A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer
Published::
Author:: Doto, Bob
Genre:: Writing, Productivity, Nonfiction, Self Help
Rating:: 4
date finished:: 2024-11-22
dates reread::
Goodreads Description
THIS IS A BOOK FOR WRITERS who want to write more, who struggle to write, who ruminate on ideas, but rarely get them down on paper. It's a book for creatives who fear the creative process, for dreamers who start projects, but never see them through. It's a book for thinkers who take hundreds of notes, but rarely turn them into manuscripts. Most importantly, this book is for anyone who doesn't write for fear of having nothing to say. If this is you, then this is your book.
Inside, you will learn how to:
- Effortlessly capture ideas before they slip away
- Save the most relevant insights from what you read
- Connect information in profound and unexpected ways
- Transform individual notes into articles, blog posts, and books
- Start every writing session with words already on the page
- Develop a system for writing that not only supports your creativity, but inspires it
If you're done with writer's block, information overload, forgetting ideas, and waiting around for inspiration to strike, then read this book. It was written for you.
Review
This is probably the best book I've read on the subject of starting and curating a zettelkasten. And it's the first book on the subject where I've actually done the practical exercises.
Highlights
We must beware of a certain craze for collecting which sometimes takes possession of those who make notes…. That is a deplorable practice. —A.G. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life — location: [67]
Collects quote with no intention of doing anything with it as a fuck you.
The term “fleeting notes” comes from Sönke Ahrens who describes them as “reminders of information…there for capturing ideas quickly while you are busy doing something else.”10 — location: [227]
WHEN PEOPLE THINK OF ANARCHY they often envision violence and disruption. They think of chaos. But, at its heart, anarchism is less concerned with creating chaos than it is working with it. — location: [1272]
Anarchist theory is an exploration into how systems, art, relationships, and, for our purposes, ideas can leverage chaos. — location: [1275]
See Doto, B (2024) A System for Writing for the reference note I made while reading this book.
Planted: Sunday 1 June 2025
Last tended: Wednesday 25 June 2025