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Insight or Idea
In order for notes to develop novel ideas you need to be intentional about what you’ve learned from something and how it my connect to other ideas. Otherwise you run the risk of being repetitive from the content you consume. Typically ideas come from reading content anyway, but when we fail to capture that we also fail to capture the nuance of our insights.
gap-between-notes#^areadsgwsiip2biryigin725oThis is where using a Zettelkasten system can provide value. The idea here is to be intentional about rewording insights from other sources to 1. ensure you’re paying attention and 2. begin introducing perspective to the content you consume. After creating enough of these atomic notes, you may find you’ve realized some new connections and from that you can create structured notes. These structured notes aim to be wholly new ideas seeded from inspiration you’ve consumed.
The biggest value I’ve found it provide is it challenges me to specifically word out and decide what I’m learning or seeing as I connect dots rather than moving backwards from an idea. When you start with an idea, there is no structure or clarity of where that came from or why you believe it should be making new content.
my-note-taking-system#^framezpsb8cafg5ty3lpu4u64r
If you base your ideas off of moments or sudden “eureka” moments, you risk recreating content you’ve consumed in the past. The core insights you believe you’re providing become muddy. What’s your idea and what’s someone elses? And then you need to go back and find sources to fill out gaps to make your idea more concrete. This isn’t an awful way of doing it, but you’re putting the car before the horse and over invest in ideas before they’ve fully formed.
Zettelkasten encourages a structured note-taking experience that I find avoids these pitfalls. Ideas don’t pop up from no where, their origins become distinct and tangible. By writing notes you consume in your own words, it’s clear what’s your insight and what is just a rewording of other’s content. When you have an idea, you need to intentionally connect the dots or take a leap from an existing note. You don’t write reactively, you write proactively. And instead of filling gaps you start with a mostly formed insight as you lead into new content creation.Circular transclusion detected: 2-Areas/__assets/my-note-taking-system