HOW TO TAKE SMART NOTES by Sönke Ahrens | Core Message 

The best Zettelkasten System I've ever seen on youtube. Thank you !

This system completely changed my life i swear. The learning curve is a bit frustrating for a week or so, but damn is it powerful. The bottomup approach is insane. If someone wants to try this, I suggest doing it in Obsidian. It's really really powerful, probably the best system I've ever received from a book

Easy to understand than other videos on the topic. Thanks.

Great system. I really liked two things: the fact that the bottom-up approach prevents from confirmation bias and helps you with coming up with new ways to express the topic. Also, handwriting your notes is critical nowadays because it enforces memory (as studies showed). And if done on index cards, as with this system, it enforces conciseness too. The keyword idea is also good, and I loved your metaphor, hashtags

this book inspired me --- like it did many others --- to take notetaking more seriously. but i'd like to give a warning: remember that the zettelkasten is a means to an end, not the end itself. it's a tool. don't get too caught up in making the "perfect note taking system" like i have or else you'll spend more time taking notes rather than doing what the slip box was meant to do: create things. as somewhat of an aside, i'd like to think that this book launched the whole PKM side of RU-vid, or at least enriched the notetaking "genre" or section of the site, especially during the pandemic. i remember videos about the zettelkasten, linked note taking, and personal knowledge management popping up left and right just last year i think. what a time that was

Obsidian is the very best note-taking and ideation tool I've ever come across. It a free PKM system.

Cool... I use Google Keep. And helpful part was to revisit notes once 24 hours and see if it still creates same excitement or not. If not, let it go. If yes, keep in permanent record with proper index. Superb... very useful. Thank you for taking the time to read and create this summary :) You are doing awesome 👍

My mind was blown away from this book review/video and I love your explanation of these books in your video essay format. Keep it up bud.

Nathan, thanks for the great work you're doing! For constructive feedback purposes: criteria is the plural, criterion is the singular.

this is the book summary I had been waiting for the past year, ever since I discovered Sonke Ahrens and the Zettelkasten method and have been experimenting with Obsidian and Foam on Visual Studio code. Thanks mate, this was truly useful!

I had given up on my ability to read dense books, but with this video, I've been able to produce essays im proud of!

Merely 40 seconds into this video… I provide a thumbs-up. I never heard of any of these people.

Very good idea and as usually great summary. I have been taking notes irregularly every week so as to add to my own personal life philosophy. I think I will have to re-watch this video to fully formulate how to improve my note taking. Thanks for upload.

Thanks for your site and all the interesting books you bring to us every week. when you said hike and backpack I was reminded of a 19th-century botanist or zoologist that went into foreign territory and just collected samples of plants or drew and described animals. that evening or on a particular day he/she ordered everything and compared it existing plants etc. This is a similar process, but for ideas. Have a look "Building your second Brain" by Tiago Forte, it is a pre-cursor to Stellenkasten. At the moment I use Keep, and then Docs and if I really want to keep something I use Evernote. I understand that Obsidian and Notion are all good alternatives. The Keep/ Docs combination just works so seamlessly. Keywords and tags, of course, work very well for your SK notations ie tagging your notes with the 1, 1a,1a2b, etc. ssequence.

Nathan, thank you for this video. This is just what I needed.

I will buy this book one day. Your channel is so useful for me.

Another valuable insight from you Nathan. Thanks 🙏🙏

I found your video very helpful. Thanks for making and sharing it.

Keep going love your page I plan to watch all your videos and benefit from them! I try to recommend you anytime I advice someone to watch book summaries aswell!

Excellent - thank you!

l would watch your videos when l lack of motivation. by the way. l initial recall after l finish a part.lt enhance my memeory ability.

It’s helpful. Thanks.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 The only impossible journey is the one you never begin 🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧

Try using obsidian app on using that method.

Wow! Intresting approach

Thank you for sharing

thank you for the summary, the book itself is a little too elaborated for me.

Well Timed

In what kind of state of mind, enviorment, context were my favourite books created?

I'd like to have a try but I might need a pomodoros-like APP/Chrome Extension to facilitate. Regardless, notetaking is more a mindful habit so than a system...once one starts taking notes an APPROACH suitable for oneself will emerge

Obsidian is good for this too

Thanks brother, i need for leadership, audio

Are there pre-existing Obsidian Templates for Zettlekasten index cards (notes) and/or a starter list of keywords? Any recommendations on if the location code (Zettlekasten ID), keywords (tags) links should go in Obsidian Front Matter or in the note body. Clearly a structure and associated template for these three note elements would make it much easier to write the permanete note and be able to use dataview plugin to search and find them. If so, where can one find them?

Can someone explain how to use the bottom-up approach? And creating permanent notes in a computer good? Or does it defeat the whole purpose of them?

I have one question. Why there are two types of cover of the books - one is from 2022 and the other one is older. What is the different? I saw both of them on amazon but I don’t know which one to buy?

what is the name of your music? I want to copy what you're doing thank you so much for everything you'v edone so far :0

A resource wiz cuts things short.

Besides using it to write things, Im trying to make it work in just learning new skills. Have you managed to learn a new skill by using this technique?

Sorry, I haven't been liking and commenting, I've been slacking on my part, but still great videos!

I can tell right off the bat that this is mot actionable/sustainable. Way too much of work. But great job making the video as always

When it comes to the conventional concept of note taking, z is not fit into it very well. Z is more like personal knowledge database which is consisted of filrered input and searchable outputs based on the relation among inputs. I think the current method of putting keywords and connecting relation btw notes by hand will be changed according to the development and application of textual, text based AI.

@productivitygame do you think this system is better or is building a second brain better ?

But what do you do to start?

Hey Everyone! While the video is good. I still don't get it completely. Any suggestions?

Is Roam Research Notes taking an app based on this? Especially step 3,4

OR you could use a relational database to capture and review.😆

Obsidian > Other digital PKM systems > Index cards.

1st

2nd

This is just busy work instead of meaningful work. It's a trap for us productivity weirdos to get lost in process instead of focusing on what's important. Also, of the 5+ tools I tried to get started with Zettlekasten, they are all really mediocre with poor UX.

Too complicated.

very poor info shared, other than evernote noting down, nothing else is worth understanding. Everyone has own way of doing, such complexity, I don't know how this would help. Doing same (almost) from many years, to manage professional personal & humans around me.

The fact you use Evernote over obsidian made you lose a point in my book 🤪... Edit: It would handle all the links, connections, references, rankings, sub thoughts, later ideas, meta thoughts all as standard

Well done, superb overview! Very good balance between the text-side and the image-side of the "PKM-Coin" ;-) I recommend it together with the Book On a Page video by Zsolt Viczian (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-o49C8jQIsvs.html).