in the book.

Gates always aims to connect new knowledge to what he already knows. If he disagrees with the written word, he will take even more side notes:

“If I disagree with a book it sometimes takes a lot of time to read the book because I am writing so much in the margins. It’s actually kind of frustrating. Please say something I agree with so I can get through with this book.”

How to do it:

Take a pen in your hand before opening your next book. Cross out what you don’t like and write down what to do instead. Jot down a question if lines are unclear. Scribble your thoughts on the margins and connect what you learn with what you already know.

How can you link the words in front of you to your own experiences?

Which example can you add to the page that contradicts this claim?

Do you have any memory that proves the point at hand?

Soon you’ll realize that taking notes not only helps you to concentrate but also to remember what you read. The more you write in the margins, the more you’ll remember.

In learning theory, this way to remember things is called elaborative rehearsal. You make an association between the new information in the book and the information you already know. The more you elaborate, or try to understand something, the more likely you‘ll keep this new information in your long-term memory.

2. Finish every book you read

Gate’s second principle is simple: get to the end.

Read books cover to cover. He says:

“It’s my rule to get to the end.”

Huh? Seriously? It’s tempting to skip this principle since productivity coaches advise you not to complete bad books. We have to be careful here.

Bill doesn’t sayyou should complete a lousy book.

Instead, his rule indicates to decide what you read before you start. Consider whether a book is worth your time before you open it.

By doing so, you’ll become as intentional on reading as Bill Gates. Because it’s his rule always to finish what he starts, he’ll think twice before he starts a book.

Finishing every book you read doesn’t mean you should force yourself through a bad book. Instead, pick carefully and then commit to complete the book. Even if it turns out to be hard, contradicting, or daunting.

How to do it:

The internet allows us to access the libraries of smart minds. For example, Obama’s tweeted his favorite books from 2019, and Bill shares his recommendations once a year.

Start a want-to-read list with every book you intend to read. To do so, you can use listing apps like Google Keep, Wunderlist, or ToDoist, or create a profile on Goodreads.

I love using Goodreads for my want-to-reads as I see the covers and the overall rating. Before bulk-ordering, I’d browse through my list to pick the next books.

3. Read for at least one hour at a time

To get your mind around a book, Bill says, you should block an hour at a time every time you read. Here’s what he says:

“If you read books you want to sit down an hour at a time. Every night I’m reading, I’m reading a little bit over an hour so I can take my current book and make some progress.”

While Bill’s advice is applicable for retired billionaires, I’d recommend adapting his rule to: â€œAim for one uninterrupted reading hour a day and also take every additional minute you get.”

How to do it:

Make it non-negotiable to read before you sleep. To do so, replace your smartphone with an alarm clock and go to bed an hour earlier.

Schedule a smartphone alarm every evening at 9 PM, which reminds you to switch off all your digital devices. Schedule a second alarm for 9:20 PM as a hard deadline and stick to it.

My bedtime ritual is reading. In bed, I can either sleep or read. That’s how I read one book per week for two years. The sooner you shut off your devices in the evening, the more you’ll learn.

Bottom Line

Following Bill’s principles isn’t complex, long, or exhausting.

On the contrary: These principles make reading fun and worthwhile.

  • Take side notes to engage with what you read.
  • Pick intentionally, and finish all the great books you read.
  • Make reading a bedtime ritual to have an undistracted reading hour.

Instead of feeling discouraged by all the ideas about what you could do to improve your reading, enjoy experimenting at your own pace. Keep the principles that work for you and screw the rest.

Choose one or two new reading habits until you find a pattern that helps you on your journey to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: Books, Hacks, Reading

Zettelkasten’s 3 Note-Taking Levels Help You Harvest Your Thoughts

April 3, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Your guide to fleeting literature and permanent notes using Roam

A spiral staircase
Photo by iSAW Company from Pexels

Taking smart notes is the fast-track to improve your productivity and creativity. Yet, most note-taking systems are ineffective.

Niklas Luhmann, a notable sociologist, was living proof for a system that is effective. During his life, he wrote 70 books and 500 scholarly articles. He attributes his success to a note-taking system called the Zettelkasten, which is the German word for slip box (Luhmann’s system was done on index cards or “slips,” stored in boxes, and later digitized).

I read a book and 50 articles a week. But I struggled to manage the input and my ideas for creative output. While writing an article I often remembered I read something related. But whenever I went searching in my Trello idea board, Bullet Journals, or Notion folders I struggled to find what I was looking for.

I’ve been using his method for two months, and I can already see how it’s improving my reading and thinking. By using the three note-taking levels, I not only generate more ideas but also discover new ones I hadn’t thought about. The creative workflow for my articles, podcasts, and clients finally feels efficient.

Thanks to the system I write and create faster; for instance, a research-based 1800-word article used to take me four hours — with Zettelkasten, it takes me two. Whenever I prepared a speech I spent days going through related journal entries and books. Now I open topic-related Roam pages and have all the ideas in one place. I even stumble upon thoughts I didn’t consider in the first place.

To implement the system, I watched and read tutorials, studied Sönke Ahren’s classic, researched coaches, and hired one. And while much of the existing content is great, it fails to distinguish between different note types.

This is the tutorial I wish I’d had when setting up my slip box. I skipped the technical how to get started in Roam advice (because there are great tutorials) and instead focused on what’s made my Zettelkasten such a huge force for changing my knowledge management.

Level 1: Fleeting Notes

Fleeting notes are ideas that pop into your mind as you go through your day. They can be really short, just like one word. You don’t need to organize them. They just serve as reminders of your thinking.

These notes have no value except as stepping stones for turning literature notes into permanent notes. You discard the fleeting notes once you transformed them into permanent notes (more on that in level 3).

The only important thing here is to have an easy way to capture them. I use a simple notebook, but a preinstalled notes app works as well.

Level 2: Literature Notes

You capture literature notes from the content you consume. It’s your bullet-point summary from other people’s ideas. I create these notes for all books, podcasts, articles, or videos I find valuable.

How to take proper literature notes

There are three rules for literature notes: make them brief, use your own words, and note bibliographic references.

Sönke Ahrens adds another rule. He recommends being extremely selective in what you capture. I’m not. For deciding what I convert into literature notes, I ask myself:

  • What is interesting about this?
  • What’s so relevant it’s worth noting down?

By transforming consumed content into literature notes, you’re using one of the most effective learning strategies. When you elaborate, you rephrase new information in your own words and connect it to existing knowledge. You’ll make it more likely to remember what you read.

Researchers from the University of Otago, New Zealand, showed the more you write down, the more you can recall the information later. So don’t try to keep the notes too short — be generous in the way you elaborate and find the length that feels good for you.

How to create meaningful references

In traditional note-taking settings, the idea is to file new information based on the context you found it. I kept a Notion page for notes on productivity, another one for notes on writing, and so on.

But with Zettelkasten, the categorization is more efficient. A note is only as useful as its context. A note’s true value unfolds in its network of connections and relationships to others.

You don’t have to use your brain anymore to find separate ideas from different books related to each other. In a Zettelkasten, you don’t file notes in the context you found them but in the context in which you want to discover them.

“Making good cross-references is a matter of serious thinking and a crucial part of the development of thoughts.”

— Sönke Ahrens

Here are two questions to ask yourself when you create references for your literature notes. Answering them will help you make good cross-references:

  1. In which circumstance do I want to find this note?
  2. When and how will I use this idea?

Thereby, you assign keywords by thinking about topics you’re working on, not by looking at the note in isolation. I cross-reference my literature notes by using #tags in my Roam database.

Level 3: Permanent Notes

Permanent notes are the real value-adders. You create them by looking through your fleeting and literature notes. Ideally, you create them once a day.

Both Sönke Ahren and Andy Matuschak say a knowledge worker’s productivity should be measured by the number of permanent (or evergreen) notes they write in a day.

“If you had to set one metric to use as a leading indicator for yourself as a knowledge worker, the best I know might be the number of Evergreen notes written per day.”

— Andy Matuschak

How to create permanent notes

In the beginning, I felt confused about permanent notes: When should you write one? Which ideas are worthy enough? And what length should they have?

As a rule of thumb, I now create permanent notes about every topic I’m curious about or working on. When you’re in doubt, ask yourself whether you’re curious to explore your idea further.

When you create permanent notes, you think for yourself. In contrast to literature notes, you don’t summarize somebody else’s thoughts. You don’t just copy ideas but develop, remix, and contradict them. You create arguments and discussions.

While your literature notes are bullets, your permanent notes are written prose. A reader of your permanent note should understand it without reading the source that led to your idea.

Your future self should understand every permanent note in its own context and directly use them for content creation.

Each permanent note contains only one single idea. When you create them you don’t write a full article. You write ideas. That’s how they become reusable.

“Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else. Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references, and try to be as precise, clear, and brief as possible. “

— Sönke Ahrens

Once you write an article or a book about a specific topic, you don’t start with a blank page. Instead, you search for permanent notes relevant to your topic.

Since I used the Zettelkasten, my writing time almost halved. Before, it took me around three and a half hours to write a research-based 1500-word article. With this note-taking system, it takes me two.

The reason for the time reduction is the built-in idea suggestion mechanism. Whenever I write about a topic, I stumble upon related thoughts. All I have to do is connect my permanent notes into coherent texts.

How to connect permanent notes

The Zettelkasten becomes more useful as it grows because you discover related ideas you hadn’t thought of in the first place. But to find the right ideas at the right time, you need to do proper housekeeping.

“Notes are only as vaulable as the note and reference networks they are embedded in.”

— Sönke Ahrens

When recording a new permanent note, always think about linking that note to existing ideas and concepts. To do so, ask yourself questions like:

  • How does this idea fit your existing knowledge?
  • Does it correct, challenge, support, upgrade, or contradict what you already noted?
  • How can you use this idea to explain Y, and what does it mean in the context of Z?

The relationship between literature and permanent notes

When I first started, I was confused about whether to create permanent notes for each literature note. And, if that’s the case, what to do if I don’t have any new ideas I can add to the literature note?

I create permanent notes by going through my literature and fleeting notes and searching for ideas, principles, or concepts that I want to explore further. I let curiosity guide me. Sometimes my idea is truly original. Other times it’s just a reference to the original source added with a personal anecdote.

Permanent notes are no holy grail — but a work in progress. Don’t be afraid to write them. You can change and update them whenever you want: what permanent really means is that they’re permanently useful to you.

Created by Eva Keiffenheim based on “How to take smart notes.”

Final Thoughts

Creating a personal knowledge database can feel difficult. First, the many options and tutorials confuse you. Then, building a system slows down your consumption speed.

But if you’re a knowledge worker or content creator and some of this sparked your curiosity, I’d urge you to follow your impulse.

A Zettelkasten can work as an idea-generation machine. You discover related ideas that you hadn’t thought of in the first place. As your notes grow, you likely start seeing puzzle pieces for the bigger picture. This picture can serve as the basis of your original work.

May this article support you in taking your note-writing system to the next level.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, Productivity, slipbox

The Ultimate Personal Knowledge Management System for 23$ a Month

March 6, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


The three-step process to make the most of your mind.

Photo by Vlada Karpovich from Pexels

What if you could collect relevant knowledge around you, connect it, and access it whenever you want to?

Choosing the right knowledge management tools is crucial to continually improve and learn.

In personal knowledge management, switching costs are high. But with thousands of apps available, it’s hard to figure out which ones are worth your time.

In the past year, I experimented with different tools for capturing, collecting, distilling, creating, and sharing knowledge. I spent hours exploring and comparing tools like Notion, Obsidian, Miro, MindMeister, Simplenote, Milanote, Feedly, Transno, Hypothesis, Quoteback, Coggle, Typora, Ulysses, PowerNotes, Refind, and the like.

Here’s what ultimately helped me the most to store, manage, and share anything I learn or want to remember. All of these tools are free, except for Readwise (8$/month) and RoamResearch (15$/month).


1. How to Collect and Capture Ideas

Instapaper saves everything you want to consume later.

Instapaper is a simple tool for saving articles and online videos to read and watch later. Whenever you stumble upon a useful resource but you don’t have the time to read it at that moment, just save it with a single click to your Instapaper account.

Use your Kindle as the ultimate learning tool.

Most people are e-reading enemies until they truly read their first e-book. I remained an enemy fifteen books in. You can’t dog-ear your favorite pages, scribble your questions in the margins, or sketch out the concept you just learned.

But since I transformed my Kindle into an e-learning device, I wouldn’t trade for a paper book anymore.

When reading, highlight everything you want to remember. Then use the Kindle Notes web app to trim your highlights and to add notes.

Highlight your favorite Podcast episodes with Airr.

With Airr, you can highlight audio. Whenever you listen to a Podcast episode via the App, you can simply press the ‘quotes’ button. Then, the Airr App will save a transcribed version of what you’re listening to.

It’s a game-changer for Podcast lovers who want to save their favorite sound bites. So far, the app is only available for iOS, but there’s an Android waitlist.


2. Organize What You Want to Remember

Readwise unlocks your knowledge management’s true power.

You can do a ton of things with Readwise, but I mainly use it or two things. First, for importing everything from Airr, Kindle highlights, Instapaper, and physical books. Second, for exporting everything to make your favorite note-taking app. I export my Readwise highlights to Notion and RoamResearch.

Apart from this, you can also use it to combine spaced repetition with whatever you consume. It creates flashcards of your podcast, e-book, and article highlights.


3. Creating and Sharing Knowledge

How RoamResearch lets you build a second brain.

Now there is an ongoing debate whether to use Notion or Roam for building your second brain. But the two applications solve different problems.

While Notion is for project management and team collaboration, Roam is more of a single-player option. Notion is a black hole where you have to go looking for things. Roam is the wise grandma who tells you about them.

That’s why Roam is excellent for creating your personal knowledge base and connecting ideas and thoughts.

Plus, Roam is a powerful tool for a creative workflow. You can use it for research and note-taking until you’ve finished writing your article. This tool is great for converting your final markup text into plain text. That’s how I copy articles I created in Roam into Medium.

Roam is quite pricy at $15/month. You can also pick between free alternatives and programs solely built for Zettelkasten, like Zettlr and The Archive, or more functional alternatives like TiddlyWiki (free and open-source), Obsidian, RemNote, Amplenote, and Org-roam.

I still prefer Roam because of its clean design and its Readwise connection.

Use the Zettelkasten method to create your Roamkasten.

Luhmann, the Zettelkasten inventor, found the answers and lived by them. During his life, he wrote 70 books & 500 scholarly articles. He attributes his success to a note-taking system called the Zettelkasten.

The Zettelkasten is an incredible learning tool as it forces us to use all the strategies known for effective learning — elaboration, spacing, and retrieval.

And applying the Zettelkasten to Roam takes this method to an entirely new level. Roamkasten is the ultimate personal knowledge management system.

Different from so many other knowledge management tools, the ‘Roamkasten’ is designed around cognition and learning science. The key benefits include:

  • Full retention of everything you read, watch or listen to.
  • Deep understanding of ideas and thoughts and creation of your own output.
  • Developing connections between separate domains and challenging your cognitive biases.

And the best about it: it’s an incremental process that requires minimal effort but leads to maximum output.


Building your personal knowledge management takes time, but it’s worth the effort. Once you found the stack you trust, creating content and ideas becomes even more enjoyable.


Are you a life-long learner? Join my E-Mail List and check out how the Feynman technique can help you remember everything you read.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: learning, Productivity, slipbox

How to Move from Note-Taking to Note-Making Using a Zettelkasten

February 15, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


You find the most valuable insights at the intersection of ideas.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Do you finish a book or an article and think you’ve found great insights but don’t know what to do with them?

If you ever feel like reading isn’t moving you forward, it’s likely because you don’t collect and connect your knowledge in a good way.

You can read the best writing in the world without changing at all. As Ratna Kusner once said:

“Knowledge trapped in books neatly stacked is meaningless and powerless until applied for betterment of life.”

But what if there was a simple way to build a database for your personal knowledge? How much easier would your life get if you always find what you need when you need it?

Luhmann, the Zettelkasten inventor, found the answers and lived by them. During his life, he wrote 70 books & 500 scholarly articles. He attributes his success to a note-taking system called the Zettelkasten.

Here’s why this note-taking-system works and how you can make this method work for you.


Why Zettelkasten Outperforms Other Systems

For the past years, I experimented with various note-taking systems —outlining, sketchnoting, mind-mapping, Notion workflows, and BulletJournals — before I finally settled on Zettelkasten. Here’s why this note-taking system beats others:

#1 Your Zettelkasten gets better the more you store

Tools like OneNote, Notion, Evernote, or your physical notebook exist in a top-down hierarchy. They are like a filing cabinet.

In the beginning, each note-taking system looks tidy and clean. But once you store more notes and ideas, they become unorganized.

Zettelkasten, on the contrary works like a bottom-up network. A lack of hierarchy helps you build a giant knowledge web of ideas. Your network works better the more information you store because connections and interlinks grow stronger.

Plus, a Zettelkasten can work as an idea-generation machine. You discover related ideas that you hadn’t thought of in the first place. As Sönke Ahrens writes in his book about the Zettelkasten:

“The more content it contains, the more connections it can provide, and the easier it become to add new entries in a smart way and receive useful suggestions. “

#2 You automatically use state-of-the-art learning science.

I used to rely on ineffective learning techniques like highlighting and rereading. I consumed more and more content instead of reading better.

Now the Zettelkasten will stop you from doing that. It’s an amazing learning tool as it forces us to use all the strategies that are known for effective learning — elaboration, spacing, and retrieval.

#3 You find the right idea at the perfect time.

As you’ll see in a minute, cross-references are at the core of the Zettelkasten. Whenever you add a new note, you think about how it relates to the existing notes.

You use networked thinking to link your notes together. And the more notes you add and connect, the bigger the network. You stumble upon useful intersections and move from note-taking to note-making.

In that way, the Zettelkasten not only captures your notes but helps you generate new ones as well. After all, the best ideas are the ones we haven’t anticipated. Or in James Clear’s words:

“The most useful insights are often found at the intersection of ideas.”

The Zettelkasten works in a network. (Source: JJ Ying on Unsplash)

5 Steps to Start Your Own Zettelkasten

The system is simple. Before I set up my system, I read through +20 resources. Here’s the quintessence on how to get started:

1) Decide on a digital tool

When I started, I tried to implement the system in my existing Notion database. But Notion is built for collaboration, not for building your second brain.

While there are some people saying you can also start an analog Zettelkasten, I wouldn’t advise for it. There are so many great digital options that really ease your workflow.

You can pick between programs solely built for Zettelkasten, like Zettlr and The Archive, or more functional alternatives like TiddlyWiki (free and open-source), Obsidian, RemNote, Craft, Amplenote, and Org-roam.

I use Roamresearch ($15/month) because of its clean design and its Readwise connection.

2) Import your highlights or start from scratch

If you pick Roamresearch, you can rely on a tool like Readwise. Alternatively, you can transcribe your former notes manually or simply start from scratch.

Create a page for each of your highlights, and bold or highlight the most important ones.

3) Create literature notes

From your highlights page, create a new page for literature notes. Your literature notes are a bullet-point summary in your own words where you write down what you don’t want to forget from the initial source.

When taking literature notes ask yourself questions like:

  • What is interesting about this?
  • What’s so relevant that it’s worth noting down?

Lastly, create some tags for your literature notes. Your tags serve as a reference and help you find this literature note when you need it. Your tags can be longer than a single word and are the answers to ‘In which circumstance do you want to stumble upon the note? When will you use the idea’?

4) Create permanent notes

These notes will stick with you forever. You find them by looking at your literature notes, your highlights and asking yourself: ‘Which insight do I have based on the material I read?’

The answer requires serious brain work but it is exactly why a Zettelkasten is such a valuable learning tool.

In contrast to the literature notes, your permanent notes are written prose. A reader of your permanent note should understand it without reading the original source that led to your idea.

In Ahren’s words:

Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else. Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references, and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible.

5) Create cross-references for your permanent Notes.

Now, this is, in truth, the most important step. A note is only as valuable as its context — its network of associations, relationships, and connections to other information.

Use the digital tool’s power of bidirectional linking to connect permanent notes that relate with your idea (of course, in the beginning, you can’t link much). Ask yourself questions like:

  • How does this idea fit with what I already know?
  • How can I use this idea to explain Y?
  • What does X mean for y?

Referring one note to another is the heart of the Zettelkasten method and crucial for idea development.


Final Thoughts

Creating a personal knowledge database can feel hard, especially if it slows down your consumption speed. But becoming a slower reader isn’t a time-waster. The contrary is true:

“Not learning from what we read because we don’t take the time to elaborate on it is the real waste of time.”

— Sönke Ahrens

I set up my Zettelkasten only a few weeks ago. Yet, it’s already transforming the way I store and discover knowledge. It makes reading much more meaningful, and I sincerely hope it does the same for you.


Want to join a tribe of life-long learners? Sign up here for applicable insights on reading, learning, and growth.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: knowledge management, learning, Productivity

How Ali Abdaal Uses Tech to Remember Everything He Reads

November 12, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


The seven-level system for books, podcasts, articles, and tweets.

Photo by Daniel Romero on Unsplash

As a UK based doctor, YouTuber, instructor, and podcaster, Ali Abdaal is one of the most productive people on the internet.

In one of his recent videos, Ali states that his additional income streams generate more than three times his income as a junior doctor in the UK’s National Health Service.

More than one million people follow his Youtube channel, and his e-mail list has more than 50.000 subscribers.

Despite his achievements, Ali remains a humble, reflective, fun person. Apart from Niklas Göke, he’s the one under 30 content creators I admire most.

In his recent video, he combines cognitive science with life hacks and shares the seven levels that lead to remembering (almost) everything we read.


Level 1: The way most people read

Many people are very passive while consuming content. They read through books and articles or listen to podcasts but don’t engage with the material. Soon, they forget what they learned.

Scientists call this our natural forgetting curve. We lose information over time when we don’t retain it.

Yet, many people continue to equate reading with learning. But this isn’t the case as my experience underlines.

Before building my first business, I had read dozens of books for each stage in the business lifecycle. Yet, as time went on, I forgot most of the advice I consumed. I was the perfect example of a level one reader.

At level one, we’re not using our brainpower. Reading in this way is mere entertainment.


Level 2: Take the next step after passive reading

At this level, you highlight everything you find interesting, either with a finger on your kindle, the trackpad on your browser or with a highlighter in your physical book.

While highlighting gives us the illusion of knowledge, it’s an ineffective learning method. Level two consumption still doesn’t improve your retention capacity.

As before, the natural forgetting curve will kick in, and as the days go on, you’ll soon have forgotten what you wanted to remember.

Yet, highlighting will become a great help if you use it as a learning strategy for levels three to five.


Level 3: Make your highlights work for you

Before we dive into how Ali does a systematic highlight revision, let’s see why it works from a learning perspective.

Our brain strengthens and consolidates memories of information it encounters regularly and frequently. With spaced repetition, you revisit the same information regularly at set intervals.

Science on learning has shown spaced repetition to be the most effective learning method to remember new content.

To use his highlights in a spaced repetition manner, Ali uses Readwise. It’s an online service that imports the highlights from your consumption tools. For blog articles, this might be Instapaper, for your podcasts Airr, and for your books, Kindle.

Once you’ve connected your inputs, Readwise sends you an email with 5 random highlights from your library. In one of his newsletters, Ali wrote:

“Since September 2018, the daily Readwise email is one that I’ve read religiously. Each day, I stumble upon wisdom that I chose to highlight in a previous life, and often I come across highlights from my favourite books that are spookily relevant to what’s going on in my life.”

I became a Readwise user a few months ago, but to be honest, I found the unorganized e-mail quotes pretty disturbing. Before diving into work, I don’t want to read my highlight from a book on slow sex. I unsubscribed to the daily email.

Yet, reaping the other Readwise benefits in level four kept me using this software.


Level 4: Find your holy storage palace

A highlight storage location is the golden nugget that can transform the way you read.

Remember that Readwise imports the highlights from your podcasts, articles, and books? Now you can export all the highlights into your favorite note-taking app.

By not only consuming but integrating the new knowledge into his working projects, Ali makes the most out of his time.

Here’s how I make Ali’s system work for me.

I connected my Readwise account to Medium, Twitter, Airr, and Kindle account. Every Sunday, I export the Readwise highlights to my Notion database. From there, I link the highlights to ideas for my podcast, articles, or business. In that way, I connect what I read to my current projects.

By sending your highlights to your Notion, Evernote, or Roam account, you’ll be able to work with the content you consume.


Level 5: Unlock the power of elaborative rehearsal

Elaborating means you explain and describe an idea in your own words. You consciously associate material you want to learn with what you’ve previously learned.

The more details and the stronger you connect new knowledge to what you already know, the better. By doing so, you’re generating more brain cues, and you’ll have an easier time retrieving new knowledge.

In his video, Ali says he regrets not elaborating on all the books he ever read. Here are the questions he now answers after reading a book:

  • How did you discover the book?
  • Who should read it?
  • How do you summarize the book in three sentences?
  • How did the book change you? (Life, behavior, thoughts, ideas that have changed as a result of reading the book)
  • What are your top three quotes?

Level 6: Become an expert for your content

Now, if you’ve reached level five, you’ll remember more than most content consumers. You’ll have evolved from a passive reader to a person who applies what they read.

If the content is excellent, and you want to take it one step further, you can write a literary summary. To do so, focus on the points that resonated. Your result will go as close to an entire book summary as it can get.

If you decide to go all-in, make sure to mentally recall what you want to remember instead of copy-pasting your highlights. By not recalling the information from your memory, you’ll skip the learning part.

What you want to do instead is to retrieve the concepts and ideas from your own memory. While writing your summary, try to use the simplest language you can. It was Albert Einstein, who said:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”


Level 7: Connecting the dots to a bigger picture

Information vs. Knowledge by @gapingvoid

So this level is pretty complex, and even Ali admits that he hasn’t fully started using it. I had to research Evergreen notes for some hours to understand the concept behind it fully.

Evergreen notes are the modern way to organize slip-box, “Zettelkasten” notes. Originally, this concept was from Luhmann, an extremely productive academic who published more than 70 books and 500 scholarly articles in his 40 years of research.

In the Evergreen system, you spend most of your time doing deep work, like creating content and connecting the dots. Your note organization takes care of itself. Here’s how education designer Andy Matuschak describes them:

“Evergreen notes are written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects. This is an unusual way to think about writing notes: Most people take only transient notes. That’s because these practices aren’t about writing notes; they’re about effectively developing insight: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”. When done well, these notes can be quite valuable: Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work.”

If you want to dive deeper, this blog entry is a good starting point.


In Conclusion

You might wonder whether content consumption needs to feel hard, challenging, and time-consuming. It doesn’t. If you see reading and listening as forms of entertainment and leisure, it’s fine to stay forever in the comfort of level one.

If, however, you want to get the most from what you read and use it for your life, you want to reach level five with everything you consume.

  1. Passive Reading
  2. Highlighting
  3. Systematic Highlight Revision
  4. A Central Highlight Storing Location
  5. Summarizing Key Principles with Elaborative Rehearsal
  6. Writing Literary Summaries
  7. Organize Your Life With Evergreen Notes

Life is a learning journey. By following Ali’s levels to remember everything you consume, you’ll soon find yourself on your path to wealth, and wisdom.


Sign up for free to the Learner’s Letter to get weekly insights on reading, learning, and growth.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: advice, learning, Reading

4 Steps To Transform Your Kindle Into A Learning Device

October 20, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


How to get the most from your e-reader.

Photo by Perfecto Capucine from Pexels

Most people are e-reading enemies until they truly read their first e-book. I remained an enemy fifteen books in.

Building on my education expertise, I’d argue you can’t interact with your Kindle as you can with your physical book. You can’t dog-ear your favorite pages, scribble your questions in the margins, or sketch out the concept you just learned.

And while these arguments still hold true, technology-assisted learning makes most of them irrelevant. Now that I discovered how to use my Kindle as a learning device, I wouldn’t trade it for a paper book anymore.

Here are the four steps it takes to enrich your e-reading experience.


1. Highlight Everything You Want To Remember

No worries, I know researchers proved highlighting to be an ineffective learning tool. In fact, I join the canon against highlighting as a learning technique.

And yet, highlighting your e-book’s phrases is the necessary first step to create your learning experience. Here’s why.

First, highlighting will slow down your reading speed. This is a good thing, as researchers from San Jose State University have shown that people tend to skim through the pages when reading from a screen. But you don’t want to skim. You want to deep read the words in front of you.

Plus, your highlights form the original material for your learning experience. And this is also why, against common wisdom, you shouldn’t limit your highlights to a specific number. Instead, move your fingers over any piece of content you find worth remembering.


2. Cut Down Your Highlights In Your Browser

After you finished reading the book, you want to reduce your highlights to the essential part. Visit your Kindle Notes page to find a list of all your highlights. Using your desktop browser is faster and more convenient than editing your highlights on your e-reading device.

Now, browse through your highlights, delete what you no longer need, and add notes to the ones you really like. By adding notes to the highlights, you’ll connect the new information to your existing knowledge. You’re engaging in what learning theory calls elaborative rehearsal.

Using the Kindle Notes browser app saved me about an hour per book. Before, I browsed through all physical book pages to locate the pages where I added my thoughts. While this practice was fun, it didn’t add up to my learning experience.


3. Write a Quick Review To Summarize Your Insights

Now, trimmed down your highlights and elaborated on the best ones. Ideally, you only have the quintessence with some personal notes left. You’re all set for the learning fun.

The first thing you want to do is writing a quick review, for example, on Goodreads. While it’s nice to show you’re friends what you’ve read, this exercise is about testing what you remember.

Here are the three questions you want to recall from your memory:

  • How would you summarize the book in three sentences?
  • Which three things do you want to keep in mind?
  • Which concepts will you apply in your life based on your new knowledge?

Watch out to not copy/paste your highlights or building on other user’s reviews. If you don’t do the brain work yourself, you’ll skip the learning benefits of self-testing.

What you want to do instead is to retrieve the concepts and ideas from your own memory. By thinking about the concepts, testing yourself, you’re creating an effective learning experience.


4. Use Spaced Repetition to Remember What You Read

This part is the main reason for e-books beating printed books. While you can do all of the above with a little extra time on your physical books, there’s no way to systemize your repetition praxis.

But before I show you how you can connect your Kindle to a spaced repetition software, allow me to explain why this learning technique is so powerful.

Spaced repetition helps you prevent your brain from forgetting. Research has shown that repeating the same information ten times over different days is a better way to remember things than repeating the same information twenty times on a single day.

By revisiting the same things regularly at set intervals over time, you make the new information stick to your long-term memory. And that’s what makes spaced repetition one of the most effective learning methods there is.

Readwise (no affiliate, no partnership) is the best software to combine spaced repetition with your e-books. It’s an online service that connects to your Kindle account and imports all your Kindle highlights. Then, it creates flashcards of your highlights and allows you to export your highlights to your favorite note-taking app.


Buy Your Next E-Book While Reading A Great Book

All of the above is only useful if you read the right book at the right times. Books that hold the potential to improve your understanding of self, the world, or your entire existence.

And to find these kinds of books, you need to plan what you e-read.

Buying a book on your Kindle when you just finished a book and desperately need a new one is like going into a grocery store while starving. Everything will look delicious, and you will end up buying shit.

Out of the 129,864,880 books, there are, most will be, not worth your time.

So instead of following your Kindle book recommendations and compulsively buying a bestseller, keep ownership of your book selection. Goodreads, Gatesnotes, Ryan Holiday’s booklist, and Mortimer J. Adler’s appendix are a great place to start.


In Conclusion

While many people use e-readers these days, only very few turn them into learning devices. By following these steps, you’ll enrich your e-reading experience and get the most from what you read.

  1. Highlight everything you want to remember.
  2. Use the kindle notes page to cut down your highlights to their essentials.
  3. Write a quick Goodreads review to summarize your key learnings.
  4. Use Readwise to remember what you read.
  5. Buy your next e-book before finishing your current one.

Instead of feeling discouraged by all the ideas about how you can improve your learning experience, enjoy experimenting at your own pace. Keep the steps that work for you and screw the rest.

Choose one or two new e-reading habits until you find a pattern that helps you on your journey to health, wealth, and wisdom.

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Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: Kindle, learning, Reading

How PARA on Google Drive Can Make Your Life Easier

June 18, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


This 4-folder system helps you tapping your knowledge in private and business

Photo by Gabriel Beaudry on Unsplash

When was the last time you couldn’t find the files you were searching for?

It’s a frustrating feeling, knowing that you have information on a specific topic, but you don’t know where to find the material.

“If you don’t have a good system for storing bad ideas, you probably don’t have one for filing good ones, either.”

— David Allen

Last week, a friend asked for scientific resources for the effects of excessive smartphone usage. Do phones cause sleep deprivation? This question rang a bell as I read and saved some papers.

Before PARA, I would have spent 30 minutes searching for the documents. I would probably have found only some parts of all resources. But thanks to the PARA Method, it took me one minute to find the correct sheets in my Google Drive.

Knowledge documentation is critical as it can save you a lot of time in the long run and help you advance your professional career. Here’s how to organize your files with the PARA method so you will find everything you need within seconds.


How the PARA Method works

The PARA system is universal, flexible, actionable, outcome-orientated simple, and quick to implement. It works both with cloud services and local storage. In this article, I’ll use Google Drive as an example.

The efficiency lies in the method’s simplicity.

On the highest level in your cloud storage, you have nothing but four main folders: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive (=PARA).

The highest level of your Google Drive (Source: Author).

By going through each folder step-by-step, you’ll understand where your files belong. Let’s start with the first one — projects.


1) Structure Your Projects

In this folder are your ongoing projects. What all of your folders in “Projects” have in common is their definite start and end date.

For each folder in the project folder, there is a clear definition of “done.” To keep a chronological overview, you label each folder with start and end dates.

Let me give you an example of how this date labeling looks like.

Folders inside “Projects” (Source: Author).

The numbers, like 1805 for May 2018, label start and end dates. My role as a fellow at Teach for Austria began in 1805 (May 2018) and lasts until 2007 (July 2020). Label projects with a start but no end date with an -X.

Once you finish a project, you move the folder from Projects to the last PARA folder, Archive, while extracting all helpful resources to Resources. More on that later. Before you’ll learn the magic of the Resources folder, let’s take a look at the second high-level folder, Areas.


2) Determine Your Areas

Folders in the “Area” are kind of the opposite of projects. Area folders label ongoing work without predefined end dates. You never finish “area folders” because of the work’s repetitive nature.

In your private storage, folders in your Area would be house, car, travel, hobbies, friends, product development. As a business owner, you would have a folder for employees or office management here.

In contrast to Projects, you don’t set time labels for folders within Areas.


3) Bundle Your Resources

The resources folder is your treasure. This folder is where your bundled knowledge comes together. Remember you move a done project, to the Archive?

Before you move any folder to the Archive, you go through the documents, images, and templates inside your project.

Is there any helpful resource you want to reuse in the future? These evergreen documents move to Resources instead of the Archive.

A folder within Resource is a topic of ongoing interest.

For example, typical resource folders could be project management, online marketing, SEO, productivity, or architecture.

Here is a part of my private Resources folder to give you an idea.

The Resources Folder in the Para Method

In contrast to the projects folder, the folders within resources don’t have a start or end date. It’s your area of interest that label your folder’s name. Hence, the folders are organized by knowledge area.

For example, SEO contains all knowledge regarding search engine optimization. When an acquaintance now asks about SEO resources, I can share this folder with her.

Once you create the Resources folder, you’ll quickly realize the impact of tidy knowledge organization. This folder is a clear track record of what you learned thus far.

You can fill Resources also with documents outside of your projects. For example, if you finish an online course, move your key learnings, and templates to the resource folder.

Before you take off organizing your storage, let’s consider the last folder of the PARA method — the Archive.


4) Archive What You No Longer Need

The Archive’s concept is pretty neat. When a specific project is done, and you filtered all relevant knowledge to the resources folder, you move the Projects folder to the Archive. That’s it.

The Archive contains inactive folders from the other three categories.

Similar to the project folders, archive Folders don’t have a date description in their title. The date stamp will help you locate the knowledge you are looking for.


Reorganizing with PARA is Time Well Spent

The PARA — Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive — Method is a powerful tool to organize your knowledge.

Depending on the present quality of your file organization, the PARA implementation can take you several hours. It’s time well spent. While organizing your cloud, you will stumble upon helpful documents you weren’t aware of.

By structuring your files, you tap into your knowledge and reflect on your past learnings. In the long run, a clear knowledge organization will save you time and energy.


This article is for informational purposes only, and it should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.

Filed Under: 📚 Knowledge Management Tagged With: Productivity

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