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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 fiancé 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 fiancé 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.”

— SĂśnke 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.”

— SĂśnke 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

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.”

— SĂśnke 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. “

— SĂśnke 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.”

— SĂśnke 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

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