You may have taken and accumulated many notes in your lifetime, so what makes the Zettelkasten system different?
There are several differences including:
- The Types of Notes you include within it. You may be used to writing by topic, or in a linear fashion. In Zettelkasten, the notes are ‘atomic’, making them useable in various categories or topics.
- The way you write the notes. The focus is on making high-quality notes that are future-proof 1 .
- The emphasis on Linking notes/ideas together. Linking ties the notes together so they become more useful.
See Other uses and related systems for related systems.
Future-proof - notes that you will understand in the future without needing the same context in which you wrote them: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/how-to-write-notes-you-can-understand/