Zettelkasten influences your choice of reading

Zettelkasten is built from the information you collect and process through reading. The interesting thing is hereafter you have populated your zettelkasten system with enough notes the system will direct what you read next. How does this happen?

A zettelkasten is not a wiki, where you are trying to collect and organize information as it is. It is a thinking framework that is fueled by your inquisitive nature.

You begin with a question or an assumption. You can try to answer that question, or support or disapprove an assumption using the permanent notes you have already created. (The magic here is the note you are using might have come from a completely different context). For example you looking to answer the question of why Zettelkasten is very effective as a note-taking tool. You can add various permanent notes to answer this question which might have come from existing resources. But beyond that, you will be also able to link the effectiveness of Zettelkasten with the permanent note you have prepared while taking notes on how cognition works. The text from which you might have created the permanent note has got nothing to do with Zettelkasten directly. This connection that you can make inside is what we call insight. Every direct or indirect connection can be called an insight.

As you try to assemble your existing notes with the help of a Zettelkasten you realise there are some gaps in your understanding. You will then have to depend on reading to overcome that gap.

What happens when you pick up the next book after this is that, you are not reading the book arbitrarily. You are reading the book in search of elements that can fill the gaps in your knowledge framework. If the book does have what you are looking for, you can then add it to your Zettelkasten.

It promotes active reading.

You throw one question into the Zettelkasten and as you try to answer it through the Zettelkasten, it directs to what you must read next. This direction also is dependent on the fact that which of the new question do you find most interesting. In effect, this becomes a practice of [[ Essentialism ]] based on your reaction to a particular question. A Zettelkasten forces you to be an analytical reader.

Related: [[ Analytical Reading ]] Return to: Zettelkasten