It’s funny you mention it like this, I’m in this position with Obsidian. I see other science researchers using it, but so far I’m non-plussed. It’s “neat” and fun in appearance, but that “scratch” for better compiling my research resources isn’t being met.
And in my personal trials, real-world ZettleK for research document organization using 3X5 notecards has been much more satisfying. There’s something lost in translation trying to achieve the same effect in a digital space, at least for me anyway.
I teach grad school, and as a practitioner without an academic background, I never had a good system for capturing thoughts and things that I learned from reading. It wasn’t a problem until it was, and I’ve found that taking atomic notes from my readings, podcasts, speakers, conversations, allows me to easily pull them together into outlines for classes or workshops or talks that I do. It makes everything super flexible, it can grow organically, and it’s all in plain text, so my knowledge graph should be able to grow and be useful to me for the rest of my life…no worries about proprietary formats or gigantic databases creating storage problems.
I started out trying this in Bear and then in The Archive, both of which make it possible, but I found that obsidian really greased the skids for what I’m trying to do…and all in plain text so that I could theoretically continue to build on this knowledge graph for the rest of my life.
Daily notes give a quick and easy way to jot something down that will then be linked to a topic or will come up in search down the road when I’m trying to piece things together. So it catches everything in one place, makes it easy to mix and match based on topics and themes vs larger notes based on one text, and ultimately, it is making it easier to be good at my job.
I don’t know if everyone needs this kind of functionality. I wouldn’t spend the time and effort trying to make it work if you don’t have a need for it.
1st scenario: you read something good and you want to take some notes. You took notes because you liked them or possibly you want to reread them later. In this case, I think linking notes is not necessary for you because those notes were created simply for the sake of your mental satisfaction.
2nd scenario: you deliver a speech or write an article or a book on a specific topic. This is the moment when you need formulate arguments or statements (formulating statements is of course very common in our daily conversation, but arguments especially stand out in the 2nd scenario). By doing so, you very often need to make reference to what you have read previously. Great ideas come from various sources instead of one. In this case, linking the notes on that specific topic would be of great use: you can cite various sources to support your arguments; or most importantly, you can make new arguments based on various sources in which theirs are not enough. This is your originality and contribution to the knowledge.
I’ve been having the same thoughts as well, not on Obsidian specifically, but Zettel.
There doesn’t seem to be any scientific evidence that Zettel is a superior system. Intuitively, it might work for research in social sciences, where arguments are atomic and abundant so a linked system helps to find new angles of attacks. On the other hand, I just don’t see how it’s going to be relevant for STEM, where ideas are highly regulated by logic. If I can’t link to subjects logically in my head, no note linking is going to magically create new “emergent” connections.
Technically, linking and tagging already exist for regular note taking. Linking is just referencing and tagging is like keywords. For personal notes, the referencing can totally be bi-directional, and have hyperlinks. I’m not seeing any novelty in the system itself.
As for many things in life, there cannot be any scientific evidence, since it is not science and cannot be science.
“Systems”, workflows and so on are starting point, not solutions. The hype is not in the Zettelkästen system or method (or in any other system, and I’m including STEM methods, apart from the “scientific method” which is another thing), it’s in believing that it can solve any “problem” someone’s have in the thinking field. Instead is something that must be adapted at someone’s field of work, personality, way of doing things. So ithey should never be discussed in absolute terms (works/does not work).
And the core principles of all these methods are common: collect, review, and think about it. It’s just as simple.
Well, there’s at least some people, not one person.
I’d keep science and logic separated in this matter.
Science is science, and not all the fields of knowledge are science (law, philosophy, art…).
Logic is a tool (well maybe the only tool, but that’s another topic) that should be applied in the workflow / method.
I don’t know what you mean with statical data (with regard of the matter of workflows), but some strong reasoning behind the zettelkasten method is present for sure, it’s creator reasoned al lot on it. And into obsidian too, I guess.
As I think you’d be quick to point out, your lack of success with the method doesn’t invalidate it for people who use it successfully.
I have found it very helpful to externalize connections between concepts. Sometimes, a connection becomes apparent that I wasn’t aware of before. When things become too big to keep in your head all at once, this chunking and externalizing can be very helpful.
While I certainly agree that science and logic have important and critical places in all of mankind’s endeavors, including measuring productivity, we must be careful to avoid scientific reductionism or the absolutizing of any epistemological principle or way of knowing. Science, like all branches of knowing, must be kept in its lane or it makes pronouncements for which it is not equipped.
Which is to say that while statistics can be had, and I’m sure correlated to narrowly defined outcomes, statistics cannot be used to prove the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the Zettelkästen system. To be determined by science as “effective”, effective would have to be extremely narrowly defined to be statistically valid. While one might be able to define effectiveness in terms of how fast one can locate information x, it cannot fully define whether or not the Zettelkästen system as such spawned an idea or did or did not produce a result that otherwise would not have been possible. In other words, while the mechanics of a system can be tested for certain outcomes, e.g., retrieval speed, capacity, etc., it cannot measure the effectiveness at generating creative, good, ethical, imaginative, original or other ideas as those are not subject to the scientific method.
To help us all appreciate what you mean, you should provide a representative set of examples where statistical data or strong logical arguments were used in the manner that you propose to rank the effectiveness for other software apps, thereby moving what would have been “hype” to valid proof.
I’m not sure what you said make any sense. I just pointed out that there’s no evidence zettl is superior than other methods, to convince people to adopt this new system with long term commitments.
I’m not advocating for you zettl lovers to switch to other methods.
I’m very interested in doing an experiment (in the future) on the extent to which this Zettelkästen-based note-taking method is more effective than traditional note-taking method.
I’m enjoying this conversation and its complexity (and messiness). Your post made me think of that old saying, “Not everything that counts can be counted” (etc).
I had no idea so many people would argue that science and logic have no place in productivity. I get the point that it’s difficult to measure “effectiveness”. But just like other difficult-to-measure things, it can be done. The issue is that there is no clear evidence whatsoever, even ones of low precension and accuracy. If you don’t think science and logic apply here, what is your guiding principle? Gut feeling? Recommendations from productivity gurus? Some people get absolutely offended when their beloved method is criticised. Just remember, I’m not criticising any people using or loving it. If you think it’s effective for you, I have nothing against that.
I doubt any of you have experienced the so-called “emergence” of ideas, or Zettl has made any significant impact on your work, compared to just regular note-taking. I’m generalising here but I’d be enlightened if someone has a personal success story of using Zettl to tell. I just don’t think it’s a very responsible behaviour to recommend a long-term system without the above evidence.
I absolutely don’t think “not everything that counts can be counted…” has any relevance in the discussion. First, there doesn’t even need to be counting. You just need to compare two groups of people using different systems. Second, it’s just another random cheeky quote that sounds smart first but says nothing of deep value.
Thanks @SuperTachyon for this response – I found it provocative.
I can imagine being very curious about such a controlled study that took some measure of … what? Productivity? Quality of output? Quantity of work? and tested the impact/effect of ZK on that measure.
I’d be particularly curious about it if it were to find (and those results were replicated under lots of different conditions) that ZK had a negative effect on whatever measure of productivity.
What would I do with those data? Would the data stop me using ZK (and my preferred interface for that system – Obsidian)? They might.
But I do bridle at your hunch/doubt that none of us using this system has gained any emergent understanding from the system. How could you know that? How is it different from or superior to my hunch (which is based on personal experience, as opposed to assuming the experience of others) that ZK has been incredibly useful for how I understand the emergence of ideas.
I’m certainly not for a second attempting to convince you to use ZK (or Obsidian). I’m also not attempting to sing the praises of ZK or Obsidian. Just recognising their value to how I do my work (and also noting how they have helped the PhD students I work with – not all mind you).
As for the quote, yeah, it’s a bit too cute and tidy, but I do like to remind myself that there are aspects of human experience that are not reducible to data, as much as technocrats might like to wish otherwise.
I doubt any of you have experienced the so-called “emergence” of ideas, or Zettl has made any significant impact on your work, compared to just regular note-taking.
I’ve been a fiction writer for 20 years, pro for over 10. Emergence is literally my job, 8 hours per day.
Yes, Zetteling has made a whole world of difference. Here’s my success story (apologies for the repost). There are many others on that channel.
If you are that interested in proof, you will at least acknowledge that all these presentations do constitute at least a beginning of experimental evidence.
You start by saying there’s no evidence that these methods are “superior.” But you never really define your terms, much less what you mean this one word, on which your entire argument hangs.
It’s about as meaningful as me calling your argument “silly.” But at least I’m not really pretending that’s some sort of universal judgment everyone else should accept.
What does it matter if there’s no evidence that it’s better? People can try it. They can use it (and praise it) if they enjoy it, feel it makes them more productive, or simply enjoy tweaking people who have an overly rigid, mechanistic view of human pursuits. They can equally well abandon (and slam it) it if they don’t like it, feel it’s a waste of time, or want to annoy fuzzy-minded humanities enthusiasts quick to leap on the latest knowledge-work fad.
I suppose the critique does make for enjoyable online arguments. So maybe it isn’t so silly after all.
I don’t intend to persuade anyone already using it to abandon it. Because the cost of switching systems is usually high. My point was that it shouldn’t be recommended easily due to the exact same reason, especially when the effect of emergence is supposed to occur in very long terms. There should be careful studies to justify this.
Thanks for the video. I’ll have a watch after brunch.
Edit: Just finished watching it. It’s nice to see how it’s used in real life. I definitely didn’t consider fictional writing in my previous comments at all. I had academic research in my mind.
I have a question if you don’t mind: Can you give an example of an idea emerging from the network of notes, which wouldn’t have been possible without Zettl? Are they often in world building or plots? Thanks!
