🌱 Walking keywords shows multiple contexts in which we can find answers

Zettelkasten and Evergreen MOC index

When we want to enter our ZK, we look down our index, going from keyword to keyword. If something catches our attention we follow the keywords note, which usually lead to overview notes are an entry into a topic

Keywords work like thumbnails, giving a brief overview of the idea underneath. Their brevity make it easier to connect them to other notes.

This note’s line of thought is zettelkasten → creativity → order → index

A ZK is chaotic, as all the notes are all in one pile, but the index creates lines of thought, in this case that the index creates order.

Walking the indexes keywords also helps with If something doesn’t work, find an alternative, flexibility because there is more the one way to go about things.

Literature notes

Transclude of ahrens_2022#^hswalk01

Transclude of ahrens_2022#^hswalk02

– How to Take Smart Notes - Sönke Ahrens

Luhmann’s most practical method of communicating with his slipbox involves an interesting constraint through the index. For every question or query he had, he would compress it into a single keyword. – postrox · How did Niklas Luhmann actually communicate and… Daytura Ladon

How genius are made: Niklas Luhmann’s zettelkasten and how to be creative and productive in thinking - YouTube

• Very good video, but not a good speaker
• Luhmann kept a top level index about all the important words he might be interested. Not all words, just the four, five most important ones.
• They were an entrance in a topic

Understanding Zettelkasten — What does it mean to communicate with the slip-box | by Eva Thomas | Medium On Keywords:

• The purpose of internal references between cards is not to accumulate ideas around a broad concept, but to ensure unexpected insights. Therefore, references must be very selective.
• “The references must not capture collective concepts that aggregate key aspects but must selectively lead away from the material subsumed under them” — Niklas Luhmann
• Luhmann emphasized that it is important that the context in which we add new ideas doesn’t predetermine the context of our future questions and queries. Therefore, we should think of references as breadcrumbs that we will be able to follow 20 years from now and still be able to find something that will make sense even if our point of view changes.
• The surprises we encounter while interacting with the slip-box Luhmann described as a process of finding something you were not looking for, but something that you can still use. There is no point in finding idea out of context that has no value to our current questions.

index as curated keyword roadmap

• Luhmann used keywords as thumbnail for questions, answered in zettels
  • keywords collected in the index, but only the highlights!
• keywords are not categories (collections), or tags (aggregators), instead they (might) lead away from the material
• context independent of the original source
• following keywords leads from one context or note to another

Beau Haan called keywords thumbnails, short descriptors that help navigate.

• The keyword index should be our first step into our zettelkasten
• We can use identical keywords, or surrounding keywords to look around
• Do this before diving into the notes

Fleeting notes

Keywords and thumbnails to escape context

• keywords start as thumbnail, one or two words
  • makes them broader than the original note
    • other notes also (can) have the same thumbnail, but have another context
      • index contains best individual top-level keywords
        • curation
• keywords is start to interact with ZK
  • helps to find answers
    • also related answers
  • “walk” the keywords
    • widen out
• keywords help to escape context
  • enables discovering other notes