Long story short. A few years ago I stumbled upon Scott Sheper’s book on the Zettelkaste.
It was a more fundamental look at Niklas Luhmann’s system he created in the 50s.
I’m not gonna bother you with the lore of it all because the rabbit hole is deep, but what I’m suggesting you do is either pick up a copy or do a bit of googling and go back to the analog days.
In Germany it was called a “slip box”, which is a note taking system designed to connect ideas like a web rather than filing them away in rigid, web of folders. It acts as a “second brain” where your knowledge compounds over time.
Each of these notes has one single concept per note. Where you keep it brief, self contained, and written in your own words.
BUT and it’s a big one…
You MUST always link them.
Notes are useless on their own. Every time you create a new note, you must link it to existing related notes.
There is also a flat structure, which means no categories or sub folders. The organisation emerges organically from the network of links, much like how neurons connect in a brain and then in return you start to magically create new work/ideas.
I remember writing about a similar thing like this that I’ve done for years. Where I’d chop and change between books/stories and somehow I’ve come up with new and interesting ideas…
The Zettelkaste is physical version. So start of small and get cracking and get that “second brain” built.
If you’re fatigued with AI and whatever else the “guru” clowns are peddling. This is the antidote to it all. You’ll reclaim your thinking and come up with new things that these slop merchants could never create, cause they’re too scared to sit alone inside their own head and process actual information.
On that note. Now I need to make sure a friends cats haven’t destroyed the place cause they act like they haven’t eaten in 25 years…
Stephen Walker.