A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer by Bob Doto

Author:Bob Doto [Doto, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Old Traditions
Published: 2024-07-08T23:00:00+00:00

This anarchic reading of social and theoretical encounters, where discovery is made via “crossroads and galleries one passes through to link two points,” is almost identical to Niklas Luhmann’s descriptions of the zettelkasten. In his essay, “Communicating with Slip Boxes,” he states that “Every note is an element which receives its quality only from the network of links and back-links within the system.” When in his own notes Luhmann discusses the pitfalls of having preconceived notions about what to draw out of the zettelkasten, he writes:

[R]ely on relations between notes, i.e. on references that reveal more than what one has in mind when following either a search impulse or thought-fixation.73

Even Deleuze and Guattari’s reference to the co-productive nature of the rhizome and how its maps could be “modified” can be found in Luhmann’s thinking. As Kieserling tells it:

In a lecture, [Luhmann] once formulated it like this: The form of presentation appropriate to my theory would actually be a fully democratic co-determination prose, where everyone can add their own contribution at any point and thereby change the theory itself.74

Kieserling goes even further to conclude that Luhmann’s slip box mirrors this “democratic” process of meaning-making “as it shows everyone who works with it a different theory.”75 Add to this Luhmann’s appreciation of “disorder,” “unexpected linkings,” “heterogeneous things,” and “combinatorial possibilities which were never planned, never preconceived,” along with his criticism of organizational hierarchy76 and “hasty systematization and closure,”77 and it becomes clear Luhmann believed non-hierarchical organization led to non-normative ideation. This, however, doesn’t mean Luhmann always engaged with the rhizome in its raw, anarchic state.

6.2 Creating High-Level Views to Engage the Rhizome

Anarchic networks of thought have high plasticity. When new ideas are incorporated, the connective tissue binding them stretches, twisting and turning to accommodate what’s been added. Rhizomes are highly mutable, able to take on whatever is thrown at them. But, they also have their downsides.

The main compartment of your zettelkasten, where the entirety of your single-idea notes are stored, has the potential of becoming a very unruly place. Without high-level views to make sense of your sense-making, thousands of notes may eventually feel like a disorganized mess. To make sense of the contents of the distributed network, note makers create alternative ways to view and engage with what’s most relevant. In doing so, it becomes possible to see how trains of thought have been developing, while at the same time leaving the creative chaos of the main compartment undisturbed. Below are three ways you can do this.

Hub Notes

Over time, recognizable areas of your zettelkasten will develop around particular themes and subjects. Hub notes help point toward the various places your thinking has gone, functioning as “access points,”78 or “highways between topics.”79 They are ways to orient yourself within the greater collection of notes, helping you get from one place to another.80 Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say an area of your zettelkasten has developed around the topic of ice cream. You know this because there are a number of notes referring back-and-forth to one another, each dealing with different aspects of the dessert.

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