Prompt Title: Zettelkasten Setup Tips

Create long form outline for the following from the first person perspective: (278) # 1 - The very first step in creating an analog, old-school Zettelkasten - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysD-V06Jszs Transcript: (00:00) if you're just getting started with building a zettle casting whether it be a digital or an analog one you have to make sure that you don't forget to complete the very first step if you've seen some of the videos i have made recently about the zettelkasten i'm having my students create this semester you may have noticed that the first and only main category is the course itself which is called the examine life creating a zettel costan focused on just a single college course will work fine for my students but if you want to (00:33) create an old school settle casting of your own the very first thing you should do is decide what topics or categories you want to have in your zettle costume nicholas lumen the german sociologist who appears to be the one to have invented the zettelkostn method or at least popularized it he had two zettle costumes during his lifetime and each of them focused on a certain number of topics lumen's first settle costume was devoted to a pretty large number of subjects 108 of them according to johannes schmidt who's written a piece many (01:04) people interested in the zettle costume method have probably read at this point this piece is titled niklas lumen's card index thinking tool communication partner publication machine according to this same piece lumen's second settle costing contain just 11 top level subject areas my own settle costing currently contains 10 such subject areas which you can see on the screen here those areas are political economy race and racism buddhism philosophy sociology education environment history note taking in writing and productivity i (01:39) didn't have much trouble coming up with this list because i've been doing research in these areas for quite some time if you want some assistance in figuring out what subject areas or topics to include in your settle costume i recommend that you take a look at the first two links below this video the first link is to a wikipedia page titled outline of academic disciplines in the contents box towards the top of that page you can find a pretty long list of major subject areas if there are particular subject areas you are really (02:06) interested in you might want to click on those and drill down to see the subcategories in those areas for instance let's say you are particularly interested in learning about religions if that's the case then you could click on religious studies and then maybe include in your zettle costin some of the categories that you see here alternatively you might find that what is listed as a subcategory on this wikipedia page might be one you want to turn into one of your main categories for instance instead of having a (02:36) sociology subject area perhaps you want to have as a main subject area what is here referred to as sexology which i'm pretty sure is not the study of sexiness though it might comprise it or maybe social change or social stratification the second link is to a video made by scott shepard who's done some great work unearthing key aspects of lumens zettelcostn method that typically go unmentioned in the many videos and blog posts that are out there claiming to introduce people to the zettocauston method in the video (03:06) shepherd walks a high school teacher of history through the process of setting up a zettlecoston from scratch advising him to look at the outline of academic disciplines so as to determine what subject areas to include in his zedelkost i should just add here that the way shepard recommends that cards be numbered in that video may or may not be the way you will end up wanting to number them i number my cards differently than he does something i'll go over in a future video as you come up with a list of the subject areas or (03:34) categories you want to include in your zettle costume i recommend that for at least some of them you add some subcategories maybe go two or three levels deep as you can see i've done here for my philosophy subject area you're going to have to hit pause if you want to look at this any longer now although i recommend that you build out some of your subject areas unless the subject area is one you are already really knowledgeable about i recommend that you not build out that subject area beyond just two or three levels that's (04:02) because the vast majority of how your settle costing is organized should be determined only as you are creating new cards to put in your xettlecostin that at least is how lumen did things as schmidt points out in the article about the zettelcosta method that i mentioned earlier lumen opted for organizing entries or new cards based on the principle that they must have only some relation to the previous entry or previous card without also having to keep some overarching system in mind when you're first getting started with (04:35) your xettlecostin you won't always be able to adhere to this principle that schmidt describes here that's because when you're first getting started you won't have a lot of already created cards or previous entries as schmidt calls them here you won't have enough of those to ensure that each new card you create can be related to an already existing one when that is the case it's nice to have an overarching system to use schmidt's words which we can think of as just consisting of the main subject areas in (05:05) your xettlecostin along with their subcategories with that overarching system in place you're in a better position to decide whether and if so where to create a new branch to accommodate a new card that doesn't really belong in any of your already existing branches another reason it's nice to have this overarching system is that it can prevent you from creating new cards solely because you've encountered information that is new or interesting that's a temptation that many of us have myself included it's a (05:36) temptation often referred to these days as the collector's fallacy which is the misguided belief that the way to increase one's knowledge is simply to collect as much information as possible as opposed to using something like the zettelkostn method to develop lines of thinking that in some cases end up being uniquely your own with the overarching system laid out in front of you especially when it's in the form of an outline or a mind map you can filter out new information that is merely interesting permitting ideas to enter (06:05) your zettle costume only if they are interesting and related to subject areas that you already set aside time to establish this doesn't mean you should never create new subject areas if you happen to come across information that falls outside the subject is already in your xettlecastin it's just i think that more often than not you'll find that it is best to be very selective about what information you permit to enter your zettlecostin however don't let the fact that your zettelcostin has an (06:33) overarching system lead you to the mistaken notion that the point of the zettocosten method is to come up with some extremely well organized system in which each card has a supposedly perfect place to live not only would you in all likelihood fail to create such a system it's also the case that building or even trying to build such a system is not what the zettelcostn method is about the zettlcosten method is instead about developing ideas and when you're developing ideas you should be focused primarily on creating cards that in some (07:06) way elaborate on an already existing idea in your zettle cast and or continue an already existing line of thinking in your zettle costume all right i think that with this video and if you want the links underneath it you have what you need to complete the very first task that anyone building a zettle cost and should complete give yourself 20 to 30 minutes to figure out what main subject areas you want to use your settle costume to explore start off by coming up with the subject areas entirely on your own maybe try to come up with (07:37) anywhere from four to ten main subject areas and if you have the time and desire to do so build out a couple of those subjects into subcategories again only two or three levels deep after doing that if you're worried there's a subject of burning interest to you that you somehow managed to simply forget to include you might want to check out the outline of academic disciplines wikipedia page again that's the first link beneath this video and if you want mr shepherd to walk you through the process check out the second link the (08:08) last piece of advice i'll give here is that you shouldn't be too concerned if there's some overlap between some of the subjects you decide to explore for most of us such overlap is inevitable in my own case there's overlap between the political philosophy branch of myselfcostin and the race and racism branch racism for instance relates to freedom insofar as racist practices policies and actions place constraints on people's freedom racism is also a form of oppression so there's some overlap between these two categories and (08:40) racial inequality is related to the issue of equality actually when it comes to the issue of equality and inequality i approach that from different angles not just in my race and racism and my philosophy subject areas but also in my political economy and sociology areas here you can see the sociology branch open underneath the philosophy one and you can see that it includes a section on inequality now i was well aware that there would be overlap between those branches even before i started adding cards to my zettle cost i did think of (09:10) just putting my race and racism branch within the political economy category it's a pretty broad category in fact i thought of throwing the sociology branch in there as well but in the end each of these areas represents a significant area of research for me so i decided to make each into its own branch if there's some overlap between your subject areas or branches as well don't worry sure if at this early first stage of setting up a zettelcost and you can think of a better way to organize things so as to (09:39) minimize the overlap go ahead and organize things differently but also know that having such overlap isn't much or perhaps at all a problem at least when it comes to implementing the zettel costume method which again is about developing ideas not building a system where every idea has one and only one place it can reside okay i hope this video has made clear what you need to do if you are in the very beginning stages of setting up a settle costume if you have any questions or comments feel free to post those underneath this video also (10:11) if you want to make sure you see the other old school that'll cost and videos i plan on releasing pretty soon hit that subscribe button beneath the video and that's it i'm out of here