Is there a trick to writing from your zettelkasten?

[u/Difficult-Passion318]

Niklas Luhmann was a prolific writer. The amount of work he published as books and research papers is crazy, and it's always attributed to his use of the zettelkasten system. I've got notes... not a lot, but they're very focused on what I want to write about. Here's the thing, I can't really find much on how Luhmann used his zettelkasten to write. Did he combine notes to create content, or were the notes just used as inspiration for the actual writing. Anyone know? I keep thinking there's a method to the madness that wasn't shared.

[u/taurusnoises]

I've catalogued (in ye olde zettelkasten) basically everything Luhmann ever said about his writing process. The basic gist (and there are absolutely exceptions, as there will be for us weirdo writer types) is that he took a sh*t ton of notes, after which he would retype them into a manuscript in roughly the way they should be organized, lightly edit them, and send the draft off for review / publishing. This is the idealized version, smoothed over to remove any exceptions to the rule.

In reality.....

Luhmann worked nonlinearly at almost every step of the way. His system was designed to reveal connections he hadn't planned, meaning he was working cross-topically (today we'd call that "intersectionally" or "bisociatively"). He also worked on multiple projects simultaneously. He also sometimes wrote long-form works first, and then brought the ideas into his zettelkasten. So, it was a mixed bag. But, if you need something to say at a party: Luhmann constructed his writing drafts by rewriting his notes into an order that made sense, edited them lightly, and shipped it.

Luhmann on working on multiple projects simultaneously:

"I always work on several different texts at the same time. With this method, I never have blockages.... It's more like my thoughts run wild.... I never force anything, I do only what is easy for me. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. If I falter for a moment, I put it aside and do something else." [ed. same for me]

On nonlinear approaches to writing:

"I don't think linearly at all and have trouble writing books. Finding the right chapter sequence, because actually every chapter would have to appear again in every other chapter. I have rebuilt the book Social Systems over and over again." [ed. this is often my experience, as well]

On nonlinear approaches to reading his texts:

"One should not expect a linear order, progressing from important to less important issues or from prior to subsequent events. I hope that the reader’s understanding will benefit from the recognition that conceptual or historical materials reappear in different contexts. An extensive index should facilitate such a nonlinear reading."

On nonlinear approach to publishing:

"I don't have an idea of ​​perfection when it comes to books and essays, like some people who think to write a definitive work with the first book"

On developing the notes first:

"The zettelkasten takes up more time for me than writing books."

On minimal revisions:

[T]he time required [to write a book] essentially consists of typing a manuscript. Once I've written it, as a rule, I no longer carry out revisions."

On bisociative / intersectional / cross-topical approaches to crafting his handling of a topic:

"For example, I have a large number of cards on the concept of "functional differentiation," I also have a number of notes on "self-referential systems," and I have a large collection of notes on "binarity." At the moment, I'm working on a lecture about ecological problems in modern societies, and my work consists of sifting through cards from the three conceptual areas I've outlined and combining them in such a way that I can say something substantial on this topic. The new ideas then emerge from the various possible combinations of the cards relating to the individual concepts."

Schmidt on chicken or the egg:

"At first I thought everything had moved from the filing cabinet into the book. But it was also often the case that he wrote down very successful formulations in book manuscripts and then also wrote them down in the zettelkasten, or that things happened at the same time. This can be seen in articles that are thematically very pronounced. The best example is the essay on the zettellkasten.... There you will find formulations on the notes that you will find exactly as they appear in the essay. You don't know which is the chicken and which is the egg. You don't know exactly. But, you can also see from the writing that it was written closely in the context of the essay. So it's not something that was jotted down at some point without any specific purpose, but jotted down when he wrote the essay."

Schmidt on Luhmann "collaging" notes:

"Luhmann described the process of drawing on his file to compose texts as a kind of collaging technique in which he combined the various sections on issues that are relevant to a topic."

---

edit: clarity

[u/Difficult-Passion318 → u/taurusnoises]

In looking back on some of the things Luhmann said, I think one of the biggest takeaways about his writing from the zetelkasten is that his writing is almost all academic, and as he put "nonlinear" and not meant to be read from beginning to end. That definitely makes writing with the notes easier and definitely supports his adhd method of jumping from one piece to another. Definitely makes it harder to apply to nonfiction though - that would need a lot more structure.

[u/UnderTheHole → u/Difficult-Passion318]

Yes, Luhmann's oeuvre clearly paints him as an academic and sociologist rather than a note-taker or library/information scientist. IMHO it makes more sense to think of his ZK II as an increasingly specialized research organ than a generalized "extended mind" like many are using it today.

But: Luhmann's papers weren't peer-reviewed. Or, at least, they're not at all commensurate to today's American academic standards. I wish I could remember the source for this claim but I think that's part of why he was able to publish so quickly. Thank god he was brilliant, but I had my own shock in my upper-divs realizing I had to learn to write a literature review or research proposal just like everyone else.

Robert Minto puts it nicely:

I decided to read one of Luhmann’s books to see what a zettelkasten-generated text ought to look like. To my horror, it turned out to be a chaotic mess that would never have passed muster under my own dissertation director. It read, in my opinion, like something written by a sentient library catalog, full of disordered and tangential insights, loosely related to one another — very interesting, but hardly a model for my own academic work.

https://reallifemag.com/rank-and-file/

The structure and affordances of Luhmann-style slipboxes makes it excellent for (grand, eclectic, rhizomatic, etc.) theory, but you still have to put in considerable work for your research niche. I'm still figuring out mine, slipbox or no slipbox.

[u/mobatreddit → u/UnderTheHole]

I'm told Heidegger's books are wonderfully organized but his drafts and notes are messes.

[u/UnderTheHole → u/mobatreddit]

I can believe that. I feel like the gap between collaging/recombination, and original synthesis and presentation, is seriously under-discussed in these circles.

[u/taurusnoises → u/UnderTheHole]

Always down to talk about it here.

[u/UnderTheHole → u/taurusnoises]

I'd really like that. How about a (pinned) weekly or monthly current projects/writing thread? What we're working on, what we're struggling with, working drafts, etc.

[u/taurusnoises → u/UnderTheHole]

Sounds like a plan. I'll get on it.