"A System for Writing" by Bob Doto

A System for Writing by Bob Doto is a well-written and practical book about how to use a Zettelkasten to write better.

What the hell is a Zettelkasten, you ask?

Good question.

“Zettelkasten” is a German word that literally means something like “a box for storing note cards”.

So what the hell does a note box have to do with writing better, you ask?

Again, good question.

As it turns out, Zettelkasten is not only an obscure German word, but in the Personal Knowledge Management space (PKM for people in the know) it has also become the name of an elaborate system of taking notes and organizing information.

The name originally comes from the prominent German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

How so? Well. This sociologist read a lot. And he took a lot of notes. And at some point, he asked himself the question any true German would: “How can I make order of this mess?”

In a flash of divine intervention, the clouds parted and in brilliant rays the Heavenly Council of Information Management descended to speak the following words:

“Piece of cake Niklas. Listen up. You just write down each note on a small index card. Then you come up with a way of numbering the cards so that you can find them and connect them. And then you put them all in a big box and call the whole thing your Zettelkasten. If you do that Niklas, and over the rest of your life fill it up with 90,000 cross-referenced notes, you will not only publish 70 books and 400 articles, but also long after your time here on Earth you’ll be worshipped as a godhead in the Church of PKM.”

“Alles klar!” replied Niklas, went to work, and the rest is history.

So there you have it. With a little help from above, Herr Luhmann had invented an analog hypertext.

An analog hypertext?

Yes, that’s what it is. All the note cards in the box together form a big non-hierarchical graph of ideas that lets you explore them, find new and unexpected connections, and keep refining and adding to them as your knowledge expands.

If that sounds too complicated, don’t worry. The idea is simple: you take notes, you connect them, and then magic happens.

Sounds interesting?

If it does, A System for Writing is for you.

This little book explains all the ins and out of how to set up such a Zettelkasten system for yourself.

Part one covers how to take notes. Which might seem like such a simple thing that it needs no further explanation. But in fact there’s a whole art to taking good notes and this part goes into the different kinds of notes you should take and how you should use them.

Part two then covers what to do next, which is to connect your notes. This is where the magic happens as it lets you find new connections between ideas that you hadn’t considered before. Which in turn can spark new insights and new ideas, which then will lead to new notes, which also can be connected, and the positive feedback loop is in full swing.

Part three contains what I consider the biggest contribution of this book. It explains how to use your Zettelkasten to help you write better.

Why is this the biggest contribution? Because there are several other books and tons of articles online that cover how to take notes and how to connect them. (Don’t get me wrong here, Doto explains these parts very well, so if that’s the only thing you’re interested in, I still recommend reading his book.)

But there is not nearly as much information out there about how to actually leverage a Zettelkasten to write better in itself. Because just having your own Zettelkasten is not going to make you a better writer. In fact it can make you worse — if you try to create a piece of writing by just throwing a bunch of notes together, it can make the piece too fragmented. And if you include every connected note, your piece will be bogged down by a myriad of irrelevant anecdotes.

Part three explains these pitfalls and how to avoid them to make your writing soar.

Also, luckily Bob follows his own advice here, and the book itself is neither fragmented nor full of random anecdotes. In fact it’s well organized and straight to the point. In right under 200 pages, it covers what you need to know to get started.

If you decide to dive into the rabbit hole that Zettelkasten is, this is a good place to start.