Strikes n Gutters 24 April 2025

#Morning

My morning has been going okay so far. I woke up, had a healthy breafkast, hydrated, and immediately sat down with my coffee to get some work done. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't do my yoga first thing, but I think it's a little silly to be unhappy about getting things done. Regardless, I have mixed feelings. It's just like that sometimes.

The important thing is, I spent a solid hour rebuilding the Zettelkasten index. Long story as to why it needs to be rebuilt. I only managed about half of it in that time, and that's kind of concerning considering the part of it that needs to be re-indexed is vanishingly small, less than 30 cards. I am starting to feel like even when Zettelkasten is the best tool for something (and I have found a few things it's the best tool for), it is still a massive timesink. I wonder if using a worse tool on purpose would actually be better. However, I do Zettelkasten on paper at the moment, so there's a distinct possibility that digitizing it would make the work go faster.

I'm seriously thinking about it. I will probably spend the rest of the day fiddling with Obsidian.
Note to me: I spent 1 hour 5 minutes and 55 seconds *just* to index 11 already created cards. Fuck around with Obsidian a little bit and compare time.
Followup to this: I just spent 47 minutes 22 secodns copying those same 11 cards into Obsidian, and I think it would've been faster if not for the fact that I've never used Obsidian before and have to keep pausing to look stuff up.

I certainly think things go faster, at the very least because I'm typing instead of writing by hand[^1]. I have a few complaints, but from what I can tell most of them can be addressed by plugins. The only issue I really have is that **4/Book of Physics** has a lot of hand drawn diagrams in it, and I don't know how to recreate those in a way that doesn't take a million years.

A few years ago I used to use Logseq, and I ended up moving away from it for no real reason other than I was trying to use it as an everything-tool, and it resultingly just became a mess. I've since learned that notetaking and task management need to be *separated* functions, at least for me. However I have made use of a todo plugin in Obsidian for the express purpose of tracking whether or not a given card is indexed and sourced. I haven't actually got around to indexing yet.

You might wonder why I'm creating a manual index if I'm using a digital tool. Well, mostly because that's what I've been doing for a year or so and I'm used to it. I think there's some value in it: it requires a little cognitive effort to decide how to summarize a thought in one sentence, and I think that effort pays off. That said, the whole reason I'm doing this is because indexing takes too much time for that gain, so if this isn't enough, I'm probably going to have to give in and use tags like a normal person.

Despite doing this for so long, I'm still not fully sold on Zettelkasten. For some reason I really, really want it to work for me, but so far I'm finding that it doesn't seem to benefit me any more than basic Cornell notes do, with the sole exception of writing my book, where having notes organized the way Zettelkasten does seems to be really important.

Speaking of which, before I went to sleep last night, which was technically today because my sleep schedule is fucked due to my horrible stargazing addiction, I officially announced my book... by mentioning it in my .project. Most of my friends don't even know about it, because I've only really mentioned it to 3 people. I've been sorta working on this on and off since 2023, but it was only just yesterday that I kind of "officially" decided that yeah, I'm gonna see this through to the end even if it takes decades. Which it might, not because I'm not trying but because I have my mind on many pursuits. I'm thinking I'll probably keep it relatively quiet, only mentioning it here and on finger. Why? No idea. It just feels right.

#Afternoon

I kept thinking about the zettelkasten problem for a while and eventually decided I was falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy. I bought tons of index cards, a few plastic boxes for them, a bunch of divider cards, etc, and I feel like I *have* to use them. I spent so much time trying to make it work that I feel like I *have* to. So far I've found that it really works for complex projects, but for general studying? I have to admit, I think it's a little overkill. So there's a gutter: I spent a ton of time on this thing with very little to show for it.

I ended up feeling overwhelmed and cranky about all this because who the hell spends this much time arguing with themself about how to take notes?[^2] The only thing that could help my mood was to feel like I accomplished something, so I got a bunch of those chores I've been talking about out of the way, including replacing some lightbulbs that all burnt out simultaneously. We can finally see in the basement again! I honestly have no idea why I procrastinated on that for so long. It's just like that sometimes.

I don't have much to report after that, because I inexplicably started feeling sick and couldn't do much of anything.

Overall I think today was okay. I'm proud of myself for not doddering around as much, cranky that I've gotten myself so mired in this weird obsession with notetaking instead of just Doing The Damn Work, and hopeful for the future. Seeya next time!

[^1] I have reasons for taking notes by hand, but I'm starting to lean towards a hybrid workflow.

[^2] People have all sorts of reasons for using Zettelkasten, and if it works for you, great! I've come to understand that I'm obsessed with the idea of a second brain solely because I don't trust my first brain. Being real? I think that's an irrational feeling. tl;dr I was spoken to very harshly as a child and I'm still working through the insecurity that sometimes has me actually worrying that I might forget how to add two numbers together. Yes, that's a crazy thing to worry about. But the fact that there's something worth fighting for on the other side of that insecurity is what this blog is all about.

tags: notetaking, zettelkasten, obsidian, interstitial-journaling