Goodbye, Zettelkasten

Created on July 18, 2025

Oh man, the amount of time I’ve wasted on this bullshit. And my sanity!

Always Learning, Always Forgetting

I’ve spent a lot of my time on the internet learning just about anything and everything that piqued my interest. From philosophy to photography, psychology to writing, social skills to exercise and health science, you name it. But I also forgot a lot of it. Many times it has happened that I know I have learnt this before but since I have forgotten the details and thought process, I’ll have to research it all again.

A System

Around May of last year, it hit me—this was clearly a massive waste of time. I needed a system. The most obvious solution? Take notes. But how should I take good notes. I explored the Cornell Method, the Outline Method, and other popular approaches, but they all felt tailored for students preparing for exams. Didn’t cater to my use case. Researching this I came across the book How to take smart notes

Enter: Zettelkasten

The book introduces the concept of Zettelkasten—a note-taking method developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who used it to publish an astonishing number of books and academic papers. If you’re not in the mood to read all about it, here’s the tl;dr:

Zettelkasten is a note-taking system built to boost creativity.
You create “atomic notes”—each capturing just one idea—and then you link them. As the web of connections grows, new ideas are supposed to emerge organically.

At least, that’s the promise.

The Cult

There’s a bit of a cult following around this idea. Everyone seems to implement it differently—maybe for content, maybe for clout—showcasing beautiful webs of interconnected notes like this one: It all looks incredibly impressive. But, what exactly is the functional use of this? I wondered back then.

Trying (and Failing) to Make It Work

To be fair, there’s a lot of potential in this system. No denying that. So I spent the last year trying to make it work for me. I followed guides, watched YouTube tutorials, joined forums, tried templates—you name it. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get it to click.

Atomic ??

One of the first things that tripped me up was this idea of “atomic” notes. Like… how small is too small? What even counts as a “single idea”? It sounds simple until you actually try to do it over and over again.
Some people suggest starting big and breaking things down slowly. But if your notes are too big, it gets messy. If you overdo the splitting, you just end up wasting time managing your notes instead of learning anything.

Good Connections ??

Apparently, not all connections are useful. But how do you know which ones are “good”? There’s no clear rule, and trying to figure this out daily got real tiring, real fast.

Synthesizing ??

Another important aspect of the Zettelkasten method is synthesizing—rewriting and refining your notes later, making them clearer, stronger, and more connected. Sounds great on paper!

In reality? It felt like homework. Coming back to notes, trying to distill them, polish them—it became a task I couldn’t sustain. Maybe that works well for students or researchers, but for me, it added unnecessary overhead.

Apps??

Also, there’s like a million different apps and tools out there. This isn’t the fault of the system in itself to be honest, but with the amount of options available I kept jumping from one to the next, hoping this one would finally solve my problems.

Conclusion

There are many more frustrations I faced with this supposedly “perfect” system. I don’t want to hate on the system itself. Just because I couldn’t make it work doesn’t mean it’s flawed.

But the online hype around it makes it incredibly easy for beginners—like I once was—to chase a dream without knowing the mountain of challenges they’re about to face. For full-time writers, academics, or professional creators, Zettelkasten might be an incredible tool. They can justify putting in the time and effort to reap the rewards.

But for someone like me? It brought far too much friction to my note-taking process—and to my life.

👋

And with that, I bid my farewell to the one who made me struggle for a whole year. I promise to never look back again. Goodbye, Zettelkasten.