I honestly didn’t think Zettelkasten sounded like a good idea before I tried it. It only took me about 30 minutes of working with the cards to decide that it was really good. So, if you’re like me, this is a cheap experiment. I think a lot of people should actually try it to see how they like it, even if it sounds terrible.
You’d think that as someone who holds advice from Abram in high regard, as someone who verbally agreed to try Zettelkasten, and as someone who knows about trivial inconveniences and the value of cheap experiments with large potential upside, I would have actually tried Zettelkasten when Abram suggested it… but I didn’t. I bought the stuff, but then I took a while to actually try it. This was a mistake—AFAICT, Zettelkasten has indeed significantly boosted my productivity, at least as far as it comes to idea/proof generation. So, don’t make that mistake.
(I haven’t read this post yet vs the earlier draft, but I wanted to make this comment before I forget)
No, but I’ve also stopped doing a number of other habits for unrelated personal reasons. I’m also not currently engaging in that kind of exploratory research. Once I am, I strongly expect I’ll resume the habit.
Signal-boosting this:
You’d think that as someone who holds advice from Abram in high regard, as someone who verbally agreed to try Zettelkasten, and as someone who knows about trivial inconveniences and the value of cheap experiments with large potential upside, I would have actually tried Zettelkasten when Abram suggested it… but I didn’t. I bought the stuff, but then I took a while to actually try it. This was a mistake—AFAICT, Zettelkasten has indeed significantly boosted my productivity, at least as far as it comes to idea/proof generation. So, don’t make that mistake.
(I haven’t read this post yet vs the earlier draft, but I wanted to make this comment before I forget)
After half a year, do you still use Zettelkasten? Do you still think it has significantly boosted your productivity?
No, but I’ve also stopped doing a number of other habits for unrelated personal reasons. I’m also not currently engaging in that kind of exploratory research. Once I am, I strongly expect I’ll resume the habit.
Yeah, I think people just mostly need multiple nudges in order to try this.