Introduction

A Zettelkasten (German for "Note Box") is a garden for growing ideas you accumulate throughout your life. Over time it builds and becomes an architecture to structure your philosophy, help you to solve problems, and guide decisions.

Rather than scatter your digital knowledge throughout different projects, a Zettelkasten acts as your central knowledge management repository. It is the one place where everything you learn goes regardless of the project you are working on.

When you look online at other people's Zettelkasten systems, you'll notice each system is unique and personalized. And it should be. The workflow for your Zettelkasten should grow from your personal experience and needs as you use it. However, it can be daunting starting out, looking at how almost everyone makes their process super complicated. They take notes of everything they read. They spend hours writing their notes. And hours more fiddling with their processes. You don't need this. You need a system that's simple, portable, efficient, and practical. My process is much simpler. Capture, Nurture, and Share. Just read and listen and observe with a question in mind and write down what seems insightful and useful to you. Over time, you will develop an intuition to capture only that which resonates with you.

Think of consuming information as a panning for gold, the more you pan the more small amounts of gold build in the pan. You don't need to take notes on everything. Your system doesn't need to get bloated with information. You just need to pan for the few nuggets of gold that touch you every day in your digital garden's stream of thoughts to reap the benefits.

And this book will show you how to unlock the gold rush.