This book changed the way I think about note-taking. I can’t recommend it enough. In this review, I’ll explain the book’s main two ideas.
TL;DR
Zettlekasten makes you spend too much energy upfront when consuming content. The second brain method lets you spend that energy later and only if needed. Putting verbatim highlights in your notes is fine.
Organise your notes into a structure that reflects how useful the note is to you now (PARA).
The Zettelkasten Method: Perfectionism and Upfront Effort
In software, there is a concept of iteration, which delays all decisions until later and works only at the absolute minimum to deliver value. In other words, don’t do the work before it’s necessary.
One of Gary’s tips is “Make yourself likeable”. And does he make a good job of it. The book describes the rules of both style and grammar in a way that’s easy to digest and down to earth. A much larger portion of the book is spent on style-related advice. That’s a good thing when tools like Grammarly and Hemingway app provide advanced grammar and composition checks.
The key takeaway from the book is the word Simplicity. Don’t write something in two words when one will do the job. Don’t add a sentence that doesn’t contribute to the topic. Cut away sentences from the start and from the end, till you can’t cut any further. That’s how you find your text’s real beginning and end.
