%%Menu, Workflows%%

But why?¶

"Just do the work, not the workflow"¶

Addressing the haters¶

• Up-front cost for recurring returns; avoid repetitive organizational work.
• Automated organizational work.
• Existence of free productivity improvements.to extract a
• Frictionless work is fun!

Guiding principles¶

So either¶

1. Just be a better researcher (yes, but also?)
2. Reduce waste and maximize re-use

Chapter 1: the problem¶

Waste¶

Workflows fail through waste! - Not writing things down: "I'll probably remember it". - It is difficult: high friction. - No system to store the knowledge - Example: storing a connection between ideas, a form of knowledge. - Cannot find what was written down: poor organization. - Context switching - Mental overhead: your ram is limited.

Contexts: artificial walls¶

Contexts include - Research project - Source: Course, paper, reading group. - Degree of polish - Writing structure - Time - Team

Consequences of waste¶

• Re-understanding
• Re-proving
• Re-writing.

Bonus: other goals of writing workflows¶

• Clarification of ideas.
• Learning through writing.
• Efficient teamwork

Chapter 2: The solution¶

The Zettelkasten method.¶

Components:¶

• Atomic notes: atomic and self-contained.
• context-independent
• Links between notes.
  • For organization
  • For navigation
  • For recall
  • Are a form of knowledge in themselves.

Resilience to context-switching.¶

Plurality of organizational structures. Organizational structures = contexts. %%[[Drawing 2024-05-07 12.16.10.excalidraw|original drawing]]%%

Chapter 3: Pitfals¶

Folders¶

• Folders: choose a single organization tree (a.k.a. choose a single context).
• Tags/links/collections: choose many.

Organizational rabbit hole¶

Sometimes the haters are right - Up-front cost can be too high (heard of Julia?) - Repetitive manual organizational work. Example: logging work time into excel. - Minimize it!

"Not clean enough to write down"¶

Reduce your good-enough standards. Notes are never too... - Disorganized: brainstorms - Short: Single-sentence notes. Learn through writing!

Latex notes¶

Does not separate - Content writing, and - Formatting.

"I did my note-taking. Now let's write the paper in overleaf."¶

This is a context switch! Re-use first drafts in final products.

Note-taking \(\to\) Graph-based writing. ![[Drawing 2024-05-07 11.14.55.excalidraw|center600]] Have I mentioned a certain plugin?

Okay, How?¶

Enters: Obsidian¶

• Markdown files: no vendor lock-in. Efficient storage, future-proof, versioning.
• Rich plugin ecosystem.

Core features¶

• Command pannel
• Quick switcher.
• Linking (with header and display)
• Figures.
• Tags: role of tags.
• Longforms and embeds.

Tags¶

• Links are a generalization of tags.
• Use to describe the type of note instead of the content (controversial).

Other types of notes¶

• Maps of Contents ( #MOC)
• Project notes ( #project)
• Literature notes ( #literature)
• Fleeting notes ( #fleeting, #seedling)
• Mathematical results ( #theorem)

Folder structure¶

• Files: Stuff that is not ".md"
• References
• "Notes" or "Zettelkasten"
• Templates

Let's set up some Workflows!¶

https://mscott99.github.io/matthew_s_scott_zettel/Menu/