I began taking digital notes in my final semester of college with a nice piece of software called Obsidian. I used it on a single device, with no form of syncing, and took the occasional notes from class. That was the extent of my system. It did what it needed an nothing more.

When I graduated college, I began looking into ways to continue my learning, and additionally, ways to improve my notes, which I felt were indispensible to the learning process. I stumbled through a sea of note-taking tutorials at that time; some were good, some were bad, but eventually, I discovered the book How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens.

This was my first introduction to the Zettelkasten system, and while the book was insightful, I did feel that it lacked the HOW part of How to Take Smart Notes. It was really more of a WHY to take smart notes. It was at least a start, and one I am glad to have found.

To test out my new system, I started consuming all sorts of content, but mostly non-fiction. I can look back fondly on those times. I worked through Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, and took a copious amount of notes. This was my system for many months, until some time in 2025 when I saw people recommending A System For Writing by Bob Doto on the Zettelkasten subreddit. It turns out that this book is a much more comprehensive reference about using a Zettelkasten effectively.

I have purchased this book and read through it TWICE, implementing more of the system outlined each time. Bob Doto even has a blog/website where he publishes articles about the Zettelkasten, most of what I have read of his is a gold mine of information.

Yes yes, Bob Doto this, and Sonke Ahrens that: What is a Zettelkasten? For those who aren’t familiar with the term, it is a German word for “slipbox”. It comes from building up a repository of physical notes, slips, index cards, what have you, in boxes. I won’t go into great detail of the origin and development of the system, just a few basic traits that most Zettelkasten share. Notice how I said “most”. Not every Zettelkasten is exactly alike. There are no rules for using one. And on to the commonalities:

• Linking
• Bottom-up structure
• Distinct note types

These are the three things I came up with as the distinguishing features of a Zettelkasten system over other note-taking methods. The first two go hand-in-hand: linking provides a way to make connections between notes without combining them. Think of linking like links in a website; each website has a bunch of webpages that (hopefully) all link to each other. The bottom-up structure means that there is no hierarchy to the notes. None of the notes are put into different folders, categorized, or situated in a rigid system. They are all free to link to one another, and remain otherwise unorganized. The structure comes from the notes themselves, hence the term, bottom-up. Finally, there is the separation of note types. Main notes are what I was just talking about. They are the important ones, but there are also fleeting notes, and reference notes. These are what act as an entryway into the system, and can eventually spur a main note to be created.

The primary piece of software I use for note-taking is Emacs in combination with the Org-roam package, which provides all of the basic utilities I mentioned in the previous section. I have a note-taking setup on all of my computers, which requires syncing. For that I use Syncthing, which syncs up my notes directory, and I don’t think about it beyond that.

I have captures set up to create new notes in the following directories:

drwxr-xr-x 256 landerwells staff 8192 Jul 22 09:30 daily
drwxr-xr-x 262 landerwells staff 8384 Jul 21 10:26 main
drwxr-xr-x 128 landerwells staff 4096 Jul 17 20:20 reference

The only quirky part of my setup that I have, is a little package I created to automate the generation of Folgezettel, which is an alphanumeric ID system to help organize notes by their contents. Bob Doto has multiple interesting articles on Folgezettel. I used to believe they were a waste of time, something left over from the days when Zettelkasten used to be physical notecards. I have changed my opinion on them since. I believe they are incredibly helpful in organizing the notes digitally as well.

Example of Folgezettel:

1.1 A Zettelkasten is a system for thinking and writing.org
1.1a The use of a Zettelkasten does not inherently improve one's ability to write.org
1.1a1 Do not let the use of a Zettelkasten get in the way of writing.org
1.2 A fleeting note is any idea important enough to capture in the moment.org
1.2a Taking fleeting notes is the first step towards an externalized thinking process.org
1.2b The Zettelkasten is informed by what currently interests you.org
1.2b1 A main note is a self-contained unit of information.org
1.2b2 Folgezettel is an alphanumeric identification system for the Zettelkasten.org
1.2b2a The use of Folgezettel provides the note maker with a bird's eye view of their Zettelkasten.org

Daily notes are a scratchpad for anything that happens in a day. If there is something I need to work out quick by typing down, that is where it goes. I try to finish my days off by writing down everything important that happened to me that day.

The main directory is where the bulk of my notes go. I would love to say I have thousands of notes in here, accumulated over the last two years or so, but I have 261 at the time of writing. I am not afraid to delete a note. I refactor notes often, and many of my earlier notes do not hold up to the test of time.

The reference directory contains all of my notes that come from a particular source. This can be anything from books, YouTube, other websites, etc. The reference notes spur the creation of main notes. Anything I find interesting, or think would be useful in the future can get transformed.

I started my Zettelkasten journey as a means of getting more out of the content I was consuming. I believe it has helped with that, and also pushed me towards writing more. I doubt I would have ever decided writing was something I wanted to partake in. Writing however, is incredibly powerful. It requires you to be precise; to put your thoughts down without ambiguity, and is integral in the thinking process.

This is all I have to say for now on my note-taking system. I might update this page in the future if anything big changes.