atomic notes make reference easy
Table of Contents
- context
- notes with literal of many ideas
It is common that we want to reference one idea, like “low level of wiredness can boost productivity”, which is oftentime noted as a general case of “level of wiredness and productivity negatively correlates” or with bunch other related ideas like “low level of wiredness: staticity you can still shake off”, like in levels of wiredness and .
- solution of reference of those:
- troubled practice
- refer to the whole note - which require you to read more than you need
- better practice
- make niche note alongside the general note - when the general note itself makes sense
- move the niche out to independent atomic note and insert link to original place. - when the original note is just plain compilation of the 3 notes you put there.
- troubled practice
Backlinks
zettel should be atomic
content of a zettel should only address atomic idea, because:
- atomic notes make reference easy, make discussion with zettel easy, as referring to one propositions is then intuitive
- atomicity - flexibility, making it convenient for rearranging organization and compilation, to reuse notes with zero effort
- atomicity make bad note better and hence ensure works would not be wasted
In practice, when made atomic, a zettel often falls in one of 3 common zettel categories
- use reference only if necessary
use only the plainest, most literal terms
“I couldn’t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we really don’t understand it.” - Richard Feynman
atomic
An entity is atomic when it cannot be split further; any further categorization would not make sense.
“Arithmetics” could be sensibly categorized into “plus, minus, devide, multiply”, but devide “multiply” futher into “term 1, multiply operator, term 2” won’t make much sense, as the relation of multiplication won’t hold when the 3 have seperated, and it is very unlikely that any of them would be mentioned without the other 2 at the same time.