According to Niklas Luhmann, the noted German social scientist, prodigious writer, author, and creator of the Zettelkasten methodology, if you follow links through a web of interconnected thoughts, that practice will improve your thinking more than simply re-reading the content of separate notations. (1)

I have found links, regardless of where and how they appear inside a Zettel note, map of content, or structure note, to be the weak link (pun intended) in my knowledge management system. A relationship between notes will always provide something meaningful when created through a web of connections via organized writing. In other words, collect your quotes and notations from books, articles, and lectures; reference them often through papers and essays you write, allowing the links to form connections across a framework of prose.(2)

ScreenGems and ThinkTQ

In 1995, a team of entrepreneurs led by E.R. Haas and Kent C. Madson provided a perfect example of a Zettelkasten through their efforts to create a Screensaver Training System. (3) Reviewing over 35,000 pages from bestselling books,(4) the team eventually isolated 4,700 unique ideas (5) that contributed to an individual’s success.

The ThinkTQ group used the idea of a prism to shine a light (another poorly conceived but intended pun) on a “Gold Standard” for personal and professional excellence. (6) Because the team attempted to create something finite, the group limited their visual spectrum to ten elements critical to achieving success. (7)

The “10 Choices of Intentional Excellence” included broad categories such as Energy, Mission, Attitude, Set Goals, Make Plans, etc. (8) The group then looked for common ideas or threads running through all the success books they studied. The idea was to be able to replicate a process for building success and one they could easily display on a computer screen.

From their readings, the team highlighted ten skills for each of the ten elements they felt led to excellence, creating a list of 100. Finally, from each of the 100 items, they created guides, workbooks, and questions to bring out the ideas more personally- the effort led to over 10,000 different training sequences. (9)

The Zettelkasten Process

First, I hope you read to learn.

Staying engaged with a clear purpose for reading is hard work. When you read to learn, you must be an active participant, and unfortunately, that means more than curling up with your favorite novel. Most people don’t have the ability (or desire) to hire 20 review editors to help find all the information on a subject; (10) however, highlighting, underlining, framing, and using bold type or colored markers can all emphasize helpful or inspiring phrases that contain meaning for you. (11)

Capture essential passages from books, articles, and other forms of the written word and lectures. If inspiration strikes, jot it down, scribble it on the page, or record it on a card. OUR thoughts are the most fragile and will vanish instantly if not cared for immediately. (12)

Second: Capture what you’ve highlighted in a system

If you’ve read Sonke Ahrens’s book “How to Take Smart Notes,” (13) you’ll recognize these references as Literature Notes. For most use cases, a literature note is a single-page reference to all the interesting ideas you captured while reading. (14)(15)

Niklas Luhmann never referred to his notations as Fleeting, Literature, or Permanent Notes; these are terms Ahrens created to help distinguish between the various steps identified in the slip-box process; whatever you choose to call the notations, the process is the same.

The programmers from ScreenGems showed us if you’ve captured twelve different literature notes that say it is a good idea to exercise, and those references held 20 to 30 ideas on the why and how to exercise. Those references should feed into a Zettel (Permanent) note about improving energy levels. Those same notations could also provide materials to explore why your energy levels change due to differing workouts or nutrition. If 18 authors discuss written goals, To-Do lists, or agendas, those items should find their way into the Zettelkasten web regarding missions, roles, goals, etc. (16)

A Zettelkasten is no more and no less than an organizational system, and like our ScreenGems counterparts, the process can represent a huge amount of time-consuming work! (17)

Third: The Magic

I’ve never liked the term “critical mass;” however, even the screensaver team declared “magic” after “forty thousand man-hours of editing, writing, coding, processing, re-editing, rewriting, re-coding, and reprocessing.” (18)

Of course, they had a specific end goal and target in mind from the beginning, and you might with your Zettelkasten notes as well, i.e., Masters, Ph.D., Book publication, etc.

However, suppose your goal is to be a content creator or simply interested in learning stuff. In that case, your Zettelkasten will burrow along underground connecting notes and reference material like the massive root systems of the Pando Aspen Trees. (19) Covering hundreds of acres, your Pando Zettelkasten will send up sucker shoots in the form of Blogs, atomic essays, and X (Twitter) posts. These shoots will thicken into branches or trunks of long-form writing, online courses, books, and businesses. (20)

The magic is in the standardization of the process. (21) You do it when you see a great idea. It is the knowledge you learn when 18 different authors talk about goals, and you finally take the time to write an essay about the secret of goal setting. It is the notations you create on law, the economy, politics, art, (22) or any topics you choose. Niklas Luhmann wrote over 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles, (23) I’d say there’s plenty of magic in keeping a Zettelkasten.

Thank you for reading!

Published simultaneously on Medium.

Written October 24, 2023

Editorial assistance by Grammarly.

Footnotes and References

1 Thomas, E. (2020, August 23). Understanding Zettelkasten — What it means to communicate with the slip-box. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://medium.com/@ethomasv/understanding-zettelkasten-d0ca5bb1f80e
2 Personal Journal entry — March 19, 2023.
3 Haas, E. R., and Madson, Kent C. “The Power of TQ (personal edition),” 1997. p.14. Retrieved from: https://thinktq.com/index.cfm.
4 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.37.
5 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.39.
6 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.39.
7 Ibid (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.14.
8 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.16.
9 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.16.
10 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.38.
11 McPherson, Fiona P.hD. (2018). Effective Note-taking, 3rd edition; Wayz Press. p.26.
12 Tietze, Christian. (2014, October 25). Zettelkasten. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from https://zettelkasten.de/posts/dont-rely-on-source-have-faith-in-yourself/
13 Editorial comment: I haven’t read the book. This is a non-affiliate link to Amazon (I don’t receive any compensation). https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Technique-ebook/dp/B09V5M8FR5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3CD085HUF08AR&keywords=how+to+take+smart+notes+s%C3%B6nke+ahrens&qid=1698158765&sprefix=How+to+take+smart+notes%2Caps%2C2117&sr=8-1
14 Doto, Bob (June 7, 2023) “What is a Literature Note.” Writing by Bob Doto. Retrieved from https://writing.bobdoto.computer/what-is-a-literature-note/
15 Editorial comment: Like Bob Doto, I prefer the term “reference note;” however, I keep reference notes as separate individual notations versus a single document. This works better for my Zettelkasten use case in Obsidian note-taking software.
16 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.39.
17 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.39.
18 Ibid. (Haas & Madson, 1997) p.39.
19 Editorial comment: Considered the largest living organism on Earth, an Aspen grove named Pando covers 106 acres in central Utah.
20 Bush, Dickie & Cole, Nicolas (n.d.) “The Lean Writing Method: How To Expand Short-Form Content Into Longer-Form Assets” ship30for30.com. Retrieved from: https://www.ship30for30.com/post/the-lean-writing-method-how-to-expand-short-form-content-into-longer-form-assets
21 Forte, Tiago (February 4, 2020) “How to take smart notes: 10 principles to revolutionize your note-taking and writing” Forte Labs. Retrieved from: https://fortelabs.com/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/
22 Editorial comment: These are some topics Niklas Luhmann wrote about. Niklas Luhmann. (2023, October 12). In _Wikipedia_. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Luhmann
23 Ibid. (Wikipedia, 2023)