Zettelkasten
The slip-box method comes from sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Its claim is plain: one idea per card, cards linked into a network — the value lies not in any card but in what emerges once they are connected.
Jotaid's underlying structure fits it naturally. The only thing to think through is where the index lives.
Where the Three Kinds of Note Go
Luhmann distinguished three kinds. In Jotaid:
| In the slip-box | In Jotaid | How |
|---|---|---|
| Fleeting notes | Ordinary notes in the Inbox | Quick Note them without deciding where they belong |
| Literature notes | Notes from the literature template | Source / Author → Core Claims → Key Quotes → My Thinking |
| Permanent notes | Notes you rewrote in your own words and linked into the network | One idea each, titled with the idea itself |
The decisive step is from literature note to permanent note: rewriting it in your own words. That italic prompt in the template — "Where do you agree, doubt, or extend this?" — exists for exactly that step.
One Note, One Idea
The test: can this note's title be written as a complete claim?
- ❌ "Notes on attention" — that is a folder name
- ✅ "Attention residue makes task switching cost more than the timer shows" — that is an idea
Once titles are claims, [[ ]] links start feeling natural: what you cite elsewhere is a proposition, not "that note I wrote about attention".
The Index: Nodes Are Luhmann's Keyword Cards
Luhmann's box held a special kind of card — the index card, carrying one keyword and the numbers of every card discussing it. It is why the system was searchable at all.
In Jotaid you never maintain those cards. Nodes are them:
- Write
[[attention residue]]in a body and the node exists - Open it and every note mentioning it is listed under backlinks — the index grows itself
- A node can also hold a body of its own: the concept's definition, your reading of it, where it borders on neighbouring ideas
This is where Jotaid departs from plain backlink tools: a concept is not merely a link anchor, it is a note you can write, read and keep growing.
Letting Connections Surface
The slip-box earns its keep by revealing links you did not plan. Jotaid offers three levels:
| Tool | Answers |
|---|---|
| Knowledge graph | What my network looks like, which concepts are hubs |
| Co-occurrence matrix | Which two concepts keep appearing together — even where I never linked them |
| Link predictions | Which connections I have missed |
The matrix comes closest to Luhmann's "unexpected neighbours": two concepts recurring across the same notes yet never directly related is, very often, the title of your next permanent note.
Two Things to Avoid
Do not use themes as a classification tree. Hierarchical filing is the slip-box's opposite: the moment you start agonising over which folder a note belongs in, the network has degenerated into a tree. Treat a theme as the direction you are currently pushing on, not as permanent storage — links and nodes do the archiving, containers do not.
You do not need the numbers. Luhmann's 21/3a1 addresses existed to locate a physical card. Here the title is the identity and [[ ]] is the address; copying the numbering only adds upkeep.
Next Steps
- Backlinks — Nodes and links
- Co-occurrence Matrix — Finding unexpected neighbours
- PARA — The complementary philosophy
- Design Thinking — What Jotaid itself was built around