Knowledge management for the distracted mind

I have an attention deficit disorder, and I struggle with forming and sustaining elaborate thoughts and ideas. This is especially the case in the realm of intellectual productivity. My ADHD doesn’t allow me to properly externalize my thoughts, and I frequently find myself in shallow cyclical thinking whose only purpose, it seems to me, is to further exaggerate my symptoms, overwhelm my executive functions, and fatigue my mind. 

Flimsy thoughts, distractions, and hyperactivity have been my nemeses ever since I started to consciously address my symptoms. An area of recurring pain and disorientation has been knowledge management. I consider myself a generalist (perhaps a side-effect of my wandering mind), yet I have never been able to sustain a robust system for managing my writing, research, and notes. Everything that I have tried has fallen apart at some point in the process.

Three years ago, however, I adopted a knowledge management system that productively utilizes my ADHD tendencies in pursuit of knowledge and clarity, and it hasn’t failed me yet. The system respects the generalist attitude that I have adopted and has transformed the way I form ideas and consume information. Its name is Zettelkasten and its creator is the famous German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

A Zettelkasten consists of individual notes where each one represents an idea, categorized in a hierarchical, alphanumeric manner, which allows the author to infinitely branch out notes, hyperlink them, and accumulate them in “hub” notes to generate lines of thought, topics and research areas.

In this article, I will briefly describe how the method works, how it has helped me in my intellectual endeavors, and point you to helpful resources for getting started. Having said that, this article, although quite long, is not a comprehensive representation of the Zettelkasten method. Its goal is only that of a superficial introduction as a potential tool for non-fiction writers, researchers, life-long learners, and, of course, ADHD “generalists.” The discourse on the method is much more involved, and I have linked several sources below that better articulate it.

With a little bit of patience and a few (perhaps a lot of) false starts, you too can forgo the conventional folder structures and tagging systems that plague the knowledge management world for a serendipitous, hyperlinked conversation partner, your own Zettelkasten.

All you need to get started is pen and paper (for an analog system) or plain text files on your computer.

Niklas Luhmann and his Zettelkasten

Luhmann, 1927-1998, was a professor of sociology at Bielefeld university in Germany, and was one of the last advocates of a “grand theory.” To pursue this endeavor he followed developments in disciplines outside of sociology such as law, theology, biology, public administration, political science, etc. By the time he died, he had published more than 500 works and had left many more unfinished, which were subsequently published after his death.

As an avid reader and note-taker, he considered his notes as assets to his intellectual future, and so he never discarded any of them, in expectation that they would aid him to the development of new ideas later on. He found conventional knowledge management to be flawed and a hindrance to serendipity. With trial and error, he devised his own system that was topic-agnostic and had the ability to surprise him with long-forgotten ideas and new insights. Its power was such that he referred to it as “a second memory.” The system consisted of slips of paper or index cards (his zettels) arranged in a wooden box drawer (a kasten)—thus the name Zettelkasten—one after the other, wherein each note bore a unique number on the upper left corner so that he could individually address and locate his ideas as they dispersed themselves across the file.

In addition to identification and atomic reference, the numbered sequence of cards allowed him to infinitely expand and interconnect his line of thoughts, thus enabling him to merge otherwise distinct concepts and patterns of thinking that, under conventional knowledge management systems, would require separate filing locations and more rigid structures.

In absolute terms, Luhmann’s file consisted of 90,000 notes, divided in two collections. The first collection (1951-1962) included topics in law, public administration, political science, philosophy, sociology, and other areas. The topics were spread in 23,000 cards divided over 108 sections, in addition to a keyword index and two bibliographies. The second collection (1963-1997) included just 11 top-level sections and hundreds of subsections, totaling 67,000 notes. The fact that the second collection only employed 11 top-level sections, or topics of inquiry, demonstrates a problem-solving approach whose focus was to make cross-topic connections and not rigid categorization (Schmidt, 2016). It is the second collection’s functionality and promise as a system that enables serendipity that has thrust Luhmann into the spotlight in the recent years.

To the outsider, Luhmann’s system resembled a chaotic accumulation of notes irrespective of topic and subject, though in reality the system was depended on a complex interconnected structure, which promoted a systematic concentration of topics and their evolution, and which did not strictly adhere to a traditional filing method. Notes relating to each other were placed in physical proximity in accordance to his numbering system, but before that could happen they had to be assigned a top-level order. Top-level ordering (as indicated by the first number in a card; e.g., “[1].0 = Ancient civilizations”) was important in the beginning but later became largely a matter of ambiguity because over time, notes accumulated in large clusters and branched away from the top-level relationship, transforming into their own topics and lines of thought that bore minimal resemblance to the original category. Therefore, top-level order was quickly rendered redundant and the placement of notes was solely determined by their relationship to existing ideas in the file. 

Referencing & the keyword index

According to Schmidt, J. (2016), Luhmann believed that the usefulness of a new note in the file was determined based on the ability to relate it to existing ideas. This method of filing created a problem because it was entirely conceivable to have more than one suitable place for a note. This is where internal referencing and a keyword index were utilized to solve the problem.

When similar notes were found in other parts of the file, a referencing system was deployed to bring everything together, thereby further obscuring the initial categorization from the reality that existed in the center of the file. Luhmann used three types of references to connect his ideas:

1. An outline structure of ideas that needed to be addressed in a section, placed at the the very beginning of a cluster of notes.
2. Collective references (or hub notes): At the beginning of sections, he included notes from other parts of the card index that might relate to the topic being developed.
3. Single references, which resembled hyperlinks, directly referencing individual notes in the file.

Finally, the chaos of references and endless lines of thought was tamed by utilizing a central keyword index. The keyword did not aim to capture the entirety of the file, for it was not conceived of as a table of contents. Its main goal was to provide entry points to notes in the file so that ideas and topics could be located more efficiently. The index also aimed to accomplish thematic completeness (Schmidt, 2016). Keywords where chosen wisely and sparingly. Luhmann determined that they should be purposefully broad and contextual so that a search for a specific line of thought would uncover other potential referenced paths and clusters of ideas that he could take advantage of, and which could provide fresh insights and inquiries.

My implementation & the anatomy of a note

Now that I have explained a little about how Luhmann’s method works, I want to show you my digital implementation of the method which utilizes markdown files (plain text) and two folders: one bibliographical and another for the zettels. The bibliographical section, unlike my zettels, is alphabetized and contains literature notes from my readings. It acts as a simple reference archive.

The following list of notes has been copied from a larger section of my zettels folder. The number six, before the dot, denotes “psychology” in my index, which is a top-level section, but entries relating to this category can be found all across my file. For example, I maintain a section that tackles stories, fiction, and narratives wherein psychological concepts and ideas tend to develop. When that happens, I either hyperlink notes so that I can establish a bidirectional relationship between them or input them in the reference hub note in my psychology section (usually that would be the very first note; e.g., 6.0 – Psychology Reference).

As you can see, the list is represented alphanumerically. Let’s focus on 6.2h. When I created the note 6.2h, I kept reading and researching and eventually wrote another note which I marked as 6.2i. Further reading uncovered additional ideas that were more related to 6.2h than to 6.2i or any other note, and so I alternated from letters to numbers to be able to input my new notes directly below 6.2h. This is how clusters are created. These ideas do not need to be hyperlinked to each other because they are placed in close proximity and so a search for one note will uncover its surrounding notes as well.

Now let’s examine the anatomy of a single note:

Every note that I create is marked with an alphanumerical ID, followed by a short description of the contents of the note, which comprises the title of the file, helping me identify it when I perform searches. Below the title I place the hyperlinks. This note is found in a cluster in the psychology section, but I have referenced 21.2f (an idea that resides in a different part of the file) as a note that directly relates to it. If I click on the hyperlink, I will be transported to the notes within 21.0 which contains new branches of ideas and topics for exploration.

Below the direct references I enter the contents of the note. I aspire to make my notes as short as possible so that one note holds a single idea.

The last and most important tool in my system is a manual index that provides me with entry points to my ideas and research. As I mentioned before, the goal of the index is not to capture every note in the file but to display thematic completeness, to act as an entry point only. Luhmann’s index was alphabetized, but I have chosen to group my entry points in relation to each other since I do not yet have a large enough number of zettels to necessitate an alphabetized order for clarity’s sake.