Zettelkasten In Notion & How I Use Its Principles

Zettelkasten is built to make thinking easier to navigate: instead of hoarding notes, it treats each note as a small node in a web where ideas connect, index themselves, and can be recalled later. The method’s core mechanics—linking notes to each other and to sources, plus using a structured way to label new notes—are what make it feel like “a note-taking environment that resembles the way you think.” That matters because it turns research from a static archive into an evolving system for forming conclusions.

The transcript traces the method back to German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who described Zettelkasten as a “loosely webbed thinking tool” where notes communicate to support structured conclusions. Notes are written on individual cards (or card-like entries): a title, a body that can include summaries, questions, and links to other notes or bibliographic items, and a dedicated space for sources. Tagging is treated as a scalpel rather than a dumping ground—too many tags becomes “another pool of endless slips.” The guidance is to use one or two tags per note, based on what the note is truly about, not on every incidental detail.

A key part of the system is the “card address,” a unique identifier that helps keep notes organized without forcing a strict hierarchy. Luhmann’s alphanumeric scheme is presented as a way to sort a thought stream: a start card (e.g., 1.0) branches into supplementary strands (1a) and continuations (1.1, 1.2, etc.). The transcript distinguishes supplementary strands (emphasizing something already touched) from continuation cards (pushing the same thought forward). In Notion, the creator adapts this by using a “start thought” title plus a timestamp-like property (“start thought” as the title, with date format and a 24-hour clock) to prevent duplicate titles from collapsing into the same search results. A limitation is acknowledged: Notion’s timestamp approach doesn’t count seconds, so two notes created within the same minute can share an identical timestamp.

The practical setup in Notion relies on database properties and relations. Each note includes fields like “next entry point” (a relation to the continuation note), “last entry point” (the prior note), and a formula that labels the note type as continuation, subordinate, or start based on whether those relations are empty. Relations are synced both ways so navigation stays consistent. References to books are inserted inline using a specific bracket syntax that links to a library database, with templates like “insert.book” to standardize how book links appear (including an emoji icon). The library itself uses formulas to extract author names and book titles for sorting views.

Tags get an additional layer of automation: drawers are encoded into tag names (e.g., “unity.culture”), and numeric prefixes track how many child notes exist under a tag, enabling sorting by “most children to least.” The system also uses templates for recurring structures—book references, bookmarks, keywords, and time metadata. For time, a dedicated “insert.time” template populates century and season based on year granularity (year, month+year, or decade-like ranges). Overall, the transcript argues that Zettelkasten is a foundation you can keep minimal or expand, but the payoff comes from consistent linking, disciplined tagging, and structured identifiers that keep the thinking web navigable over time.