From Chaos to Clarity: Eliška Šestáková on Building Smarter Note Systems

Eliška Šestáková

Eliška Šestáková: It's Eliška, or Eliska, or Elisabeth. I'm fine with all, all those three.

Nigel Rawlins: Eliška,, welcome to the Wisepreneurs podcast. Could you tell us where you're from and something about you?

Eliška Šestáková: Hello, Nigel. So first, thank you for having me, thank you for inviting me, it's an honor. So, I'm from Czech Republic. So it's in the middle of Europe and, something about me, what I love to say, uh, is that I am a passionate note taker, because I take notes almost about everything and almost always. So that's the first thing I, that I talk about myself. And. I also love systems, uh, organizing stuff, building note taking systems. And, as for my professional background, I am an academic. And I work at Faculty of Information Technology, in Prague at Czech Technical University.

Nigel Rawlins: Thomas Baranek, told me to talk to you because he said you were the expert in note taking. And note taking is really big in the world, but the thing I have a problem with with the note taking is there's fantastic ways of doing it, but should everybody be taking notes?

And particularly, this podcast is aimed at independent professionals. These are people who are probably older, working for themselves. Should they still be taking notes? And what is the use of notes? I want to talk a lot about notes today.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, it's my favorite topic. So, great.

Nigel Rawlins: Good.

Eliška Šestáková: First, Tomáš is very kind. He's using very kind words when he's talking about me. So, I appreciate it. I think notes can be beneficial to, like, really everyone. Of course people will use notes differently, so, and we are all different people, so we need a different, uh, let's say, level of note taking, or, uh, different, approach to it. So, for example, me, I am very, uh, nerdy and very, uh, systematically oriented. So my note taking system is very complex and maybe most people, would be scared of it, but, uh, it doesn't mean that they can't take notes. Even, uh, very simple systems can be very beneficial and can help them in many ways, like in work and also in personal life.

Nigel Rawlins: I think at the simple level, we might make a note to say that, look, if I don't write down the shopping list when I go to the supermarket, there's a good chance I'll forget something. So that's at its simplest level.

But for a professional, why should they be taking notes? And what should they be doing with them?

Eliška Šestáková: Well, for professionals, I think I see maybe two main ways, uh, how they can use notes. And first is for their professional development. So, they usually need to, uh, grow as a professional, reading books, taking courses. And, if we don't take notes on this knowledge, then, uh, we don't use that knowledge as much as we could, or we don't exploit it as much as we could. Uh, so this is definitely, uh, one way of doing it. And the second one is for projects. So when I'm a professional, for example, uh, me, I'm writing a newsletter, running a website. So I take lots of notes, uh, on my projects. So when I put down the project for, I don't know, a month or two, because I am busy with doing something, something else. I can get back to it very quickly, uh, like in a minute, basically, because I took notes about where I, where my work ended and where my thoughts were, and I have all the materials gathered. So it's the working on the project, it's, it's faster and it's easier, definitely easier. So that's, I think, uh, is the most beneficial.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, that was the main thing. I, I think if, for example, if you're an independent professional, you're working for yourself, you really do have to keep up to date and therefore, um, maybe listening to podcasts, reading books, reading articles, that's a great deal of information coming in. What do you do with your notes and how do you sort them out and what happens with them?

Eliška Šestáková: Well, I think maybe I will go back a little. And, uh, before I take notes, I think it's very important to decide what you will spend your time on. Like, what books, what podcasts, what articles you will be reading. And notes can be also beneficial, with this question and answer. Because when I, I don't know, found a podcast or a book or something, I just put it into my notes.

Like I call it a content freezer. So I put it there and I take a small notes about why it interested me. So why I think it could be beneficial and it's, it's there in my list. And, uh, usually, from time to time, once a week, uh, I don't know, once a month, when I have time, I go through this list and I, uh, like, skim the, skim the content, skim the book, skim the podcast, uh, it's called inspectional reading, if I'm using, like, the term, it's from the book How to Read a Book from Mortimer Adler. I don't know. Do you know that book?

Nigel Rawlins: Yes,

Eliška Šestáková: I found that fascinating. So I do the inspectional reading phase on these sources to get a bigger picture, broad picture on what the source is about. And I'm thinking about how it can help me with what projects, what questions I have, my problems. And I will connect it inside my note taking system.

I will connect it with these, uh, like problems, questions, and, and projects. So when it comes out to decide what I want to read next or listen to next, I will not go to my reading list, but I will go to, like, my projects, my problems, my questions, and I will find what is like, my biggest priority, because, uh, and, uh, and after that, I will choose the sources I linked to that problem, for example. So, when I'm really, really, like, unsatisfied with, let's say, my sleep, that it could be better. So, I have a question in my note taking system, how can I make my sleep better? So, and if it's really like, an issue for me, then I will have a high motivation for, uh, reading the sources and taking, absorbing the information and taking notes because taking notes is hard. It's hard when you do it on the wrong stuff. Uh, it may become boring. You may feel it's boring. You might feel like procrastinate on, uh, finishing the book or something. And I feel it's because we chose, the wrong book or the wrong content because it is not, uh, as relevant to us at the moment as it could be.

So I always go or start, uh, from the project questions and problems when I'm deciding what to, what to read. So that's, that's the first part. Maybe I will stop here if you want to add anything

and then I will continue.

Nigel Rawlins: I was going to say that's a very disciplined approach. So there's a couple of things there too, because what I think you're saying there is there's personal notes, and then there's also the research type notes that to use for your projects or maybe your articles and stuff like that.

So first of all, are you reading actually physical books or digital books? And what's the system and where do you put them?

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, well, I came from being a paper person to paperless person like ebooks only. And then I, it's like one year back, I think I came back to paper books. So at the moment I'm paper person again, and I'm very happy about it. So, uh, I think maybe I will talk a bit about this transition because it may be interesting to people. So, first when I was reading, uh, paper books and, uh, it was a course I took, uh, building second brain from Tiago Forte, where he explained like benefits of ebooks, like that you can extract highlights, like on one click and you can get it to tool like Readwise, and then it can be synced to your note taking app. And I saw that and it was like, oh, I can be so much smarter with these tools. So I ditch almost all my paper books, I bought all electronic ebooks. And, it took me, I think, like two years, um, before I realized that I don't like that approach as much. And that it is, it was like only, um, an illusion of getting smarter, faster. Because I was extracting highlights. But It felt like work when I needed to go back to those highlights in my note taking app and do something with them. So it felt like work. I really needed the discipline to do it. When I was reading paper books, I could really just focus on the book, read a chapter or something, think about it, and take notes in my own words, not just extract highlights and stuff. So I think, the main, the main reason is definitely that it makes me happier to read, uh, paper books. So that's definitely the main reason. And also that I realized that, uh, the speed is not the issue or the way that when I learn faster, it doesn't make me happier when I'm learning faster, and I'm still not sure if that is even the truth that I am learning faster.

It's maybe just the illusion with the, with the e books. So I came back, uh, to paper books, and, um, it was because of the book How to Read a Book, which I first started to read as an e book, and I was making highlights, and I was realizing that I'm trying to take the highlights and extract the essence of the chapter, but it doesn't matter.

It didn't matter how many highlights I took. It still wasn't the whole picture or, or something. I really needed to take my own notes. So, uh, that's when I realized that taking highlights doesn't make any justice to this book. And for some books, it's okay. For some books, for some articles, I do use electronic versions and highlights, but when the book or the source is, like, really something, really something, and I want to dig it out completely, and it's important for me, then I use it. prefer paper, uh, and taking notes with my own words and writing them on paper or margins and then going to note taking app. Yeah, so this was maybe also part of your question. So I take notes in margins in the paper books. I underline and take, uh, small notes and it depends how long the book is, but sometimes I move these notes. To my note taking app after I finish the whole book.

Sometimes, when I finish a chapter. So it depends on the length of the book and also on its complexity and topic.

Nigel Rawlins: I had to do something similar recently. I read a book digitally took highlights, but I've never checked them. But

Eliška Šestáková: Mm hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: was quite fascinating for me. It was about, believe it or not, strategy, business strategy by a chap called Peter Compo, who I'm speaking to in September on the podcast.

I had to buy his book, the physical book, and then go through the book and I take lots of notes on cards. So I took 160 cards and then I

Eliška Šestáková: Wow.

Nigel Rawlins: through those cards to, till I distilled it down to about 20 cards

Eliška Šestáková: Mm

Nigel Rawlins: to write about it to really understand and then I've got to try and put it into practice because it's quite a practical book but it's, it's hard to get your head around.

Eliška Šestáková: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: trying to read it digitally, It just wasn't getting into my head,

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah. It just didn't work. I don't know

why, but sometimes it just didn't work.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah. Well, that's the secret. And I think we, like, I have probably hundreds of books. I'm, I'm, I've got to stop buying books. I've just got to get through them on my Kindle, but I also have hundreds of books on my bookshelves and which I'd still like to get to, but some of the Kindle books, I came across a really good sounding, interesting books, and I just grab it digitally and some of them are fast to read and some I don't really want the book, the topic's interesting. And I have a serious problem, I buy too many different subjects. But the lovely thing I find about some of the books and some of the words and and that's why some of the highlights are really good is some people have got a really good way of explaining things and you want to capture that

But Yeah,

Eliška Šestáková: I know what you mean.

Nigel Rawlins: I agree with you. I think both methods are good, but I agree having the book in front of you and having a system. So how does how does your reading and your note taking work with your computer science?

Eliška Šestáková: Well, it was actually my PhD studies that led me to note taking. Because when I was writing my dissertation, I was overwhelmed with articles and books and my own thoughts and my own articles that I needed to transform somehow into dissertation. And I had notes on the papers on the articles I printed out. I had some, some, some notebooks and, papers and everything. So I didn't use as much, some apps, note taking apps back then. Uh, I had Evernote, but I rarely opened it. So when I tried to these all into dissertation. I quickly realized that I need some help, so I Googled just, uh, I'm not sure what I Googled. I think first it was something about how to write dissertation, so, lots of books on dissertation writing, I read several of them, but I realized that some of them were motivational. Some of them were practical, but usually for humanities, like humanities studies, but I was from a computer science department.

So there was some, I don't know, like qualitative research or quantitative research. And so it wasn't relevant for, for, for me. So it was when I found A book called, Writing in Computer Science, from I'm not sure how his name is pronounced. It's Zober, I think. And it's very, very highly relevant for computer scientists.

So it was, it was a great book, but it still wasn't enough. It still didn't give me the about how to manage all the stuff and transform it Into dissertation So it was when I found the book How to Take Notes. I just Googled and found the book and read the annotation and it sounded relevant. I wasn't giving it high hopes. But, uh, I thought, okay, it will not hurt to read it. So I start reading it and, uh, I quickly realized that it's highly relevant. And that there is a system that can really help me to get this through. It was also when I ordered, like paper version, because first I purchased the digital version and I realized that I need the paper version, uh, to get the most of it. So I ordered it. I read it. I implemented what is called the Zettelkasten system. And, It was, yeah, basically this system and Roam Research software I found when I was implementing the Zettelkasten note taking system that helped me to get through it, to help me sort the notes I already had, but also when I was reading other books and articles that I needed to finish my thesis. Also with this new stuff, uh, it helped me to get, get the dissertation done and successfully, I, I may say now, so,

successfully. So, yeah, that, that's one way how notes helped me in my academic field. And it also is helping me with my teacher career. And when I'm teaching students and preparing correct lectures it's also very beneficial.

For example, if students struggle with some exercise, I may take notes, what the struggles, uh, were. So for example, where they were confused or about their questions and next year, uh, when I am teaching this course again, without notes, most of the stuff I would forget, but with those notes, I can look into them and prepare much better for the lecture.

So, uh, the lectures are getting much, much better with the notes I have.

So it's definitely another way how to use notes.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay. So what you did, what you've mentioned is the Zettelkasten, was Sonke Ahrens book, how to Take Smart Notes.

Eliška Šestáková: Yes, yes, yes, that's it.

Nigel Rawlins: Did you ever come across a lady called Lisa-Marie Cabrelli?

she,

Eliška Šestáková: I was, uh, in her course, it was Academic Magical Note Taking, something, something

like that. Yes.

I was a beta tester.

nigel-rawlins_1_08-23-2024_154211: Okay, so you've done that course. Lisa's been on the podcast twice now.

Eliška Šestáková: Okay.

nigel-rawlins_1_08-23-2024_154211: that, that's where I came across her. Not that I wanted to do a PhD or anything, I just wanted to get a better idea of how to use Roam Research. She actually spoke about Roam Research, a couple of others have mentioned it. Maybe you could talk a little bit about Roam Research, or about note taking apps, because there's a lot more around nowadays, and how they're useful.

And, and then I'll mention some of the stuff I do with them.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, I'm actually doing a course at the, at the moment on how to choose the note taking app, because, I think it's a jungle out there with lots of these apps popping out. And, if people are new to this realm of note taking and they can be overwhelmed with lots of choices they have. So, um, I am putting together a course that will help them navigate through this land. Uh, so what a note taking app is, is it's an app for, for taking notes, of course. But, I think we can first discuss what a note is, basically, because we all have some vague idea about what a note is. But I have some specific definition for that. And that's, it's any record, it can be text, or it can be audio, it can be graphic, anything that is that you are the final audience for this record. Because when you write a text to someone, you are not the target audience. You are writing to someone else. You need to, uh, for example, over explain some things you already know, but you are talking to someone else, so you need to explain it in other words or some other explanation. But when you are talking to yourself, you can leave things out because you know them, for example. So a note is something that is helping you to communicate with yourself, with your future self and with your present self.

It is for present self as well, because you can, for example, reflect on your problems and talk to yourself through these apps and note taking apps are designed for this communication. For communication with your future and present self, and they are, uh, equipped with lots of smart functions for that. One of the most interesting function that came recently are called bi directional links, which help you connect notes and then not only to create a link to some note, but also to see where you mentioned, all places in your app where you mentioned, the specific note. So that this function or feature that I'm using heavily in my workflow, for example, and it helps you organize with lots of features like tags, folders, of course, and, and the links and there are some smart features like graph views which basically led me to Roam Research.

Like, the graph view, it felt so essential that I needed that. And at the moment, I'm rarely using it. It's there.

Nigel Rawlins: We should mention what, what you mean by the graph. It's like

a picture of space, isn't it?

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah. It's good. Or, or a web, you can say, a web spider web with, with the dots connected with, with lines.

Nigel Rawlins: And the dots are masses of the same sort of notes.

Eliška Šestáková: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: I've been using Roam Research since it came out, and trying to look at my graph, it takes forever to load because there's thousands of notes in there. I have no idea what's in my Roam Research, but I do tag all the time, and like you with the digital notes, I'm way behind with processing them, because I read anything. I'll read an article on LinkedIn or I'll read an article somewhere else and I'll highlight it. Goes through Readwise, ends up in Roam Research and sits there waiting for me to come back in. But the only way I'm ever going to find anything is to learn how to search in and find it. Because I'm not really organised.

There's just a mass notes in there. But you sound like you're better organised than I am.

Eliška Šestáková: Well, maybe a little better, but of course my Roam is also a mess. But what is great about Roam, I think, is that it doesn't bother you. Even though you are a control freak and you love to organize stuff. It doesn't bother you if you have a mess in Roam because it is somehow hidden.

You can still have a clean environment even though If there is some mess underneath and yeah, I think that's great about Roam and, for example, I think you can't achieve that in traditional note taking apps like Evernote, maybe even Obsidian, which are based on folders. So if you have a mess in folders or something, you are still seeing it. But in Roam Research, there are pages and blocks and they are in the background. And if you don't create a shortcut, for example, for that, to left sidebar or something, it is It's in the background, you can search for it, you can find it if you want it, but it's there, it doesn't bother you, so, yeah, so that's how I survive.

It's basically, I think, the main reason why I'm still using Roam, because I am also creating mess, but it didn't bother me in Roam.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, the biggest danger is having thousands and thousands of notes in Roam Research and then wanting maybe to change to another one. Now, other ones can import it, but I have no idea what to be like because I have tried a couple of the others. And the problem with having been in one particular note taking app for a long time, I did try Evernote before, but it just wasn't I found it too clunky and just full of folders, as you mentioned, Roam Research came out, so I think I paid 500 US dollars and I think that gave it to me for five years. So mine's probably going to run out soon, and I have no idea what it's going to cost me to keep going. But all the others will cost some money too, as well. But when you said shortcuts, we should explain that. It means that if I load all the notes I've got of a particular book, but I haven't yet gone through and tagged them. So tag them, that, that's how we link to all the other notes with the same tag in, in the thing.

You can highlight it and it'll appear on the site. So it'll always be there and you can click on rather than having to search for it. The other thing about Roam Research is being able to find a lot of the linked notes and I'll be honest, I have never learned how to search. I mean, you can put a search in the top, but you'll only come up with particular pages, but you can do query searches, can't you?

I not a master of query searches,

Eliška Šestáková: Mhm. Mhm.

Nigel Rawlins: But since AI's come in, I get AI to write the query for me. So you've got a particular topic you want to write about, you've got lots and lots and lots of notes in there that are tagged to each other, so do you query it to find what you want?

Eliška Šestáková: Well, uh, usually when I decide that I want to write about something, for example, um, a newsletter issue or a blog post or, I don't know, a course, for example, that I want to create, I create a project page for that or a page in, in Roam. And I see it as a hook, a note taking hook. And I will hang notes on this hook.

So, I just create a blank project and I leave it there.

And for some time, for example, a week, a month, it depends on how much time I have. I'm just collecting, sources, ideas. Because when I start to create the project page and I go for a walk, for example, that afternoon or a week after that, Ideas will start popping into my head, so I will capture them into Roam, into daily note page, and I will tag it with the project page.

So this phase usually takes about, um, from one week to one month, and then I will go into this page and I will sort what I collected. And if it is enough, I will stop. But if it is not enough, then I will go through my note taking system and try to find something else.

I usually don't use queries.

I also just use the simple search for keywords, so let's say I am writing about productivity, so I will just put a keyword productivity into the search bar and look through all the mentions I have, or I may have a note called productivity in my note taking system, like the Zettelkasten. So it is like an index note, and from there I may find something highly relevant for the piece I'm writing, creating. So, It's another way how I'm pulling information to my project. And, sometimes I just need to say, okay, now it's enough because the research may go on and on and

on. So there is a line where I need to just listen to my intuition that I have enough now and I can stop researching. So I stop and I've switch to the second phase, like creating and transforming all the stuff I have into something new.

Nigel Rawlins: Now, this is interesting because one of the podcast guests I had

Eliška Šestáková: hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: was Debbie Jenkins

Eliška Šestáková: Mm

Nigel Rawlins: Debbie, talks about writing how-to books. rather than writing about the whole subject, just write a short how-to book. And this is where, notetaking especially for the independent professionals, if you've got your notes somewhere organized and you can pull them out, then this will help you write a little how-to book.

They don't have to be big books.

Eliška Šestáková: Hmm. Definitely. Yeah. Mm hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: So, this is, the benefit of taking notes and reading widely, not overdoing it. As you said, the intuition is, hey, enough's enough. Get the damn thing out.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay. So that's interesting because you came across Lisa-Marie Cabrelli.

You use Roam Research. You've tried Readwise and highlighting notes and book notes and organising them. So you have a system. Did you find by doing Tiago Forte's course

Eliška Šestáková: Building a second brain.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, so how did that help you with your organisation?

Eliška Šestáková: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So it was where after I read the book How To Take Smart Notes from Sonke Ahrens, I was looking on the internet, searching how to implement the Zettelkasten digitally because, uh, the book is about the analog system and not giving too much advice on how to do it digitally. So at first I thought it will be easy, like, these are the principles. Of course, I can do it digitally. But when I was trying to make it work, I came out with lots of questions. So I started to, um, look into them on the internet. And it was when I found the course and Tiago and his course, Building a Second Brain. And, I knew it was not about Zettelkasten, but it was about Personal Knowledge Management, so highly connected topics. So I decided to join in. It was cohort 12, I think, like three, four years ago. And, um, again, I didn't have high hopes, but, from the beginning I wrote a tweet about my experience that it was like my first visit, visit to Disneyland, like I was jumping from one thing to another and saying, wow, this is so cool. So it was really a fascinating, uh, experience for me. And, it helped me I think to put. like, basic layer of my note taking system on which I built my Zettelkasten. Because Zettelkasten I see as a way of organizing, like, pure knowledge. Like, knowledge from books, for example, and courses, and your own thinking.

So doing research. But, of course, you are also having information on your projects, on your household, on your loved ones, on your health or something. And you also want to sort this information somewhere. But Zettelkasten, for me, it doesn't felt like the right way of doing it.

Because it was for the pure research. So when I had the document about my health, well, where do I put it? So, it was the course, Building a Second Brain, which provided answers for these questions. So where do I put all the basic information? And after that, I, uh, somehow merge it with Zettelkasten, which is, I think, a higher level of how to organize knowledge if you are up to it.

But, uh, so Building a Second Brain, the course and the book for my point of view is for the really like the beginners, if you are starting with personal knowledge management or information management, and you don't know what to do, then this book will help you. And if you are not satisfied with the depth of knowledge, or if you want more than how to take smart notes and the Zettelkasten system, maybe the upgrade you are looking for.

Nigel Rawlins: And I probably should have mentioned at the start, I've been taking notes for years and I've got many, many notebooks in the cupboard. But the problem with an analogue or paper notes is it's not easy to retrieve them. So, I have no idea, I'm sure I took really good notes about topics years ago they're disorganised and I've still got piles of them and I really have to go through.

But the problem is I've got all my new notes as well.

So, and I'm assuming there's people out there who are drowning in notes as well. Maybe they just need to hire somebody to scan them and turn them into text and load them into something. I have encouraged people to do that. So that's the thing we're trying to do is not be overwhelmed with our notes, but have some sort of system where we can retrieve them use them when we need to.

And really, if you're going to continue growing, you've got to read and take notes and, you know, understand what the language means. And I struggle with words like epistemology and all that stuff and and I do take notes about it and keep pulling it out and pedagogy and how does this all work and it can be overwhelming can't it?

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And also what came to my mind is that you mentioned like retrieving the information and stuff from your system. And I think the system is also beneficial in that it provides you information you are not even looking for, but what you may need. So what you already forgot, when you connect it with a good keyword and after year or two you are looking for that keyword, then you will stumble on the notes you already forgot you had, but that are highly relevant or highly useful for you at the moment. So, when this moment arises in my note taking systems, I'm always happy when, when this happens.

Nigel Rawlins: That's what I like about retrieving notes too, is because it reminds me of things I forget, and stimulates me because I haven't published anything onto my website for months, but I've written the articles because I writing stuff because new topics come up all the I get, I'm 68 and I'm still getting excited about topics.

And I've got lots and lots to write about. And, um, I've just got to pull them together. And I do want to write some simple how to books about the stuff, but I don't know, which one do I want to start with first? I need somebody to organize me. But there's so much fabulous stuff out there. I can get lost on Twitter and and I do follow people and I make sure I get notified of the ones I'm really interested in they say here's a fantastic note about decision making or negotiation, an interesting aspect of marketing and oh, I can get lost and I read about WordPress and everything.

It's just crazy. What I would love is a really good AI system to work with Roam. Not, to do it all for me, but to help me find things and organize things.

I think that might be coming because I downloaded an AI app on my Macbook the other day, just organises files for me, and it does it beautifully. It doesn't lose it just organises them. And I'm thinking, that would be wonderful.

Eliška Šestáková: Nice. Nice.

Nigel Rawlins: It might be coming, but I haven't seen anything from Roam. I don't think I've tried to learn anything about it lately. Look, I have tried Obsidian.

Eliška Šestáková: Mm

Nigel Rawlins: This is the other thing too I'm noticing with note taking apps. People get really excited about them and they become an expert on them and then they do a course on them and then another app comes along and they either move to that one or somebody else does it and their one goes out of date. So that's the danger with having too many note taking apps too.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it's called shiny new app syndrome.

Like when a new app is coming out and people are crazy about it. tweeting about it and, uh, posting stuff on social networks. Like, this is the app, like, this will change the world. And you just go with the flow and you install the app and be there, but only for the period of time where a new app comes out and new wave starts. So, yeah, I myself I was in this hamster wheel for, for, for a while, but, yeah, when I found Roam, sometimes people say that when you are using Roam, you will have a hard time when you want to move stuff somewhere else, but I found that actually beneficial because it prevents me to migrate, uh, like quickly and install new app and move everything. So I don't see it as, uh, that I am like locked in this system that I can't export my notes. I can export them. I can put them in some other app. It will not maybe works so nicely, but it will work somehow. But the vision of doing it prevents me to jump ships so quickly.

Nigel Rawlins: Totally agree. that's the biggest danger, there's so much happening in the world there's so many things that we want to use like AI and automation is the next big thing. How do we just cut down the stuff that we keep having to do, how can we automate that?

And there's new software all the time. And if, if you're like me, you're using this app and you're using that app. And every time you bring a new app in, you've got to learn it.

And I keep buying all the courses that are going to show me how, and I've still got 10 courses to get through, which never get through.

So, what advice would you give to somebody now saying, okay, I've got lots of paper notes, you know, this is not working for me anymore. What should they do? Where should they start?

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, just one more thing that came to my mind about the switching the apps and it's a sentence or something, some mantra that I try to remind myself when a new app comes out and I'm inclined to try it and maybe, uh, use that instead of Roam, is that I remind myself that Niklas Luhmann, the most famous user I think of Zettelkasten System didn't have any note taking app.

He used only wooden boxes with cards, with paper cards, and how productive he was. So, I don't need, or we don't need, like, the best or perfect app for doing the work, uh, doing the thinking. Uh, really just a simple app will do. Uh, If there is something that really bothers me, like some feature missing or something, for example, it loads too slowly or something like this, it is a good reason to switch apps, but if everything is working and you just think that you might be maybe more productive if you move to this app, then I myself don't do it.

I always remind myself, Niklas has only wooden box. And he was productive, so.

nigel-rawlins_1_08-23-2024_154211: And he wrote lots of books And

Eliška Šestáková: yes, yes, yes,

Nigel Rawlins: And always incredibly productive. I think that's the important thing. If you've got lots of paper notes now, I think it will be overwhelming to think about, especially if you're older, how to digitise those, unless you're prepared to pay somebody to do it for you organise it.

One of the things about Roam Research that annoys me a little bit, it is a bit technical.

However, that doesn't stop me. It is the searching is more tech. And then I guess there's, there's tech heads out there, or what do you call them? Who are doing amazing things with it because they know how to write the software for it, mine is very basic. I just, I just tag stuff and then hopefully pull it out. Okay. So our advice to somebody is, is not go mad on this, keep it simple, but gee, where would we point them?

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, but in this moment it will be in Czech language, but, we plan to translate it into English as well. So, after that it will be available for most of the people. But, for start, I would say just choose, like, 10 apps, for example,

Use them for a while, just 10 apps, but not use them like properly, but just to like test them out, like to see what options people have and try to take notes about what you like, what you don't like, what you are looking for, what your use cases are, for example, what you want to take notes on, and so on, and look on the features that the applications offer, and then just choose one.

Just choose one app, from these ten, and use it, let's say, for two months. And don't switch apps, just use it for two months, and then re evaluate if maybe you find something else, but, uh, always remember that Niklas Luhmann had just wooden box. So you don't need some best, newest app to do the work. Just some app. I think Apple Notes would work for me just fine. I'm happy with Roam Research. It has great functions, but I could do the work with Apple Notes as well.

Nigel Rawlins: I'm going to suggest to people, if you do subscribe to something, just pay by the month. Don't do what I do and pay by the year and then suddenly find after three months that it's just terrible.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: That's why I waste an awful lot of money. So if people want to know stuff, I can tell you, I've spent the money.

I've got lots of programs that I have to keep cancelling at the end of the year. And I get caught sometimes and I forget to cancel and I've paid for another year or something like that.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, I have a note about that, actually. I have a note called my subscriptions.

And I have a list of all my subscriptions, and I also have a notification in my calendar reminding me, like, week before the subscription is renewed.

Nigel Rawlins: Cancel. Cancel.

Eliška Šestáková: Do you want to cancel? Do you want to continue? Think hard.

Nigel Rawlins: Mine's all on a card, I keep updating it, and I suddenly realise, oh, there's another one I forgot about. Especially apps on my MacBook Pro.

I've just gone to Set App, I'll put it in the show notes, where you don't have to buy all the little apps, you just pay I think $11 a month or something like that and you can download tiny little apps that do little jobs.

Rather than me buying this app and that app and that app, and then having to pay them, I just pay a monthly fee they're fantastic. As I said, I paid for Roam about four or five years ago, so I don't even know what it costs anymore.

Are there any others that you've heard of that maybe people should look at?

Eliška Šestáková: Mm, I think that if there wasn't Roam, I would definitely try Logseq or RemNote. I like RemNote as well. Basically, I would look for outliners. Because, I realized that what I need from note taking app is the outlining feature. Which basically means that you are always writing lists. And, also zoom in and out to different levels. So it's very, for example, useful when you are writing Dissertation, for example. So when I need to focus only on some specific section, I can zoom in and don't see anything else. And if I want to switch chapters, switch sections, I can do it very easily in outliners. So this is definitely a feature that I would be looking for. And other than that, some app which is also providing the feature we talk about, the bidirectional links, which I think is

very useful. I'm. I'm heavily using it, for, I think I mentioned it a bit also, like an inbox workflow.

For example, find some source or have some idea, I put it on my note taking inbox, which is the Daily Notes page. And I tag it with the destination where I want to see it. And, thanks to the bi directional link feature, when I go to the destination, I see linked references or all the places where I mentioned this note, but the body of the note is, is empty.

It's clean. So I can go through the list and move it, transform it into the body. And, uh, so this. workflow, I'm using it heavily in my projects, in my notes I'm doing in Zettelkasten, for example. When I have a note in Zettelkasten about some topic in linked references, I may have some vague ideas about it that I want to incorporate.

Or some sources that may be about that source. They are all in the linked references, so when I want to push the note forward somehow, I want to upgrade it, I can just see the linked references, pick something and, move it, process it into the body. So I would, for myself, I would look for outlining and bidirectional links and, the specific note taking apps are Lockseq, RemNote, Tana, people like Tana, but it is quite complex. I think, so maybe not for most people, but Workflowy, yeah, Workflowy is, I think, for beginners.

Is very nice app provides the outlining feature, also the bidirectional links, but it is not overwhelming with features, so, If people want to start with that, I would recommend that, for example.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's a pretty good explanation there. Now, tell me, what are mysterious new notes?

Eliška Šestáková: I would translate it as Strange New Notes. Actually, according to Star Trek Strange New Worlds,

I am writing a newsletter called Strange New Notes. And, it's my newsletter. I am publishing like, uh, twice a month, every other Saturday. And it answers questions about how we can grow more efficiently in professional and personal life, how we can organize stuff, how we can build note taking systems, how we can take notes, basically. So, yeah. I published there my thoughts that I gathered in my Zettelkasten system, because for quite some time I was just writing in my system, but I wasn't publishing anything, so I needed to put a little pressure on myself. So I decided to publish every two weeks, something from my Zettelkasten, and not to create some big article with tons of research because before that I was publishing on my website, articles about, I don't know, 10, 15, 000 words, uh, with lots of references and everything. And it took me always like half a year to write it. So at the moment I am scaling to get it smaller, like, every issue of the newsletter is about between 1, 000 and 2, 000 words and focusing on one thought only.

Or at least I try to focus on one message only that I want to, uh, give to people. But, one, one message only is because I like to go deep into stuff. I don't like shallow explanation on something. So I just choose one small thought and I write 2000 words about it to get it to people somehow with, uh, I don't know, also stories and examples. I love examples because I think that people, uh, learn best, uh, from examples. So I use them heavily. Yeah. So, so. Those are strange new notes.

Nigel Rawlins: Now I do subscribe to it, and it comes through in the Czech language, but because I pay for G Suite, it translates it into English for me. Or, if I go to your website, Google translates it into English again. Or, if it does come through in Czech, I just cut and paste it into ChatGPT and it translates it into English for me.

So, it's, it's not There's no longer a problem, I don't think, about reading people in a different language to ourselves. The difficulty is finding the good writers like that and then figuring out how to subscribe to their newsletters and then doing it.

So language, different languages, is not a barrier anymore to good stuff.

Okay, so we've been going a fair while now. Is there anything else you'd like to say? Uh, I know you're, you mentioned you were going to do a little course with Sonke Ahrens.

Eliška Šestáková: Yeah, we are working, it has been I think a year or two maybe now.

We are both very perfectionist people. And yeah, he was planning to create a course on Zettelkasten for some time to accompany his book. which is more theoretical, so to create an online course which will be more practical and explain how to, uh, implement Zettelkasten digitally in a specific app. And I met Sonke in Czech Republic when there was book meeting. So I talked to him and then I, uh, approached him after the meeting via email and just saying that I had some thoughts on his course, if you want to like listen to them. And, uh, we had a call and, uh, he offered me to join him on this course creation.

So since then we are working together and it's coming together, I would say. So hopefully, first half of next year, it could be out. So fingers crossed.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes. Well, that's, that's one of the big issues, uh, that we always underestimate how long it takes create a course or write a book or anything like that, or to do a project. Well, that's been fantastic. So how would you like people to connect with you? I will put things in the show notes. So I will put your website address and how to get your email newsletter.

So how would you like people to connect with you?

Eliška Šestáková: Hopefully I will, uh, manage to translate my website and my newsletter into English so people won't need to use AI and stuff to translate them and translate it for themselves. At the moment I think social networks, like, uh, I'm, I'm on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook as well.

I have a page there so we can put links to notes for the show and people can approach me.

Nigel Rawlins: I'll do that. All right, this has been fantastic. So thank you very much

for joining me, Alishka. It's been wonderful. Thank you again.

Eliška Šestáková: Thank you. Thank you, Nigel.