The best practice in zettelkasten when reading seriously is to write permanent notes about what you read to test understanding. Sometimes, highlighting instead makes more sense, but it is important to remember that highlights are just fleeting notes, and according to sonke ahrens, they have to be elaborated within a day or two because if they stay unprocessd longer, the original context where they were written is forgotten and they may not be perfectly intelligible.
This suggestion seems to go against andy matuschak’s ideas on using a writing inbox.
To do
- Write this note as a note to indicate your preferred frequency of elaborating notes. You can simply mention this as a suggestion by Sonke in the note. But it doesn’t have to be a permanent note.
References
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Matuschak, A. (n.d.). A writing inbox for transient and incomplete notes. Andyʼs Working Notes. Retrieved August 31, 2021, from https://notes.andymatuschak.org/A_writing_inbox_for_transient_and_incomplete_notes