How we discovered the Zettelkasten method
A simple, proven and effective way to generate more value with your knowledge
🏷️ Categories: Zettelkasten, Learning, Memory
“Your brain is for having ideas, not holding them,” David Allen.
Hello! Today's letter is special, I'm not alone,
writes with me, an author I met when I just landed in Substack and with whom I had wanted to write for a long time. He is an author who deals with topics that complement my own, touching on productivity, knowledge management and writing.This is the first in a series of letters in which we will discuss productivity, knowledge management and Zettelkasten. If all this sounds strange to you, stick around because you will learn techniques that will save you time and energy in doing what you do now.
In this first letter we tell how we went from being chaotic to organized and productive people using the Zettelkasten method.
Here you have the index of the rest of the publications of the guide:
Hello! :-)
I (
) am going to start breaking the ice.I have always loved writing. Since childhood, I have taken notes in class and started countless writing projects. However, this effort—in most cases—was in vain. A few months after I had written something, that writing became useless. Either because it was no longer relevant or because I had lost it.
The management of my writings was bad. I failed to maintain the value of those writings over time. As a result, the notes I took in class were rarely helpful for studying. And my writing projects were… impossible to finish.
Throughout my studies, I have always relied on my memory to get ahead. But this was not because I had a privileged memory—quite the opposite! As you now know, my notes were even worse.
However, as you progress through the education system, the complexity and the amount of information you have to manage gradually increases. The problem is that managing everything from memory has a limit. A limit that will be higher or lower depending on each person. But there is always a limit.
What happens when you reach that limit?
You are forced to choose between:
Reducing the complexity and quantity of the information you manage (not doing what you really want to do).
Managing that complexity in an increasingly more inefficient way, risking falling into chronic stress and burnout (doing what you really want to do at a high personal cost).
In my case, I reached this limit during my PhD. I was not aware of it at the time, but I was overwhelmed, and stress was a regular companion. Without being aware of it, I had chosen the second option. It was only six months before the end of my PhD that I first discovered the Zettelkasten method.
I would like to tell you that the Zettelkasten method was the key to finishing my PhD well and stress-free, but, in reality, it came late into my life.
Currently, I have been using my Zettelkasten as a tool for my work and creative projects for more than two years. Thanks to that, my limit is no longer in my ability to manage my knowledge. In fact, the time I need to organize my writing is minimal. As a result, most of my time is spent doing what I really love to do.
Thinking about and advancing my writing projects.
“No one teaches us how to learn”
Hello again! Now it's my turn.
You know what? As a student I fully relied on my memory —and I wasn't doing badly at all. My memory was a sponge that every class absorbed an infinite amount of content and forgot nothing.
Why waste energy and time writing down what I already have in my memory? That was my mentality throughout high school, but everything changed radically when I got to college. What a reality check I got.
During college, the lack of organization and the excess of information was impossible to handle. I reached a point of exhaustion that made me reflect and make a decision that would change my course drastically. The change made me start to excel in college and get high grades.
And what was my secret?
I learned how to learn.
I dedicated time to study how to study better and not to study more hours.
To boost my studying so much, I started using Zettelkasten, a way of taking notes that I would say is more of a mindset change. From that change everything started to flow.
If you did not know this Zettelkasten system but you have identified with this feeling of disorder and tiredness because you have a lot of information to manage, it is very likely that you are facing the same difficulties that we are experiencing.
The next letters will continue the series where we will share the basics so that you too can create your own Zettelkasten from scratch and step by step.
Feel free to comment or contact me or
if you have any questions throughout this guide.See you very soon 👋!
S. Garcia’s comment: This article was originally published in Spanish in collaboration with
. The complete guide will be available in English too.