Introduction
Ever since I downloaded Notion when I first started at community college, I started becoming obsessed with trying to find the ideal note taking system for myself. Early on, I knew that I couldn’t really borrow from someone else’s note taking system, so I began developing my own personal note taking system which is broken into two main parts.
Physical Note Keeping
I keep two physical books which I actively write in. The first is a small “Field
Notes” journal which I use to jot things down as they come to my in my
day-to-day life, and I keep this book on me at all times (work, school, etc). I
use this in place of my phone, due to wanting to maintain a clear, easy-to-read
system.
The physical journal is how I also go about refining ideas as they come to me,
and is the first step in my “funnel” before they become atomic notes which go
into my Zettelkasten.
Additionally, there is also my “commonplace book” which is really more of a
Zibaldobe than anything else, which is where I keep quotes, sketches of ideas,
drawings, etc. The Zibaldone doesn’t maintain any sort of structure, and instead
allows ideas to flow clearly through them. I use it to expand on ideas that I
have, and start refining things I think about in my field journal.
For more info, see 202606051126-best-paper-notebook-formats-parknotes and 202606051507-what-is-a-zibaldone
Digital Note Keeping
Once notes have been properly refined enough, they begin moving into my
Zettelkasten. My Zettelkasten has two main types of notes: Input notes and
Personal notes. Input notes are comprised of information from external sources,
such as books, blog posts, research, discussions with people, and videos. These
notes outline a signle concept or group of related concepts and are used to add
additional information to my personal notes.
The personal notes are where I actually “connect the dots” between my input
notes and my own personal thoughts/ideas. I use tags and links between concepts
(as well as the unique identifiers I attach to each note) in order to quickly
find information through the use of the custom zettk-cli utility I created
(see 202605262337-zettk-cli for additional information).