The Elusive Insight

The end goal for many, regarding note taking, is that they will be rewarded with insight. An epiphany. A sudden connection between disparate ideas that'll spark inspiration. Reading from those that travel from tool to tool, method to method, many seem to hope that by using a particular tool or method, moments of insight will be provided to them. As many in the note taking community say, I agree with the notion that tools or methods by themselves will not provide insight. Good note taking habits will. The challenge there of course, being that there's no way to know whether you're there, or how far you are from getting to that journal nirvana.

Out of all the methods researched, the Zettelkasten method seems to be the most compelling method for developing insights. It's focus on leveraging and building on associations rather than categories and tagging seems to me to be the best physical representation of human memory mapping I've seen so far.

However, when reviewing software that could ostensibly follow this method, none of them seem to adequately be able to reproduce the somewhat chaotic process of going around a room pulling out all relevant materials and splaying them out on a table, building a space for working memory. This, I feel, is one of the biggest missing links to the note taking experience. Even physical notebooks can fail this need, as they are usually permanently bound. With home real estate the way it is, following the Zettelkasten method in its original, physical form feels unattractive and undesirable, however useful it may be.

Collaboration