Highlights
1 A bicycle for the mind
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My digital Zettelkasten allows me to seamlessly engage my thoughts with a high-powered database of the most interesting things I’ve read or thought – things I know I know, but which are just beyond the reach of my consciousness.
Muy parecido a mi propia experiencia
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A bicycle turns small efforts into tremendous output. A Zettelkasten – especially a digital one – is a bicycle for the mind.
2 Low-effort production for a distracted world
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the Zettelkasten method hijacks our short attention spans to help us be productive. If you have a few minutes in the waiting room at the dentist, which are you going to choose: dig into a big project such as reading a dense book, or kill time with social media? When you have a digital Zettelkasten, there’s a third option: do small things with small notes, straight from your phone.
3 Caveats about this book
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Instead of using my brain power to try to remember things, I’m using it to write better articles, newsletters, and books. I finally found a bicycle for my mind.
Permite ser eficiente en el uso energía limitada y enfocarla a la producción. Apalancar nuestra capcidad pra extender la mente.
4 What is a Zettelkasten?
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The Zettelkasten method is a way of organizing paper in a non-hierarchical way. Instead of being restricted to keeping a note only under one category, or having to make multiple copies of the same note to put in various places, notes are organized so that you can arrive at one individual note through various routes, and that note can lead you to various other notes – much like today’s internet, but in paper form.
Permite crear tu propio ecosistema de ideas.
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Unlike a card-catalog in an old library, the purpose of a Zettelkasten is not to find an individual note, but rather to explore the connections amongst notes. This can help you collect knowledge to write papers and books quickly, and find areas you may need to research further. Additionally, the act of organizing a Zettelkasten often leads to unexpected insights that spring from the process of linking notes to one another, or assigning keywords to a note.
Cómo Funciona y para qué sirve un zettlekasten
5 What is a Zettelkasten for?
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A Zettelkasten helps you produce writing.
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No more forgetting what a book was about the moment you finish reading it. The Zettelkasten method helps break reading down into a series of engaging rituals that repeatedly expose you to the most interesting things you’ve read – thus helping you retain what you read.
Me gusta esta idea de que lo que te ayuda son los rituales placenteros asociados al cultivo del jardín como efecto del consuml de contenido.
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Instead of starting each writing project with a blank page, you already have written short passages you can stitch together to create an instant first draft.
Esta es uno de los beneficios más valorados y promocionados.
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Because your Zettelkasten frees your mental energy from having to remember and retrieve things you read or wrote long ago, you have more mental energy available to think about new ideas.
Un poco como el fuego y la cocin liberaron recursos anclados en las mandibulas de nuestros antepasados.
6 Misconceptions corrected
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Sometimes ignorance is more comfortable than learning, because learning means we have to go through the work of changing.
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Note-taking does not have to be harder than reading. In fact, note-taking can be broken down into a series of pleasurable and easy activities, all that build into something great. While I can only do so much long-form reading in a day, the activities involved in managing a Zettelkasten are varied. This means I can increase the amount of time I engage with my reading, writing, and thinking, without fatigue. These activities take place in various “mental states” (much like the Seven Mental States of Creative Work I presented in my book, Mind Management, Not Time Management). Instead of being one isolated activity, reading is now various activities, each feeding into the next.
Siguiendo la lógica de los rituales placenteros, tomr notas de buea manera puede enriquecer el placer de la lectura.
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the proper way to take notes is not to copy things word-for-word (except in the case of exact quotes). Instead, you re-write it in your own words, which is even more powerful. Second, you don’t write down everything you read. You only write down the important things: Things that are interesting, relevant to your work, or that you otherwise want to retain.
Tomar notas en tus prpias palabras de lo que clnsideras relevante
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Something about the act of writing with little effort trains your brain to feel less intimidated in other situations when you are, in fact, starting from scratch.
Ya he sentido que me fluye algo más la escritura desde que comencé con esto.
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your notes are not simple records of facts and figures. They can be, but inherent in your Zettelkasten is your own thoughts.
Tus notas no son cualquir tipo de conocimiento, son tu propio pensamiento escrito.
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Your Zettelkasten also lets you store incomplete thoughts and connections.
Esto es importante: la libertad de nl tener quw dejar todo listo para publicar
7 Digital or paper?
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I design my workflow so that I can be exposed to new information, absorb that information, retrieve and develop and link that information, and turn it into writing – with minimal friction, like a bicycle. I want the maximum output for the mental energy I invest.
El concepto de workflow es muy imporrante. Zettelkasten no es sólo una forma de organizar conlcimiento, es también el conjunto de acciones que te llevan a organizarlo.
8 Which app(s) to use? (Whichever you want.)
9 Anatomy of a Zettelkasten
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Fleeting notes are casual, so can be in many places, such as on scraps of paper or in a notes app on your phone.
Poner fleeting notes en la aplicación de notas de mac.
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Processing the contents of the inbox will be a regular ritual in managing your Zettelkasten.
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The purpose of a fleeting note is to say, “here’s something interesting I might want to remember or refer to some day.” You need to record just enough information to later decide whether you want to turn your fleeting note into a literature note, permanent note, or someday/maybe.
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Literature notes are informal summaries you write about a piece of media you’ve consumed.
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the act of writing literature notes also ensures you understand the material. Aside from direct quotes, literature notes are in your own words.
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To write literature notes, you have to think about what you learned, and how you might explain it to a friend (or your future self). This helps you remember the material better than you would otherwise.
Criterio para escribir nota de literatura
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Permanent notes are explanations of a single idea, annotated with metadata about the subject of the note, other notes that note is related to, and the source of the note.
“Notas permanentes”
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your permanent notes are your Zettelkasten.
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The permanent note is the last stop for an idea before you synthesize it into something new.
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Bit by bit, I’m learning to trust the process, quit whining, and re-write.
Esas señales son las que tengo que seguir.
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When you take the extra time to re-write, only the clearest and most compelling elements survive – not to mention that you further internalize the knowledge.
Dos razones que justifican reescribir ideas reiteradamente en tus prooias palabras
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I try to write down only the important things, but I limit myself only because I don’t want to spend all my brain power thinking about other people’s ideas. I want to leave mental energy left over to daydream and see what I come up with on my own.
10 How to read
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Having instantly-searchable, and portable access to your highlights, and being able to search your books for things you want to reference but didn’t highlight, is incredibly powerful. Even if you love paper books, I strongly encourage you to go digital, at least for reading you plan to include in your Zettelkasten.
Ventajas de leer en digital
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Once you’ve exported your highlights, review them and highlight, once again, the parts of those highlights that are the most interesting.
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With plain-text Markdown highlights, I “highlight” simply by bolding text in a text editor.
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(Tiago Forte calls the highlighting of highlights “progressive summarization.“)
Bien nombre para u paso interesante para agregar a mi workflow
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Look at the highlights of your highlights and re-write the interesting ones in your own words. You’re now turning your fleeting notes into a literature note.
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By trying to think of how to describe the passage in my own words, I activate the associative machine, which often causes the current idea to collide with some other idea in my mind. Associative thinking promotes a positive mood, so it shouldn’t be a surprise how fun this task is.
Heavy esto. Poner en tu lenguane revela toda tu red asociativa, y muy ckerto que es divertido.
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Now take only the most interesting ideas from the literature notes, and turn each into individual permanent notes. Permanent notes should have one idea per note.
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If you try this process and it feels boring to you, it may be because the material you’re reviewing doesn’t feel relevant, doesn’t interest you, or you already know the material too well to justify taking notes on it. Don’t feel like you have to follow every step of the process. Sometimes it’s more productive to review old notes, read something new, or write something than it is to process what you’ve just read.
Seguir el camino de menor resistencia
11 How to name your files
12 Choosing keywords/tags
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Your Zettelkasten is for turning your knowledge and ideas into writing. Presumably what you’re writing will offer a unique perspective. So avoid generic keywords, such as “Psychology.” This may be hard if you’re in the beginning stages of researching a subject, but as soon as possible, create keywords based upon patterns you see, which inform theories you’re working on.
Usar etiquetas que hablen de la temática personal de interes, no de un concepto genérico
13 Comfortable rituals for upkeep
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If you aren’t careful, maintaining a Zettelkasten can feel like a lot of work. This is especially true if you’re like me, and you want to minimize the time you spend on a computer. You can make it easy and fun if you design comfortable rituals for managing your Zettelkasten.
DIseñar rituales cómodo
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The goal is to – as I described in my book, Mind Management, Not Time Management – match my mental state to the type of thinking I want to do.
14 Turning your notes into completed work
15 Metadata
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choosing to include too much metadata can slow down your processes and make maintaining your Zettelkasten feel like a chore.
Ms no siempre es mejor
16 Begin
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the first thing to do is merely begin.