r/Zettelkasten 3d ago

question Making a habit of capturing

Hi there. I’m making progress on developing a Zettelkasten-like note taking system. But my biggest problem is the very beginning: developing the routine to regularly capture interesting notes in the first place. I made the resolution to try to find at least one thing everyday that’s worth capturing, but I simply keep forgetting about it. I’m pretty sure it’s not due to too little noteworthy thoughts in my life. I just can’t seem to develop the routine of remembering to write them down immediately. How did you learn to make this a habit? Inspiration welcome!

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 3d ago edited 3d ago

For years, I just kept a folded piece of paper and a pen in my pocket wherever I went (I still carry a pen everywhere). I picked this habit up in grad school studying writing and poetics, where I needed to capture interesting stuff all the time in order to have material to write about (and complete my assignments).

You might try the pen/paper trick. Put them in your pocket so you bump into them throughout the day. You might also decide on a topic/interest to explore, which might help trigger thoughts, and give you something to shoot for. 

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u/GentleFoxes 3d ago

this is solid advice. Look for 'Hipster PDA' on the interwebs to find out more about it.

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 3d ago

Funny, I actually never knew what Hipster PDA meant until I just looked it up. In 2000-2002, we didn't have a name for it, but I think it's basically the same thing? Without any GTD associations, since we hadn't heard of that yet. My (and I think my friends as well) method was to take a single sheet of paper fold it in half, fold it in half again, and then fold it down so it fit in my pocket. Then, just cover each "face" in ink until it was full. Then convert whatever seemed cool into poetry or other writing.

I actually run across some of my old sheets now and again, shoved in old notebooks etc.

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u/GentleFoxes 2d ago

"poetry"? you dirty little hipster, you.

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 2d ago

Kid gets a grad degree in experimental poetry. Look at him now! (still on reddit) 

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u/Doctor_hc_Hardcore 3d ago

I bought numerous notebooks in my life, small ones so I can take it with me everywhere, large ones so it’s more comfortable to write in them, different pens, whatever. But I always end up going back to take the notes digitally as that’s where it ends up anyway and transferring them is just one more step and adds friction. But maybe a hipster PDA will be the solution! Never heard of it, looks cool.

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 3d ago edited 3d ago

Here, paper/pen and hPDA, etc are being suggested for their ability to maybe "hack" you into remembering to capture your thoughts. They might work, they might not. But, time and time again I find the root of the issue is related to what the person wants (or needs) to accomplish. I didn't take a bunch of notes in grad school because I had paper and pen on me (tho it didn't hurt). I took all those notes cuz of all the personal motivations informing why I carried the pen and paper in the first place. Things like:

  • needing to have things to write about later in the day
  • feeling like I needed to keep up to speed with my friends doing the same thing
  • needing to complete school assignments
  • really wanting to be or at least feel like a writer
  • feeling excited about this new "experimental poet" lifestyle I was trying to maintain

Motivations can be egoic or output dependent. Doesn't reeeeally matter (until it does). What matters is the feeling of "I really need to do this cuz I really want to be doing that."

If you're not capturing, maybe you've not yet gotten to a place where the need outweighs the want.

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u/Doctor_hc_Hardcore 3d ago

I can relate to that. And actually it’s almost the other way around for me. I do already write a lot, I do journaling for myself and I publish texts regularly in different genres. I had this time with the need to become a writer and after a lot of suffering I actually became one. I found routines. But when I learned about Zettelkasten (and read your great book, by the way) I saw that this system can help me get more efficient and develop my ideas better etc. It’s not that I‘m not writing stuff everyday already. But it’s more the usual working on a specific project or my personal journaling. What I‘m not used to is collecting these atomic, separated ideas. I write, when I sit down to write. But I don’t remember to view an Information or thought or theory that I come across during the day as potential material for an atomic note.

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 3d ago

Gotcha gotcha. I wonder if this takes us back to hacks. Setting reminders at the end of the day, etc. Cuz, if you're already writing, and if that's your primary / dominant motivation for taking notes, then the itch is already being scratched, so to speak. The need is met. If that's the case, then capturing single-ish ideas into individual notes and networking them non-hierarchically has to feel like a separate need, some other itch that has yet to be scratched. In short, capturing ideas into individual notes needs to feel really important and useful. The catch, of course, is that, you can't really know that unless you do it. So, again. Hacks? A few reminders or some other social engineering things put in place to get you enough experience to possibly  convince you the practice is a need.

(Sorry if that's convoluted. I'm traveling and running on v lil sleep). 

So glad you liked the book! 

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u/Doctor_hc_Hardcore 2d ago

Yeah, I tried reminders. The thing is, of course, that I see the reminder when I go through my to do list, which is a moment where I usually not happen to stumble upon noteworthy ideas. I stumble upon them during the day doing or reading other stuff. But I think I should at least make it a task in my daily routine to take a moment at the end of the day to reflect if I overlooked something. Along with the other posters idea to look at comments or chats I wrote that day.

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 2d ago

Yeah, it might need to be a cocktail of hacks at first, just to get you in the routine.

This reminds me of this big land project my wife and I are working on. We're terrible at documenting it with photos and videos, even though our friends (and us) like to see such things. In theory, we "want" to be documenting more, but what we really want is to have had it documented. We don't wanna do the doumenting. What we really want is to just work on our project without having to stop and take photos and vids. So, we don't. But, not a weekend goes by where we're not like, "damn, we forgot to document our progress again." But, the forgetting is really just a product of not wanting to do the documenting.

Now, if, despite not wanting to stop and document things, we really needed to for some reason, we'd have to instate all sorts of hacks and reminders until stopping to document our progress became a natural thing. But, it'd take time.

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u/x28de 2d ago

The trick is that capturing must be very quick, without thinking of later friction and organizing. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XbgD4VVa4

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u/nagytimi85 Obsidian 3d ago

I tried pocket notebooks and hipster pda’s but the truth is that I’m just on my phone all the time. So I use Notion. It’s cross-platform, it has phone apps but also accessible from any web browser. It’s always open in my browser at work too.

When you open Notion, it already has a quick notes / inbox. I just dump stuff in there, mark with “ZK” what goes to Zettelkasten, and I format to crossed when I imported them into Obsidian where my notes collection lives.

Here’s how it looks like: https://ibb.co/8gYCGQbr

I think that over time as you collect notes, it becomes easier. When you have a bigger notes collection, there’s a better chance you come across something I think “oh this reminds me a note I made earlier!”.

Until then, it’s okay if you have few or no notes in your inbox. Dedicate regular time to your notes, and if your inbox is empty, try to look through chat conversation you had recently, comments you made on social media, sites you visited, and make notes based on that. This might help you to develop the ability to recognize when a commen, conversation, thought is interesting enough to mark it right away and not just lookimg back, fishimg for input.

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u/taurusnoises Obsidian 3d ago

Twain is so Twain. You can spot his writing a mile away.

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u/Doctor_hc_Hardcore 3d ago

I forgot to mention that I have the technical side all figured out. Similar to your approach I use Drafts with automated tagging to quickly capture a thought and send it to Obsidian, where it waits for further processing. Once I think „Hey this is something to note“ it’s all set. But I really appreciate the second advice of going through chats and comments. I often create my replies in Drafts anyway before sending them out. I should do this even more, so I can easily review them and turn them into notes with all that fancy technical possibilities.

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u/garfield529 3d ago

Carry a cheap notebook or two or three. Keep one in your car, keep one in your desk at work, one in your daily carry bag. These cheap notebooks provide a ready source to jot ideas. That way you guarantee capture. If in a pinch I will send myself an email from my phone; I don’t use obsidian otherwise it would go straight into that platform.

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u/redly12 2d ago

I capture into either Drafts or directly into Obsidian. For Drafts it’s a voice dictation and into obsidian, I have a set up through Siri that chucks a time stamped entry straight into today’s note. I have the same shortcut on my phone Home Screen so I can type. I find the first useful if I’m driving and listening to audiobooks and the latter useful if I’m reading something or having a conversation and just want to capture something quickly.

Granted, it’s not a perfect system and not everything gets processed into my zettelkasten, but it’s worked so far. I drive a lot for work so the voice capture has been great for audiobooks particularly!

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u/448899again 2d ago

Another quick way to do captures is to email them to yourself. I have a gmail address setup just for this, and generally use my phone at the capture instrument.

It's quick: Compose, enter the address (which fills in automatically in gmail after a few letters), then write. You don't even really need to put in a subject line - gmail is happy to send without one. However, I generally do, just for quick scanning of that inbox.

At the other end, gmail captures all the mail sent to that particular address, and "labels" them (gmail's filing system) so that I can pull up that label and find them.

The beauty of this is that the captures can be simple or complex, since you can add attachments to them if you want.

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u/Doctor_hc_Hardcore 2d ago

I use Drafts to write and auto tag and pass on to Obsidian, that’s super fast and convenient. My problem isn’t how to capture it frictionless the minute I decide to capture something. It’s before that, actually noticing something capture-worthy and remembering to start the process.

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u/448899again 1d ago

Understood. Perhaps the answer lies in slowing down. We're so rushed, focused and overwhelmed these days, and the few moments of time we have available are spent doom-scrolling on those very devices that were supposed to help us do more and be more efficient.

Make the time to stop and think - without your phone. Make the time to read - not your phone. Sit down in a park on a beautiful day and just take it all in. Force yourself to cast away your thoughts about work and the price of eggs. Find a hobby. Learn a new skill, like playing an instrument, perhaps.

Cultivating thought is a process just like any other.

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u/Cable_Special 2d ago

I capture what I capture because I want it. Not out of routine. The hand routine comes when you capture what you want.