In the last post I mentioned that the Zettlekasten system had something in common with GTD in that they both are predicated on the idea that long-term thoughts are best stored in a trusted external system. I see a similar parallel between Zettlekasten and Agile.
I suppose a quick overview of Zettlekasten as I currently understand it would be in order. German for “slip box” this note taking/knowledge management system was developed by this guy as a way to both arrange his thoughts and, more importantly, give himself a head start when it comes to producing output such as articles and books. This clearly worked out for him as he wrote “more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles published on a variety of subjects”. Not bad for a fellow who was born in 1927, as there wasn’t a world-wide-web for almost all of his life. In a nutshell the system encourages starting with small, fleeting notes which are then developed into more permanent notes that can be linked to each other. Using this system you can allow your course of study/investigation to develop organically. It encourages you to not just store notes as verbatim copies of things you encounter, but rather to paraphrase these things you encounter, putting them into your own words and allowing you to develop and record your understanding of the concepts. Using the links between these notes you can then mine your system for a head start on any further course of study or for the creation of an article or book.
I ran into this idea a year or so ago, but I wasn’t interested because I know myself and I knew that even if I stuck with it I would most likely end up with a completely disorganized pile of notes that had no real value post their initial creation. This is what happened with my photo gallery – I knew that if I wanted to get anything out of my collection of pictures I’ve taken I would need to be able to locate the one I wanted when I wanted it, otherwise I might as well throw it all out. So I came up with a plan to tag all pictures with a set of tags that were answers to questions that I thought the picture would be an answer to: “Where is that shot that is downtown, with the busted window and the telephone pole?” would get tagged with “urban” “decay” “black and white” “broken window”. I did this, for about 2 months. Now I have a pile of unsearchable photos. Lesson learned.
The Agile Methodology is a way of working on software development that was popularized by 17 guys who whipped up this nifty manifesto. For the purposes of this blog I’ll pull out only this tenet:
Responding to change over following a plan
This bit acknowledges the reality that we gain relevant knowledge while executing the plan that would’ve been helpful to know before crafting the plan, and thus encourages delaying decisions as late as possible in order to make those decisions with the most complete understanding we can have.
Thinking about this in light of the Zettlekasten system it occurs to me that the system itself (the structure of it) can adapt to knowledge gained from using the system, allowing me to course-correct as needed. If things are getting dis-organized then impose some structure – I wouldn’t even need to refactor the existing pile of notes, just create some links into the new structure to ensure accessibility.
So I’ll give it a try and see if this work in practice.
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