I was referring to the comments made by Sascha Fast on the Tinderbox forums. I hope he will not mind if I quote them more fully:
the collective thinking process (due to the popularity of the book by Ahrens) was pushed heavily in the direction of thinking about the workflow that transforms each note type to another.
I think this is a distraction from the real issues that are interesting when you ask yourself the Zettelkasten question: How can I create a system that is extends my ability to deal with ideas (and knowledge in general) in a way that it scales beyond one project.
The questions derived from this line of thinking are for example:
- How to write a note for longevity?
- How to access a very big and highly complex note collection (or the network if you connect the notes) to assist with the task at hand (thinking on an issue, writing a text etc.)?
- How to optimize the effect of creating one note?
- How to access note collections within a note collection? (Not just notes that share a property, but also note clusters that are more tightly connected to each other than to others)
There are also issues/opportunities that emerge from other lines of thinking. For example: My Zettelkasten is also a training tool for me. I have almost 13k notes at the moment. But yesterday I could demonstrate how to create connections between two notes that I took 8 years apart within 2 minutes. It is possible because of the way I work with my Zettelkasten and the depth of connection between the note content. The connected question is:
- How can you optimize the training effect on your brain using your note-taking system? (Instead of just letting your tool taking care of tasks, which could lead to atrophy of your specific skill in the worst case)
So, don’t get hung on note definitions if you want to understand the Zettelkasten Method. Instead, focus on the actual challenges you want to attack.
Source: Tinderbox Meetup - Sunday, April 23, 2023: What does it mean to use Tinderbox as a Zettelkasten tool (or tool for what ever method we individually might use)? - #27 by Sascha - Q & A - getting started with Tinderbox - Tinderbox Forum
There is no magic in the Zettelkasten method. Some of the most revered and influential scholarly works in the history of mankind were written with nothing more than a quill pen and a penetrating mind.
Much is made of the quantity of writing put out by Luhman – but I don’t see a lot of discussion of its quality. I’m not qualified to do so because I haven’t read any of it, but I can’t help wondering why his work is not better known outside Germany if it is so remarkable.
It doesn’t matter what method you use if the ideas you eventually come up with do not resonate with other people. In the end, all we are trying to do is to communicate with others.