Zettlekasten, or a slip box of little paper notes, is a Note taking / research system developed by ???. The method is the central system underpinning How to Take Smart Notes and it’s very similar to the system outlined by Umberto Eco in How to Write a Thesis.

This system of interlinked notes forms the basis of inspiration for a lot of my work with knowledge gardening, atomic insights, and this notion space.

The system is composed, broadly, of two pieces:

Zettle

The notes. Pieces of paper (essentially index cards) on which notes are written.

They have a general structure: a header, body, and footer

Header contains a unique identifier

Body is the contents of the note

The footer contains references to other notes

Simply-speaking: zettle can be though of as just one type of note in a more robust system. The full zettlekasten system had both notes (ideas) and a bibliography (books)

3 Phases for translating paper to Zettel

Kasten

A case or slip box in which to store them. This part of the system is mostly irrelevant: however your take your notes, whether digital or on paper, what matters is you can preserve them and access them as needed.

This Notion space is my Kasten

Zettelkasten

https://www.seanlawson.net/2017/09/zettelkasten-researchers-academics/

Zettelkasten knowledge and info management • Zettelkasten Method