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[[!meta title="Build a Zettelkasten with the Hyperbole Rolodex"]]
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2022 Ramin Honary"]]
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# Build a Zettelkasten with the Hyperbole Rolodex
Ramin Honary ("Rah-mean" (hard-H) "Ho-na-ree", he/him)
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"Zettelkasten" is a methodology for marshalling your knowledge,
ideas, creativity, into a database of hyperlinked notes, each note
representing a single quantity of knowledge. The method was first
devised by a well-published social scientist named Niklas Luhmann.
Though he constructed his database with actual slips of paper in a
box with a notebook for indexing, naturally, modern software removes
the manual labor from the process. In the world of Emacs packages,
Org Mode is the most well-known package that provides the tools
necessary for building a Zettelkasten, but it is not the only Emacs
package to provide such tools. But there is an alternative: an
oft-overlooked Emacs package called Hyperbole, and in particular the
"Rolodex" feature, called "HyRolo." It was originally designed for
tracking your personal relations, but it can be used to build a
Zettelkasten with almost no additional configuration or 3rd-party
packages. HyRolo is a purely textual database, and does not require
an external database software to index the notes. It also provides a
very rich set of "actions" so that notes not only link to each
other, but can also trigger Emacs to execute code as well.
Outline: (about 1 minute per outline item)
1. Quick overview of the Zettelkasten methodology
- 1.1. What is a single quantity of knowledge
- 1.2. Linking between pieces of knowledge
- 1.3. Composing pieces of knoweldge into hierarchies
2. Tools provided by the Hyperbole Rolodex (HyRolo)
2.1. The plain text database format
2.1.1. Possible brief digression to explain Hyperbole menu
system
2.2. Demo how to add a new entry
2.3. Demo how to searching entries
2.4. Demo how to hyperlink entries
2.5. Overview of the many various types of hyperlink actions
2.6. How to compose a hierarchy of notes.
3. Practical examples
- 3.1. Managing daily tasks
- 3.1.1. Integration with Org Agenda to manage TODO lists
- 3.1.2. Keeping track of people, conversations, mail
- 3.1.3. Keeping track of work, projects
- 3.2. Doing research, writing blogs or papers
- 3.2.1. Note hierarchies become your table of contents
- 3.2.2. Following chains of ideas to fill in each section, trimming excess prose
- 3.2.3. Keeping track of sources, references
- 3.3. Writing fiction
- 3.3.1. Heirarchy is less rigid, should follow the story telling model: intro -> conflict -> climax -> resolution
- 3.3.2. Rolodex of fictional characters, chain ideas such that they construct a personal history for each character
- 3.3.3. Chains of events are not as important as establishing tone and mood. Order of exposition need not be linear
4. Conclusions
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[[!taglink CategoryHyperbole]] [[!taglink CategoryZettelkasten]]
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