Information Density: Zettelkasten.de – Signal Evidence & AI Readability

[H2] Tame the modern information chaos!

[IMG: Sketch of the flow of value creation in a Zettelkasten]
Create an integrated thinking environment that is better than any AI can ever be.

We understand the overwhelming pressure of navigating today’s information overload. That’s why we’ve developed a solution that simplifies even the most complex knowledge projects, making them perfectly manageable.

[IMG: Picture of Sascha with his dog Leini]

Learn more about Sascha

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Learn more about Christian

[H2] Become a Master of Knowledge Development Now!
Create an integrated thinking environment that acts as a cognitive multiplier. By feeding on your notes and using the proper method, you’ll develop a personal thinking and writing companion: your own Zettelkasten.
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Taking notes is a skill that can be developed to a high level. It is the ability to take note of the essence of ideas. To train that skill, you need to get serious with your note-taking practice.

Dear Zettlers, I am currently wrestling with the question of what to make of mnemonics. I barely dipped my toe in this world. But I never seriously engaged with mnemonics.

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How to start as a beginner is the most important question, but the implementation is not easy. The solution needs to take you from where you really are to where you want to go, and the problems to overcome may run deeper than simple advice can take you.

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We talk about link contexts a lot. The idea comes from where you place footnotes in scientific writing. Here is a simple explanation with examples so you can get the hang of it, too.

Using note titles for links can be made to work, but it’s a kind of friction you could avoid.

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The inbox problem for a Zettelkasten user is fundamentally different from that in task management: Task management demands completeness and trust through empty inboxes, but your Zettelkasten thrives on abundance and rational exclusion.

[H1] The Archive

[H2] Note Taking: Nimble, Calm, Plain.txt

Note Taking is the bridge between thinking and crafting text. Take it seriously. You will be pleased how much your creative work will improve.

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[H2] Features

[H3] Plain Text File Storage
You want your notes to be robust and made for eternity. Plain Text is the way to go. It’s the most robust and durable file format. It allows you to use Markdown which makes your life infinitely better. Sync with any cloud storage: iCloud, Dropbox, GDrive, Box, …

[H3] Clean and Simple User Interface
In a distracted world, deep concentration becomes scarce and incredibly valuable. A clean and simple user interface is our small contribution to the value of your creative life.

write.

[H3] Elegant Text Editor
Note-taking is writing. A big part of the life of a creative person is taking notes. A bit of beauty is not only nice to have but mandatory.

[H3] Swiss Army Knife of Note Taking
A tool should serve you, not the other way around. Use The Archive your own way and don’t be forced into unnatural habits. Note-taking, Getting Things Done, a thinking environment, or even as a database for entomology (scientific study of insects) – The Archive will do the job.

Fast search for maximum productivity
Markdown support to highlight notes
Image preview inside the editor
Powerful hashtags that are simple to use
Auto-completion of your tags and links
Typewriter mode to keep your focus while typing
Themes! Customize the editor to your liking
Quick navigation based on plain text conventions
Supportive community of writing nerds
Saved searches to switch between subsets of your notes

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[H2] Our Software Ethics
Update Policy: We have a vision of the first version of The Archive. We are very up front about the features that will be included in version 1 of The Archive. You can expect we implement all the features we announce for v1 and ship them as free updates. And we are bug hunters: we do our best to squash them all. Find out what we plan for version 1!
Version Policy: We don’t like the thought of selling a paid version 2 upgrade just because we need cash. We believe in being open and clear about our promises from the beginning. After the v1 is completed we will continue to ship stability updates and begin work on The Archive v2.
We value loyalty a lot! If you are a proud owner of this first release, you are part of the club. v2 will come with a nice discount for you. You will pay less for v1 + v2 combined than those who join in v2.
Chaos is lurking. Being overwhelmed with information, projects and deadlines means chaos. Many don’t take note taking seriously. But good note taking is the antidote to chaos. With a good tool you can tame the chaos and impose your will. Not any longer overwhelmed by the problem but with a clear vision of the path, you will tackle blogposts, books, scientific articles, and research with grace and stay in command, rather than react to the chaos surrounding you.
The Archive will be a powerful yet very clean tool to take notes. You no longer will be overwhelmed but impose your order on the chaos of information. The Archive will enrich your workflow with competent note taking: Access knowledge in an instant and in order.
Take it seriously. Take notes. Take them well. Use The Archive, the weapon of the gods.
— Christian & SaschaAuthors at Zettelkasten.de

[H2] Backed by an Awesome Community
Our forums host cutting-edge discussion on the very nature of knowledge management. Join the fun and tell others about your journey, get feedback, and become part of a community of productive learners!
Here’s a couple of voices from around the Internet describing The Archive.

It just shows how wise your decision to keep the data as simple as possible was in retrospect: in my other tool for thinking and research, implementing an overview of tags with a usage count would be impossible due to the proprietary maze of opaquely-named folders and subfolders this program creates.
—Claude Bolduc, translator from Gatineau in Quebec, Canada (Twitter)
Once you’ve built up a critical mass of interlinked notes, you’ll discover you know things you didn’t even know you know!
—Michael Grant, Consultant
I’m finding the simplicity and flexibility of The Archive are very attractive. Of those two, perhaps simplicity is the crucial factor at the moment (though I believe the two interact, and the one would not really work without the other). It has become obvious to me in only a couple of weeks of proper use of The Archive that the only thing to do is work on the actual text of your material. You could say that with other applications I have been suffering from “too many features” – called “distractions” in other kinds of discourse. For the first time in a long time, I’ve been looking at the actual words, because there isn’t anything else to play with, and realising that a lot of them are totally unnecessary, and are adding nothing. This is particularly the case with quotes I have extracted from various places. Often, if I break them down into single ideas, which I’m finding easier here, they are fairly unilluminating.
—Dr. Martin Boycott-Brown, Historian, Scholar, Counsellor, Polymath
It’s not just a blunt tool to mash words. It’s beautiful. It’s a pleasure to write words in such a well designed, and simple, interface. It’s fast and enjoyable to use. Now, excuse me while I go obsess over what a Zettelkasten is.
—Gabe Weatherhead in a post at Macdrifter
The Archive will be the perfect tool for this lifelong decision, following the path of the text… :)
—Leonardo Wolff
The Archive is relatively fiddle-proof, which is one of the reasons I find working with it productive, even if it doesn’t have all the features I want.
—Galen Menzel
I have used many different editors for keeping up with my notes. Being a missionary, freelance programmer, and a tech-writer means I have all kinds of notes. The Archive does a great job and I use it all the time. Thanks for such a great product!
—Richard Guay, Custom Computer Tools
As a lead developer and team member, I constantly take notes on the fly. The Archive gives me the ability to quickly make a note using markdown thanks to the clean interface. When I need to refer back to my notes the fast search gives me quick access to my library.
—Peter Witham, Developer and Designer
The Archive blends the power and simplicity of nvALT with the elegance and efficacy of a digital Zettelkasten system to bring order and clarity to your note-taking system.
—macosxguru, in a review at Bicycle For Your Mind
The Archive is exactly what it needs to be, lean, purposeful, and fast. A wonderfully native app built on plain text purism.
—Jai, in a blog post at The Appademic
The Archive has great UI, themes, and full-text search. So I can quickly find notes.
—Padraic Renaghan, on his blog

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[H1] Newsletter

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[H1] Getting Started
[H2] The Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method
Are you new to the Method?
Read the Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method and learn what makes the Zettelkasten work as a system, how to create notes, how to connect notes to make a web of knowledge, and how to create structures so you stay in control of the growing knowledge web.
Using a Zettelkasten is about optimizing your workflow of learning and producing knowledge. The products are texts, mostly. The categories we find fit the process well at the moment are the following:
Knowledge Management: general information about what it means to work and learn efficiently.
Writing: posts on the production of lasting knowledge, and about sharing it with others through your own texts.
Reading: posts about the process of acquisition of new things and the organization of sources.
[H2] Common Questions
How to Start a Zettelkasten When You Are Stuck in Theory – a few simple steps to get you going, and a call to take this serious.
How many Zettelkästen should I have? The answer is, most likely, only one for the duration of your life. But there are exceptions to this rule.
Don’t use categories. Use tags instead.
“What should my first note be?” – it doesn’t matter. Just get started.
Set links between notes. Full-text search on its own provides not enough information. Connections will do, especially in the long run.
“When should I start a new note?”
Also read “Trust the process”, an essay.

You have to interpret your sources and then rely on your own thoughts henceforth to get the maximum benefit. Collecting information does not increase your knowledge.
Use outlines to start with the first draft of your writing project.
Then ease into writing by adding Zettel notes to the outline, pasting their contents in.
Everything you want to know about “Folgezettel”: a curated overview.
[H2] Principles
Principles are higher than techniques. Principles produce techniques in an instant.
—Ido Portal
Principle of Atomicity: put things that belong together into a single note, give it an ID, but limit its content to that single topic.
Our post about the Principle of Connectivity highlights how different techniques can implement the same underlying principle: links vs note sequences.
There’s an expanded explanation of this argument from 5 years after the initial post about this principle.
See the related discussion about Different Kinds of Ties Between Notes.

[H2] Knowledge Management
The building blocks of a Zettelkasten are the inbox, the note archive, and the reference manager.
These are the basics to get started with effective knowledge management:
Use a real notebook to capture thoughts.
Write notes for your note archive in a way you understand later.
Add Identity to things in the system to make references possible.
Don’t use categories. Use tags instead.
Good and bad tags explained: some tagging habits will get in your way eventually.

Set links between notes. Search alone is not enough.
Every Zettel has two forms: an inner and outer form.
And always keep in mind The Collector’s Fallacy: you have to work with new material to really learn it. It doesn’t suffice to bookmark websites or just read and annotate books. (Christian still has skeletons in the closet.)
To get you in the mood to grow your archive, read “Trust the process”, an essay.
[H3] Scaling your note archive
To cope with the constant influx of new information, use temporary “buffer” notes to collect stuff that you can later re-arrange.
With time, you’ll notice multiple Layers of Evidence emerge. This means your notes will have different kinds of content. The layers are:
Data description and patterns.
Interpretation of descriptions and patterns.
Synthesis of patterns, descriptions and interpretation.
When your archive grows, you’ll add Structural Layers in your Zettelkasten through links. The levels are:
Bottom Layer: Content
Middle Layer: Structure Notes
Top Layer: Main Structure Notes and Double Hashes (that is: special tags)
[H3] About learning and knowing-more in general
“Trust the process” (an essay) hits the nerve: thinking and memory retention are improved by working through problems.
A Zettelkasten improves your thinking and writing because it surprises us when we search for something.
A Zettelkasten extends your mind and memory because its structure mimics the way your brain works.
Learn faster: get coverage with good reading techniques, get practice by writing Zettel notes, and gain insights by connecting notes to your web of knowledge.
You have to interpret your sources and then rely on your own thoughts henceforth to get the maximum benefit.
[H2] Writing
Make writing a part of your identity. This requires to schedule time for writing, and to create lasting habits.
How to become a better writer:
A daily writing practice will help lower the hurdle to get started, for example.
How to track your writing progress – define metrics and find out how well you perform.
Counting your words is motivating and helps you stick to the habit of writing daily.
Christian also wrote a Mac app for this: the Word Counter.

Getting started with writing projects:
Buffer files in your Zettelkasten are great to store writing ideas.
Use outlines to start with the first draft, and then
ease into writing by adding Zettel notes to the outline, pasting their contents. This works without you trying so hard.

Divide composing from editing your texts to reach a state of flow and get faster at finishing your projects.
Publish iteratively.
Field Report: A PhD About Writing with His Zettelkasten. Henrik talks about his process from draft to submission, to revision, to being accepted in a journal.
[H2] Reading
Create a bibliography as part of your toolkit. It’s a permanent companion and keeps track of your sources of information.
The Barbell Method of Reading explains how to get most out of any text. Read thoroughly and invest more time (risky investment) when necessary, stick to quickly skimming (low risk) for the rest.
Reading for the Zettelkasten is searching: next time you tackle a long text, try to look for very specific kinds of information that lend themselves to being extracted.
Reading on paper
Make proper reading marks instead of leaving annotations in the margin.
You should take reading notes instead. Get the stuff out of the book. (This is closely related to the Collector’s Fallacy.)
Create Zettel from reading notes afterwards.

Reading online
How to read on the web efficiently, using and managing RSS feed subscriptions.

[H2] Use Cases
Zettelkasten for fiction writing is a collection of articles on how to apply the Zettelkasten Method to fiction.
[H2] History of the Zettelkasten
If you want to know more about the history of the Zettelkasten Method, check out the ongoing research on Luhmann’s Zettelkasten by Johannes Schmidt at Bielefeld University. Johannes is the Guardian of the Godfather’s Zettelkasten, and his work is genuinely interesting for knowledge work nerds.
We cover the relevant bit of history in our introduction to explain how the Zettelkasten Method works.
Read our translation of Luhmann’s Communication with Zettelkastens to get to know his original approach. Then check out the translation of Luhmann’s own Zettel about his Zettelkasten.
[H2] Tools
Since 2018, we offer our own app, The Archive for macOS, to manage your Zettelkasten. Since then, we stopped reviewing commercial tools because of a clash of interests. We honestly think The Archive is great, and that you should check it out.
Since we don’t review paid apps anymore in accordance with our software review principle, if you are interested in apps for other platforms and other tools, check out our forum about software and gadgets for tips from the community.
[H3] The Archive
Get to know the app better:
How to Use Tabs, a short demo video.
How to Capture Images
How to Use Wiki Links for Saved Searches in The Archive, a “hack” of sorts to use links to restore your searches.
Extending The Archive’s functionality with scripts and other apps:
We have a Collection of 3rd Party App Macros where we curate macros shared on the forums.
There’s a cohesive Alfred Macro collection with complete workflows.
Interoperability with the Markdown preview app, Marked 2, supports streaming note previews (YouTube)
Use cases and demos for inspiration:
Using The Archive to Teach Music
Creating Structure Notes (YouTube)