Category: Produktivität

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The Zettelkasten as a Knowledge Management System and Beyond

There are a few topics that have been on my mind for decades, one of which is how to store and retrieve information and knowledge in a meaningful way—essentially, a Memex. In the 90s, I was a fan of Apple’s HyperCard, and since then, I’ve tried many things, but nothing has proven reliable. Data formats have disappeared (like Apple’s HyperCard), and even though the technical possibilities today are much broader than back then, I don’t have the impression that they have solved the fundamental problem. There is no quick fix that reads articles and books for you and also makes you understand them. I don’t trust summary services like Blinkist, not to mention that they don’t help me with scientific articles either.

In recent months, I’ve turned again to a system that I had used in the 90s but abandoned in favor of HyperCard: the Zettelkasten. Not just any box with index cards, but a Zettelkasten following the Luhmannian principle. Niklas Luhmann was one of the most significant sociologists of the 20th century, with an incredible number of academic publications to his name. His Zettelkasten, which actually consists of several boxes, contains about 90,000 slips and is being digitized at Bielefeld University. Luhmann attributed his productivity to this Zettelkasten system, and after several months using it, I can understand why. So how does the Zettelkasten work?

First of all, there are a few fundamental principles:

  • The quality of a paper depends on what has already been written. In an ideal world, the thoughts in the Zettelkasten are already formulated well enough to be directly incorporated. The goal of the Zettelkasten, therefore, is to generate insights that are worth publishing.
  • Everything you read is processed and placed into the Zettelkasten. Rather than following a strict plan (as is often recommended when writing academic papers), everything goes into the Zettelkasten and is, if possible, linked together right away. Luhmann himself always wrote his slips with the thought in mind of how they would fit into the existing notes. But new ideas can also emerge from the Zettelkasten at any time.
  • Writing about everything instead of starting directly with a hypothesis also has the advantage of reducing exposure to confirmation bias, which causes one to ignore anything that might challenge the hypothesis.
  • Highlighting in a text is useless, the learning effect is zero. According to Luhmann, thinking cannot happen without writing. Handwritten notes are preferable to those typed on a computer, as they tend to capture the essence better, thus facilitating understanding.
  • The Zettelkasten is not an archive, nor is it an idea graveyard like Moleskine notebooks.
  • There is no information hierarchy; thoughts can simply be inserted into Luhmann’s system wherever they fit. For example, if you have a note numbered “1,2,1” and another “1,2,2,” you can just insert a “1,2,1,a” if a thought is missing here. There’s no need to pre-think endlessly about what the best structure is.
  • Self-discipline is more important than IQ. A smart working environment ensures that you don’t face resistance from the start.
  • Daily work with the Zettelkasten leads to a new KPI for knowledge workers: How many notes are created each day!

How exactly does the Zettelkasten work?

  • When reading a text, “Literature Notes” are created, which contain only your own thoughts about the text, written in your own words.
  • These then lead to “Permanent Notes,” which are added to the Zettelkasten. The Literature Notes are discarded (this is also why I sent back my Scribe, since the Literature Notes could not be created with it).
  • Additionally, there are “Fleeting Notes,” which contain all the ideas you have.

The Zettelkasten system is highly minimalist, with no fancy notebooks or software tools. The reduction, or even restriction, to what is essential also stimulates creativity and thinking (see Stokes 2001 and Rheinberger 1997). Of course, there are software solutions like The Archive, and they would have advantages for me: I don’t always have my Zettelkasten with me. On the other hand, I’ve learned that when I’m sitting in front of a computer or iPad, I tend to get distracted. Therefore, I now carry index cards with me.

Here is an interesting video about Luhmann’s Zettelkasten, where he explains it himself starting at minute 37:26:

And here is the researcher who is now delving into the Zettelkasten:

 

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Why I Will Return My Kindle Scribe

I was actually really excited about the Kindle Scribe I ordered, because it seemed to solve two problems I have with using my reMarkable:

  • I don’t like writing my notes at the edge of a PDF, if there is even enough margin, because my work notes are the preliminary version of the final notes that go into my Zettelkasten. Simply highlighting something is not very useful, as some studies also suggest. I need to be able to write my own thoughts on a text, and that’s something the reMarkable 2 doesn’t allow me to do.
  • Light 🙂

Light is available, but otherwise, the Kindle Scribe has been a very disappointing experience for me. Of course, I don’t really want to throw money into Amazon’s pockets or store my data in their cloud, but the topics of “working through paper” and “reading” are of great importance to me. Since I don’t jot down anything confidential… one must choose the lesser evil. Perhaps someday there will be a solution that works without the cloud. But how good is the Scribe really?

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Working More Productively with the Apple Stage Manager

Apple’s new macOS version, Ventura, as well as the new iPadOS version 16, which will be released in the second half of 2022, bring many new features. One of the most hyped tools is the new multitasking feature, Stage Manager. Let’s take a closer look at it here.

What exactly does Stage Manager do?

Here’s what the press release says:

Stage Manager provides a completely new multitasking experience, where apps and windows are automatically organized, allowing users to quickly and easily switch between tasks. For the first time, users can create overlapping windows of different sizes in a single view on the iPad, drag and drop windows from the side, or open apps from the Dock to create groups of apps—enabling faster, more flexible multitasking. The window of the app the user is working in is displayed in the center, while other open apps and windows are arranged on the left side in order of their recency.

Apart from the marketing fluff, there are three key pieces of information here:

  • On the left, apps and windows are arranged in order of their recency.
  • You can group apps and windows.
  • On the iPad, you can now use overlapping windows of different sizes (we’ll cover the limitations below).

Let’s first take a look at the macOS version. In the following screenshot, we can see 5 apps/windows on the left side. If you look closely, you’ll notice even more, as two apps/windows are already grouped (at the very bottom).

When you click on these windows, you’ll see them stacked on top of each other, here with a different example:

On my rather small 14″ screen, this doesn’t make much sense. While I can still switch between windows using Command-Tab, I can’t see the windows related to my task in the way I need to. With such a small screen, it’s probably better to place each window needed for a task separately in Stage Manager.

The organization of windows still doesn’t work all that well. For example, RStudio opens a new window when I commit code. This is not assigned to the main RStudio window but instead opens as a completely new window. This is also visible in the screenshot above with a Mail window. It doesn’t seem fully thought through to me.

However, what’s kind of nice: If you’re watching a YouTube video in a browser window, it will continue playing in the left sidebar. Not that you’d be able to see much, but in YouTube’s Theater mode, you can still follow the video a bit. How this benefits concentration is another matter.

What are the advantages?

At first, I was a bit disappointed with Stage Manager. What’s supposed to be better about switching between different apps for a task? For me, the advantage lies in something completely different, which Apple probably didn’t intend.

When you switch from one app to another today, you lose sight of the previous app. This can lead to forgetting what you actually wanted to do (“Quickly check what exactly was written in the email… oh, there’s a new email, I need to read that first”). However, because the previous apps are still visible, you’re quickly reminded of what you were actually supposed to do. This has worked quite well for me in the few days I’ve been using Stage Manager.

How does Stage Manager work on the iPad?

Stage Manager is also available on the iPad, but only for iPads with an M1 processor. My less-than-a-year-old iPad Air cannot use Stage Manager. Nevertheless, I was able to test Stage Manager on another iPad.

First of all, I wondered how much sense Stage Manager makes on a small iPad screen. Of course, iPads can also be connected to an external display, and it likely works well in that case. Otherwise, I see the same advantages and disadvantages as with the macOS version. Here’s the screen with grouped apps on the left:

The stacked windows on the iPad make even less sense to me here, though I only have an 11″ model.

Do you really need Stage Manager?

I’m a bit concerned that Stage Manager will meet the same fate as Mission Control: hardly anyone knows about the feature, and most users probably only stumble upon it by accident. Additionally, Stage Manager needs to be activated first. My guess is that most users install the new OS versions simply because they are installed automatically, not because they really want them (unlike in the past, when people eagerly awaited a new macOS version, like macOS 8 in 1997, for which you also had to pay nearly 200 euros). On the other hand, sometimes you only realize how good a feature is once you have it.

The other new features in the latest OS versions are cosmetic. The system preferences on macOS now look exactly like those on iOS and iPadOS. I’m really curious about Freeform, but unfortunately, it’s not included in the beta version yet.

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Apple Notes – The True Memex for Knowledge Management and Productivity

In 1945 publiceerde Vannevar Bush zijn artikel “As We May Think“, waarin hij schreef over een systeem genaamd Memex. Memex voorzag systemen en benaderingen zoals HyperText en stelde voor om verschillende soorten materiaal te koppelen en doorzoekbaar te maken op basis van trefwoorden, “als een vergrote intieme aanvulling op zijn geheugen”. Gezien de technische mogelijkheden van die tijd zouden de gegevens nog op microfilm opgeslagen moeten worden, maar verder was het een vrij coole constructie.

Bush’s gedachten hadden een grote invloed op de ontwikkeling van het World Wide Web, en zeker heeft Wikipedia vandaag de dag veel van het idee achter Memex. Maar hoe zit het met ons eigen kennismanagement? Hoe slaat u uw gedachten, materialen, ideeën en notities op? Een probleem is dat niet alleen kenniswerkers worden blootgesteld aan enorme hoeveelheden informatie, die gefilterd, gesorteerd en doorgenomen moet worden.

In de jaren ’80 had Apple HyperCard, een propriëtair multimedia-hypertextsysteem dat ook populair was in het onderwijs. Tegenwoordig komt waarschijnlijk notion.so het dichtst in de buurt van zo’n systeem, en ik weet dat sommige van mijn studenten deze app gebruiken. Vroeger was het Evernote, vandaag Notion, morgen weer iets anders. En elke paar jaar zet je je gegevens over naar een ander systeem, of niet, omdat het veel te veel moeite is. Wie heeft notities uit oude Moleskines (die in de jaren 2000 populair waren) omgezet en gebruikt die nog steeds? Ik ben geen fan van constant nieuwe apps installeren, maar probeer ook hier niet meer te installeren dan nodig is, want gelukkig wordt de bijgeleverde software van Apple steeds krachtiger.

Met de nieuwe versie van macOS X, Monterey, introduceert Apple eindelijk tags in de notities op de Mac, na iOS en iPadOS. In plaats van de weinig flexibele mappen, die je natuurlijk nog steeds kunt behouden, is het nu mogelijk om een notitie meerdere tags toe te voegen en daarna naar meerdere tags tegelijk te zoeken. Dit komt veel dichter bij mijn manier van werken, want niet alles hoort altijd maar in één categorie. Gedachten die ik heb over een R-script, kan ik later ook in mijn blog gebruiken, enzovoorts.

But this is not the only new feature that Apple Monterey brings. The Quick Notes, already known from portable devices, now offer the ability to save text from websites and then refer to it. When you visit a website again later, the extracted text is highlighted. I haven’t tested what happens if the text on the website has been changed. Overall, this feature greatly helps in organizing a collection of saved URLs, bookmarks, reading lists, quotes, etc. (The following screenshot is from a Monterey beta:)

The fact that you can now extract text from images and screenshots on the Mac without any additional software—and actually even better than with third-party tools—makes my workflow much easier. If I find a passage in a physical book that I find interesting but don’t have a pen to mark it, I often take a photo of it with my phone. I’m not sure how many of these photos I have on my hard drive, always with the guilty feeling that I really should clean this up soon. In the new macOS version, the cursor in Photos automatically turns into a text cursor when you move it over text, and you can select and extract it right away. However, you have to be careful to hold the book in a way that this works, unlike in the photo below:

Unfortunately, this feature still doesn’t work in Notes, but I’m sure it will come eventually. You also can’t yet extract text from highlighted passages in Preview for Instant Notes with a reference; you can only copy the text, which, of course, is still very useful.

Despite all the criticism, Apple’s Notes, with its many links to other software on macOS, is getting very close to the concept of Memex. The question is increasingly whether users understand how to leverage all these features for their own use, and how to create a symbiosis between their workflows and such software. But Apple is definitely making notion.so a competitor, especially because of the team functions now available as well. Much like with Apple Reminders, there are fewer and fewer reasons to pay for a subscription to other software, which, in the worst case, is also less well-integrated with other Apple services.

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The Tool Craze: Working More Productively with Built-in Tools

As a student, I once had my professor’s laptop in my hands because I was supposed to configure something. This was around 1998, and he had a cool Wallstreet PowerBook from Apple. I was shocked by what he had installed. Almost nothing. Just what came with the operating system, and that wasn’t much. All of his texts were written with TextEdit, the MacOS editor. No WordPerfect (which was still popular at the time), no Microsoft Word, nothing. Back then, I didn’t understand it. How could he not install more programs that would make his work easier? Today, that professor is my role model, at least in terms of his simple approach to using his computer.

Since then, I’ve seen countless tools that were supposed to help with productivity or organizing oneself and one’s knowledge. Some of them I’ve tried or even used for a longer period. Hardly any of them proved themselves over time, whether because the developers gave up due to declining demand (like with Life Balance), or because an app became obsolete with newer technologies (like Apple’s HyperCard being replaced by the World Wide Web), or because the buyer of a startup product like Wunderlist preferred to replace it with their own Microsoft “To Do” and simply shut down the acquired software. In the 2000s, Omni Group’s tools like OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, etc., and Evernote were the hot stuff. Today, it’s things like Notion and similar tools.

The more tools I’ve seen, the less I believe in them. Or rather, I no longer believe that there’s an app for everything, or that there should be. Competence is more important than a tool. A tool can’t compensate for incompetence. It hardly matters which tool you use if you know what you’re doing. The reverse doesn’t work. A fool with a tool is still a fool.

Just as one should question the added value a new app might bring in the realm of digital minimalism, one can also simply ask whether a program already installed with the operating system can’t do the job just as well. Apple’s Reminders app, for instance, is now quite decent and syncs across all devices, just like Apple Notes. I have no idea about Microsoft Windows, maybe it works just as well there. The Google universe also offers a cross-device experience with all kinds of tools. Of course, one can and should also ask whether it makes sense to entrust one’s data to any company. If you want something more complicated, you can find plenty of built-in tools on Linux systems.

The approach of working almost entirely with built-in tools has many advantages. No FOMO. Simply ignore everything that’s being sold to you as the latest productivity hack. No more cluttering up the hard drive. Instead of productively procrastinating by searching for and learning new tools to make the upcoming work faster, just do the work that needs to be done. The few software tools I now use in addition can be counted on two hands, e.g., R, RStudio, TexShop, Ableton Live… and maybe I could have done the latter with GarageBand as well. My dock has remained unchanged since the initial installation of the computer.

Next, I’ll be discussing the organization of my files. More on that later.