The Old Rules of Note-Taking Don’t Work Anymore

I've been revisiting Sönke Ahrens' How to Take Smart Notes and thinking about how the Zettelkasten method fits into the way we work today.

The basic idea still makes sense to me. Capture what you learn, write notes in your own words, connect related ideas, and gradually develop them into something useful.

But the conditions have changed.

When the slip-box method was developed, collecting and connecting information required more effort. You had to read, think about what was worth keeping, write it down, and decide how it connected to your existing notes.

Today, we can capture almost everything. Articles, highlights, transcripts, videos, and AI-generated summaries can all become notes within seconds.

AI can also help us find connections between ideas that we might otherwise miss.

That's useful, but it introduces a different problem.

We can now collect and organise information much faster than we can think about it.

More notes don't necessarily mean better thinking

One principle of Zettelkasten is to keep notes focused, often around a single idea.

I still find that useful. A note that expresses one clear thought is easier to understand and connect with other notes.

But it's also easy to end up with hundreds of small notes that never develop into anything.

The same applies to linking.

I can create links between notes manually, or use software to suggest connections automatically. Either way, having more links doesn't necessarily mean I understand the relationships between those ideas.

A link might tell me that two notes are related. It doesn't explain why that relationship matters.

That's something I still need to work out myself.

And this is where I think the emphasis needs to change.

Instead of focusing so much on how many notes we capture or how well they're connected, perhaps we should pay more attention to what happens after capture.

Returning to old notes

One thing I've been thinking about is the value of returning to notes I've already written.

An idea might make sense when I first capture it. But when I revisit it a few days or weeks later, I sometimes notice something I missed.

Maybe I have a better example. Maybe it connects to something I've recently read. Or maybe I no longer agree with what I originally wrote.

That second or third visit can be more useful than the initial capture.

This is why I think return cycles matter.

A note shouldn't have to remain unchanged simply because it was written and filed away. Revisiting it gives me a chance to question, adjust, or develop the thought further.

Of course, not every note deserves repeated attention. Some are just references, and that's fine.

The challenge is identifying the ideas worth returning to.

Why constraints still matter

Another difference between traditional note-taking and today's digital tools is the lack of natural limits.

With paper, there were practical constraints. Writing took time, storage was limited, and connecting notes required effort.

Digital tools have removed much of that friction.

I can save an article without reading it. I can generate a summary without writing one myself. And I can keep adding notes without worrying about running out of space.

None of these things is necessarily bad.

But I've noticed how easy it is to confuse having more information with making progress.

Sometimes the answer isn't another tool or a more complicated workflow.

It might be as simple as capturing fewer things, limiting the number of active projects, or setting aside some time to review what I've already collected.

I'm not suggesting we should make note-taking deliberately difficult.

I think we need enough constraints to help us pay attention to what matters.

AI makes ideas easier to generate, not necessarily easier to develop

AI has changed how I think about capturing and developing ideas.

With a few prompts, I can explore different perspectives, generate examples, or get suggestions for connections between topics.

Things that previously took considerable effort can now happen in seconds.

But having more possible ideas doesn't mean I've made more progress.

I still need to decide which ideas are worth pursuing, whether the reasoning makes sense, and what I actually want to say.

And that takes time.

This is something I think we need to be careful about when using AI with personal knowledge management.

It's tempting to keep generating more notes, summaries, and connections because the tools make it easy.

But at some point, I need to stop collecting and start working with what I already have.

AI can help with that process too. I just don't want it to replace the part where I make sense of things myself.

From collecting notes to using them

The third idea I've been thinking about is synthesis.

For me, this is where a note-taking system becomes useful.

I might have captured several notes about a topic over a few weeks. Each one contains something interesting, but they're still separate thoughts.

When I return to them, compare what I've written, and try to explain the connections, I begin to see whether there's a larger idea worth developing.

Sometimes that becomes a blog post or a newsletter. Other times, it might change how I approach a problem or make a decision.

It doesn't always have to become something public.

The important part is that I'm doing something with what I've collected.

A system that helps me store information is useful. But I want it to help me understand and apply that information as well.

That's a different measure of whether the system is working.

Does Zettelkasten still work?

I don't think Zettelkasten is obsolete.

The principles of writing clearly, connecting ideas, and developing thoughts over time still make sense.

What I'm questioning is whether we should follow the old methods without considering how our tools and working conditions have changed.

We no longer face the same limitations around capturing information, creating notes, or finding connections.

Our problem is increasingly deciding what deserves attention.

For my own workflow, three things seem worth focusing on:

Return cycles. Make it easier to revisit and develop notes instead of constantly capturing new ones.

Constraints. Put some limits around what I collect and work on, so the system remains manageable.

Synthesis. Spend more time understanding and using ideas rather than simply organising them.

These aren't replacements for every part of Zettelkasten. They're adjustments to where I think the effort should go.

The method still has something to offer.

But I'd rather adapt it to the way I work today than follow every rule simply because it worked in the past.