I call this “anti-spaced repetition”: the benefit is from surfacing connections for material you’ve forgotten (as opposed to reviewing material you still remember so as to strengthen retention). You can optimize time spent reviewing older material by using the spacing effect to estimate which things have been forgotten for the longest—same equation, just optimizing for something else.
I started writing a blog post in response, but that seems a bit much for a comment. Suffice to say, I agree that anti-spaced repetition is a good idea. However, it throws away the context of the notes you made, as well as showing it to you after your mind has totally forgotten about it. And as I wrote, those seem to be major factors in the value of the Zettlekasten method!
Before or after what? If it is a passage in a book, or an article you wrote, I agree that’s enough. But what about a nebulous concept you struggled to put into words? Or an idea which seemed to have suprising links to other thoughts, which you didn’t pursue at the time. If you write all this stuff down explicitly, then fine. If not, and you’re writing style is like mine, then it seems better to link to other cards and leave it to your future self to figure it out.
Plus, links provide the system extra information with which it can auto-suggest other relevant ideas that you weren’t even aware you were considering.
I call this “anti-spaced repetition”: the benefit is from surfacing connections for material you’ve forgotten (as opposed to reviewing material you still remember so as to strengthen retention). You can optimize time spent reviewing older material by using the spacing effect to estimate which things have been forgotten for the longest—same equation, just optimizing for something else.
I started writing a blog post in response, but that seems a bit much for a comment. Suffice to say, I agree that anti-spaced repetition is a good idea. However, it throws away the context of the notes you made, as well as showing it to you after your mind has totally forgotten about it. And as I wrote, those seem to be major factors in the value of the Zettlekasten method!
Why can’t any individual ‘item’ be shown with context like a dozen lines before/after (eg fading out)?
Before or after what? If it is a passage in a book, or an article you wrote, I agree that’s enough. But what about a nebulous concept you struggled to put into words? Or an idea which seemed to have suprising links to other thoughts, which you didn’t pursue at the time. If you write all this stuff down explicitly, then fine. If not, and you’re writing style is like mine, then it seems better to link to other cards and leave it to your future self to figure it out.
Plus, links provide the system extra information with which it can auto-suggest other relevant ideas that you weren’t even aware you were considering.