Zettelkasten and the Art of Knowledge Management

by Binny V A

Zettelkasten and the Art of Knowledge Management will walk you through the process of creating your knowledge graph with Obsidian. It will take you step by step from the basics of Personal Knowledgeable Management(PKM), to the Zettelkasten note taking process, to setting up your knowledge vault. It will show you how to charge up your knowledge vault and how to use it to great effect. It will walk you through the habits you need to transform your learning into a lifelong investment.

Knowledge doesn't live in it's fundamentally connected to the people and events in our life.

Yet all teaching about PKM(Personal Knowledge Management) treats knowledge as if it's stand-alone, and that's a pity. Because the knowledge we gather, the moments in our life when it shows up, and the people and places and events related to our growing body of knowledge are an inherently close-knit whole.

This book doesn't just explain the principles of PKM, like Zettelkasten, but also gives step-by-step instructions to get you started, and most introduces the concept of the Graph Journal, which helps you map out both your knowledge and the significant elements in your life.

It helps you gain more insight, create better ideas, and a much deeper understanding of your life, your goals and how to get there. It shows how everything connects together.

Looking back at your graph journal explains how you got to be 'here', and it enables you to creatively and with focus work towards getting 'there'.

In the book, we’ll be using the Obsidian app to create the knowledge base. This is the leading software in this field. But the same principles can be used with any other PKM tool(like Logseq, Roam Research, etc).

"I've been extremely fortunate to have Binny's guidance and teaching over the last few years, as he formulated his PKM methodology and the Graph Journal. It's enabled me to get a much better grasp on my life, my creativity and my work, and interestingly Having a better 'zoomed-out' view on everything in my life enables me to be more focused, more productive and creative, while I no longer have to obsess over the zoomed-in view of maintaining todo lists and meticulously planning out my projects."
Martin Stellar

Genres: Writing

132 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 26, 2023

Reviews

[Jason Leiper · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, quick reset on the basics of the Zettelkasten system and a prompt to add journalling to the mix

This has been a great way for me to reset my PKM journey, by getting back to the core ideas of how to start a personal knowledge management system and how to really engage with the thoughts you are having instead of just collecting information. Binny keeps coming back to the central idea of your own understanding and how does it relate to other notes you have written. The review as a means of internalizing concepts was particularly important to me. Ten concepts understood and implemented is better than 100 just stored.

Thanks for the reset Binny!

[Hannamari · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a clear and practical introduction to personal knowledge management. From knowing next to nothing on the topic before picking up the book, I was surprised how quickly I found myself getting excited on digital note-taking and building a knowledge vault. I already see a difference in the way I learn and remember new concepts.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book although I thought it would be more like "An Interactive Introduction to Zettelkasten" written by the same author.

What I find great is that the book does in one part is to show step by step how to make notes for a zettelkasten in obsidian, even showing examples. What neither Artem Kirsanov nor Obysseas nor Linking Your Thinking with Nick Milo do, which show a great use of "How to use obsidian for zettelkasten" but not really using examples.

I only give this book 4 stars because I feel that the examples were good but very limited especially to explain the PKM, I even think I would give it only 3 because it bothered me that it wasn't like that, but because the examples are so valuable I give it 4.

[subzero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a one-stop guide to personal knowledge management. if you like learning new things and recording things, this book can take you from the very basics of the best practices to the more complex cases. I am very good at capturing data, for me the biggest learning from the book is importance of linking the stuff I note down. Strong recommend.