atomic

By “atomic” I (Scheper) am referring to the interpretation that Luhmann’s notes were perfectly containerized units of thought. This is a myth. Luhmann’s notes were streams of thought that carried over across multiple notecards. (Scott P. Scheper, Antinet Zettelkasten (San Diego, CA: Greenlamp, 2022), pdf , p. 82)

⇒ Obsidian

I began exploring all the plugins Obsidian came with and I installed new community plugins and began enhancing my Obsidian editor’s color scheme and layout. I continued to learn the ins and outs of notetaking best practices. I learned about the concept of taking something called “Atomic Notes” and laboriously breaking apart my monolithic notes into individual components. I learned about setting up different hotkeys and macros to speed up my “notemaking” process. (p. 29)

As soon as I began using the Zettelkasten in analog form, I recall saying to myself, “Ahhh...so this is how all this stuff is supposed to work!” I remember thinking how different it was compared to the digital apps I had used—and how much better the analog version was! The next day, I wrote by hand for nearly twelve hours straight. I wanted to stop, but simply couldn’t. I had so many ideas I felt needed to be developed. In the previous months, I had spent most of my energy linking notes, formatting them, and making them “atomic.” Now my thoughts were pouring out. I remember writing so much that a callous formed on my index finger. Thoughts were being developed on paper and flowing from my mind. Yet, I could actually see myself using the knowledge and internally developing it over the long term. This experience was exciting. (p. 31)

The experience and the journey I went through helped me realize that the magic of a Zettelkasten—and indeed the magic of knowledge managementrests not in the idea of creating notes; just as important is the medium one uses to create the notes. The magic of Zettelkasten does not come from taking atomic notes and linking them together using sexy software. Rather, the magic rests in the analog thinking system Luhmann created. One built of a pen, paper, and...a brain. (p. 32)

Simply stated, the Antinet is not for OCD-individuals who can’t sleep at night unless their workflow follows some made-up atomic protocol. (p. 82)

By “atomic” I (Scheper) am referring to the interpretation that Luhmann’s notes were perfectly containerized units of thought. This is a myth. Luhmann’s notes were streams of thought that carried over across multiple notecards. (Scott P. Scheper, Antinet Zettelkasten (San Diego, CA: Greenlamp, 2022), pdf , p. 82)

Fast goes on to outline several principles, such as the “Principle of Atomicity” which pertains to the idea that one should “put things that belong together into a single note, give it an ID, but limit its content to that single topic.” (p. 107)

See “Getting Started • Zettelkasten Method.” Accessed June 28, 2021. https://zettelkasten. de/posts/overview/.

I do not hold the first principle (the “Principle of Atomicity”) as a general principle because Luhmann generally did not abide by such a principle. One idea per note is a convenient idea espoused by many people, but it is largely a myth as it pertains to Luhmann’s system.

This idea was popularized by Sönke Ahrens in his book, and has since been spread rapidly throughout Personal Knowledge Management communities online. For the source of this myth, one may consult his book How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking: For Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2017.

Yet, for digital Zettelkasten, I agree with Fast in that it’s probably a useful practice. (p. 108)

[…], if you define the principles of a Zettelkasten as something that is founded on atomicity, and connectivity, then thousands of systems could qualify as a Zettelkasten. (p. 108)

With this understood, the question then becomes: how can one devise a system built on that which best models reality? Reality is chaos, yet it also emerges from ordered and simplistic rules (think the laws of thermodynamics). Reality (chaos) also emerges from simplistic parts (for instance, the atomic theory posits that matter is composed of particles called atoms). Reality is chaos built out of simple laws of order, and units of order. These simple laws and units of order bind the system together, allowing one to navigate complexity. It was with this in mind that Luhmann crafted his notebox system. (p. 119)

[…] This arbitrary, random structure contributes to one of its greatest aspects—the aspect of surprises. Even though I’d call it an organic structure, that term seems rather trite. Other ways you can think of it is as a molecular structure, or an atomic structure. Yet, in recent time, concepts like atomicity, as I’ve touched on, have been overused and abstracted unnecessarily. Sure, atomicity could be considered a property of the Zettelkasten, but it could be argued atomicity is a property of nearly everything that is composed of matter! (p. 120)

Now that you know the four principles of the notebox network Luhmann designed, you’re closer to understanding it. But there’s only one problem: you now know what an Antinet is, but you still have no idea what an Antinet really is. The four principles describe the parts of Luhmann’s system. They describe its fundamental raw “atomic” material. They do not describe the Whole it creates—and trust me, the four parts do combine to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. (p. 125)

The Antinet is a unique type of system; more so than the novelties preached in digital-Zettelkasten-land which over-emphasize its features, yet overlook the magic. (p. 156)

These include features like linking notes, atomic notes, and other flavor-of-the-month ideas. (p. 156N118)

One thing I will say is this: I had the thought today that I really wish and hope that I [do] not make [my daily writing practice] a chore by going insane [using] an Atomic Workflow. (p. 160)

The temptation to apply the concept of atomicity to fields is not new. In fact, in the field of human memory studies, one researcher proposed that human memory, too, adheres to the atomic composition principle. (p. 160)

⇒ Atomicity

The problem with this is the fact that atomicity can be loosely applied to almost anything. This sentence is atomic. Each sentence is an organelle, comprising molecules (words) that themselves comprise atoms (individual letters). This whole abstraction really doesn’t do much. It’s just a trendy fad to break things apart into atomic components. It distracts from the really important stuff, that is, your actual writing output. (p. 161)

The atomic design ideology seems to have gripped the imaginations of those enthralled with the world of personal knowledge management (“PKM”). The PKM folk end up spending much of their time on forums debating workflows and best practices which, paradoxically, results in less productivity. As a result, less knowledge is developed for PKM folk to “manage.” (p. 161)