Permanent Notes? Literature Notes? Fleeting Notes? How The Heck Do You Even Get Started With Zettelkasten?

Stop Overthinking Your Zettelkasten System: How To Get Started Writing Your First Notes

A year ago I didn’t know what the heck a Zettelkasten was. Permanent Notes? Literature Notes? Now I’ve made hundreds of notes that have turned into published content. It’s how I stay so prolific.

But there is still so much confusion around the Zettelkasten system, and even when you understand it in principle, it’s often hard to grasp practically how it works. Often the best way to learn is by watching someone else do something, so here’s a real-life note I’ve taken from consuming all the way through to permanent note.

First, let’s make sense of all these different note types. In reality there are only three types of notes you need to worry about.

• Literature Notes: Ugly, incomplete notes you take as you are reading.
• Permanent Notes. Top-level topics or groups of notes that help you establish thoughts and arguments.
• Sequence Notes. Atomic notes with one idea each that sit inside your top level permanent notes.