The Art of Mind Mapping

Take notes with an input-output approach

This is a sign to level up your note-taking method. Let me share with you my own experience with “mind mapping”, a cool and fancy expression to help you dive into your own thoughts, but instead of drowning in them let me help you build a real map of your own mind. That’s how geek this article’s gonna be.

Personally, I started my note-taking journey with classic notebooks, and I still use them, but I also needed a more convenient way to capture whatever thoughts crossed my mind — while I was walking, on the bus, on the escalator, during an astral projection, you know, wherever. So I started using the notes app on my phone, which was also a way to focus my attention on something other than social media. Surprisingly, I got really deep into it and collected so many different notes that organization was essential to keep track of all my individual ideas. So I created different folders and organized my notes into broad categories such as ideas, thoughts, dreams, projects, books, lists, and so on. It worked fine for a while, but I started to accumulate way too many folders, sometimes with only 1 or 2 notes, which I completely forgot about over time. All these different notes isolated from each other distracted me from my original goal, which was to visualize my thoughts. I wondered if there was a more sophisticated application that I could use to improve my method. So I did some research and discovered the great world of note-taking specialists; yes, they do exist and I believe they are higher beings put on earth to help people like me get a grip on their chaotic mind. If you’re like me and have a hard time keeping track of all the thoughts that your mind constantly generates, let me show you that your madness is actually a very powerful mental energy that just needs some guidance.

This mental energy can be channelled through what is known as a “second brain book”. It’s basically an extension of your brain, a surface on which you can project your thoughts, so they don’t clutter your attention anymore. I’m not necessarily advocating the “stop thinking” mantra, there’s nothing wrong with having a lot of thoughts, but I do think we need to filter them, and the only way to do that is to understand them better. Especially in our age of information flood. It will not only make you feel lighter, but it will also help you bring your ideas into reality and extend your memory by archiving what you thought, what you read, what you watched, etc. It’s also great as a student, helping you organize school notes, study more efficiently and complete related work. Your papers almost write themselves because the underlying sources are connected and accessible in one place.

Ok, let’s get to the real stuff. First, you have two choices: do you want to go digital or analog? Do you want to use sophisticated software or go old school with index cards and file cabinets? Start with what feels best to you and maybe you’ll change your mind along the way. I chose to go digital with the software Obsidian, my precious discovery of the year, but I think analog is just as good ! Especially, if you’re a paper lover. When I first started using Obsidian, I just tried to paste the content of my notes app directly into it with the same boring folders, but I soon felt overwhelmed by all the folders and categories. It didn’t feel organic. So I decided to do some research again. That’s when I came across the Zettelkasten method — developed by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, known for his Social Systems Theory and author of over 70 books and 400 academic articles. Luhmann’s work is a great example of transdisciplinary and non-linear thinking, which is the principle of his note-taking method.

So what is Zettelkasten? Let’s break it down: zettel stands for “note” or “slip of paper” and kasten for “box”, so litteraly note box. Each note is written on an index card and stored in a drawer. There are 3 types of notes — (1) fleeting notes (2) literature notes (3) permanent notes.

These are the fleeting thoughts and ideas that you need to catch before they disappear. Review them regularly and if they prove to be useful, elevate them to permanent notes. Carrying a pocket notebook is a good way to quickly write them down or of course on your phone’s note app.

This is all the good content from books, podcasts, movies, articles, websites, etc. On one side of the card write the information, the content you wish to remember, and on the other side its ID, the reference. You have 3 basic rules for literature notes :

These are all your projects, your utlimate goals, whatever you want to bring into reality. They exist by reviewing the content of the fleeting and literature notes. In general, they’ll always be related to existing notes, as the outcome of smaller ideas.

This is the basic structure of the Zettelkasten method and what is so great about it is the simplicity — only 3 categories. The fleeting and literary notes are the input material, and with them we can create networks of ideas. The permanent notes, the output, are the ones that will exist in reality (as an article, a business plan, a trip, a book, a theory, etc.) and they come to life by connecting smaller notes. Because “connecting your notes is what makes your knowledge usable,” as Vicky Zhao would say, a youtuber and writer talking about note-taking and intersectional thinking. Every small mental step is a node in a larger network, and what initially seemed like fragments now create a larger meaning made possible by the links and connections.

The Zettelkasten method is a precursor of hypertext — the embryo of the World Wide Web as we know it today. Hypertext is text, usually displayed on a computer, with references to other texts or pages, these references are what we call hyperlinks. It’s the underlying structure of websites as we know them - pages linked to other pages, allowing you to navigate between them. And so, learning to connect your ideas allows you to navigate through your own mind map, through all the information you have collected. We are used to navigating the “collective consciousness” of the world through the Internet, but now we must build our own web and learn to navigate our personal consciousness.

Folders and broad topics will only divide your thought process because this is not how your brain works; your note-taking system must reflect the organic flow of your mind. Start by entering all your notes in your drawers or in your software without creating folders. In a digital space, you can make it search friendly by using tags, so when you’re looking for a specific or themed note, you can simply enter the tags in your search bar or some keywords that you intentionally wrote in your note. But at the end, what really makes it searchable are the links between all the notes, it’s the hyperlinks that point from one page to another.

My last point here is the atomicity principle (writing short notes). For literature notes, it’s great ! Synthetic information with its specific reference is the most effective way to use the data in different projects, but for fleeting notes I personally don’t set any length limits. My fleeting notes are as long as my thought is, it may be a vision I needed to write down, complete pages I want to add to a book, a dream I just had, a memory, a discussion, etc. I like to write down my spontaneous thoughts as they come to me and as complex as they are at the moment. For books, I find it interesting to have pages that I can add directly to the final version or that I can even add to another project. It helps to create multiple uses for a single note.

Of course, over time you will develop your own criteria and discover what works best for you. For me, learning about different methods and reading about other people’s writing experiences helped me a lot in the beginning, and gradually I developed my own preferences that fit my needs and vision. Hopefully this has been helpful and you’re ready to start your own notes journey. I will leave you with pictures of some mesmerizing graphs from various Obsidian users, revealing the visual beauty of mind mapping.

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