When you use a note-writing system, you accumulate evergreens overtime. You need to have a mechanism to retrieve these permanent notes whenever you need them. This is where an index could be very useful.
Indexes are better than tags, but to be effective, they have to be tightly curated. They don’t have to be extensive. Just use them as a jumping off point. The inter-note association that emerge when you fill permanent notes with links to other notes is more important. To create effective indexes, remember the following guidelines:
- Only include the best notes. Be extremely careful in choosing what to add. Aspire for just one or two per term.
- Do not use the index as a dumping space for all notes. Tighthly curate it.
- Focus on the links between notes rather than the link between the index and notes.
- Use editorial content if necessary.
To create an index:
- Open a separate note.
- Put a title for a big topic.
- Open the slip-box and look for the best notes on the topic—one or two jump off points.
- Include this big topic as a cluster in your index.
To do
- Integrate this note to structure notes as my definition of index and that seems the same. Use one term of art.
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.
In the Zettelkasten, keywords can easily be added to a note like tags and will then show up in the index. They should be chosen carefully and sparsely. Luhmann would add the number of one or two (rarely more) notes next to a keyword in the index (Schmidt 2013, 171).
Because it should not be used as an archive, where we just take out what we put in, but as a system to think with, the references between the notes are much more important than the references from the index to a single note.