Write 20,000 Words Per Month That Matter With My Zettelkasten Structure

I meet creatives all the time whose written notes and browser tabs are the creative equivalent of a maelstrom. They have random ideas scattered around, half-finished attempts at research for those ideas, and no clear direction on where to go, let alone how everything fits together.

This mess happens because many creatives get motivated when a new idea hits their mind, but motivation doesn't last beyond the first few steps. When playful interest turns into serious work, the fun stops, and the motivation disappears.

I know this because I was that creative. Having no direction or clue no how to approach my creativity caused me to go through spells of intense exploration and productivity droughts. I arguably spent the last decade doing exactly that.

Realizing I needed a way to get out from underneath a pile of notebooks, reference books, and messy YouTube recommendations, I decided to make something that would organize my thoughts and help me focus my efforts to something productive.

That's where my Content Castle system came from. It's a modified Zettelkasten system that helps me record notes from all sorts of places, organizes them, and helps me write and record my thoughts on those notes to never lose sight of the things I learn again.

And you can use it to great success, too.

In case you haven't seen it before, the Zettelkasten method for taking notes is straightforward. Basically, you have four different kinds of notes in the Zettelkasten system:

The fleeting notes and literature notes represent the knowledge that you record from the ideas that you have and the ideas you engage with during your day. Over time, these notes gather together around various topics or interests. With the above system, you categories notes together via reference notes for indexing and permanent notes for synthesizing different ideas.

The original version of Zettelkasten came about before the Digital Age, meaning these were literal handwritten notes, sorted and organized in shelves, folders, card boxes, or some other set of small containers. As you filled up the Zettelkasten and organized the notes into categories, you could go to any box, find the topic you wanted to cover, and read through all the notes you recorded.

It meant you could never forget where your knowledge came from again.

Today, we have software that makes collecting, saving, and indexing notes much easier. Tools like Obsidian, Notion, and others make it possible to save yourself the time of sorting through stacks of papers, trying to find the right note.

This truth, the fact that software can help organize and index information for us, is a key part of how the Content Castle system came to be for me.

The idea behind the Content Castle system is to create a hierarchy of notes that represent the formation of higher ideas and knowledge for me. It's a layered approach to thought recording, where I can go back into records and find where I gathered information or ideas across four layers of thinking.

I use the same terminology as the default Zettelkasten system, but some of the notes have different meanings:

The main differences to the Zettelkasten note definitions for me are that the reference notes become a layer of notes that exist one layer above the fleeting notes. Rather than capturing my thoughts as a fleeting note while reading, I use reference notes to act as repositories of quotes, figures, statistics, or other useful info I get from the media I consume (think books, articles, longform videos, and so on).

These references notes, alongside my fleeting notes, become the basis for my literature notes, which represent my interpretations and thoughts on the literature and ideas I've interacted with in the past. Permanent notes then become a synthesis of multiple literature notes, creating the final, high-level explanation of the learning I've done.

I've used systems like this in the past for myself, but trusted myself to keep everything sorted nicely in my head. That didn't work.

I've found that having everything indexes in my Content Castle means that I can go back and review any level of my knowledge basis, better preparing me to explain my thoughts and beliefs, and their foundations.

And I do mean everything. Unlike other Zettelkasten systems, I rarely throw away fleeting notes. Because I use software to record everything (more on that soon), I have my fleeting notes as text files on my computer, which take up kilobytes of data. Considering we live in a world with terabytes of storage, I'm not worried about my Content Castle getting cluttered.

I'd rather have access to the process of how I discovered my knowledge basis via my old fleeting notes than discard them if they can be traced ahead to useful knowledge.

Fleeting notes that I discard tend to be ones that fall into one of two categories:

I started implementing this system as part of preparing to launch this blog, actually. After one month of work, I ended up with a note map that looks like this:

The software-savvy among you, or those that read my Writing Wyrd system article, will recognize the above map as the graph view in Obsidian. Each node in the map you see above is a note of some kind, color coordinated to tell me at a glance where that note exists in my Content Castle system.

I also take advantage of the Bases feature Obsidian put out several months ago. These notes sit in the main folder for each of my note types and act as a link repository for all the notes I gathered for that section:

I filter each Base to only show me the non-Base files within the folder. The above picture lets me see all the literature notes I have so far (that's what the (LN) in each title refers to).

I still have a lot of indexing work to do to get this information organized to the level I need it at, admittedly. There are a lot of connections I need to go back in and make between my notes to better show how everything works together.

However, for just one month of work, and for the amount of help this system gave me to organize my thoughts for this blog, I'd say I've got the beginnings of a great system.

Over time, I expect this web to grow in size and interconnectivity. Soon, I'll be able to go through this web of information and make connections I otherwise wouldn't think of as I'll no longer rely on my mind to handle all the indexing for me. With the aid of software, and a little bit of discipline on my part, I can make a web of all my knowledge, thoughts, and meta-analyses of storytelling, making me a better thinker and speaker on the subject.

As with any system, I know it's daunting to think about how someone might implement this for yourself. Like anything new, the challenge comes from a lack of understanding. I've had the benefit of working on this system for months, and toying with other related ideas for years, but you, as the reader, might not be so lucky.

So, rather than tell you about the Content Castle system and leave it there, I want to take it a step further: let's look at the components of the system I made and break down how you could adopt those components to the tools and timelines you can afford yourself.

I don't know your specific situation, but I do know how to make these pieces together for most anyone's life.

Since it took me about a month to get this system rolling without issues, and I had previous experience with this sort of thinking and organizing, let's give it six weeks to get things rolling.

On your first week of building your Content Castle, decide on the topic you want the system to center around. I recommend you only start with one topic, like writing or biology, to keep things from getting too complicated. A focused approach is better here since you can always build more Content Castles later on if you have other interests you want to define.

You'll also need to figure out what tool(s) you want to use for the process. I recommend something like Obsidian, which is to say I recommend you use this system with software, but you could theoretically go old school and use a bunch of index cards or Post-It Notes and drawers/boxes to store everything.

I like that manual approach as a concept, but it's much harder to organize than something that has interconnectivity features like Obsidian.

Anyways, let's assume you use software. Go into your software and make four folders, each one named after the different note types:

For the first week, just focus on capturing your thoughts into Fleeting Notes. I title mine by date so I know how long ago I had the idea at a glance, but the titling doesn't matter.

What matters is that you get into the habit of writing down your ideas into your new tool.

At the beginning of week 2, write down 3-5 places you like to go for information about your topic. For me, that was books, articles, quotes from other professionals, and videos online. I made a folder for each of those and added those folders to my Reference Notes and Literature Notes folders.

As you would before, consume your usual content. However, as you do, try and record the quotes you get from that content into your Reference Notes. I make a note with the title of the article, video, or whatever it is I'm consuming, and then all the quotes go onto that singular note.

Because I gather standalone quotes from other writers/authors, my reference notes for those are just the title of the note as the quote itself and the person who said the quote. The text of the note is blank because I want the note to represent the layer of my knowledge basis for that quote. I'll do all my analysis for that quote later.

If you don't want to capture standalone quotes, don't worry about that last paragraph.

The goal here is to start thinking about the things other people say. Specifically, I want you to record the things other people say or write that affects you the most and write down that exact quote.

Make sure you still gather fleeting notes during this week, as well. Each week adds a new layer to the Content Castle system, and all of the steps have to operate together by the end of it work well.

During your third week, in addition to keeping up with your fleeting and reference notes, I want you start going back to your reference notes and reviewing the quotes you pulled from the source.

Start to think about why you pulled those quotes from that source. What was it about the words you read or heard that affected you enough to put energy into recording it? There is value in those words you recorded, so now it's time to write out why you wrote them down.

After you read each quote in your reference note, make a literature note and take 5-10 minutes to write out why you wrote down the quote(s) you did. Explain as best as you can during that 5-10 minute writing period why you saw value in taking time out of your day to record someone's words.

This could be your understanding of why the quote(s) are impactful, or what greater knowledge you can gain from them.

Here's an example of what I did with a quote I found from Margaret Atwood:

Ideally, you should right a few paragraphs. I went overboard on this particular quote, but I was really feeling what I believed was the message in this quote, so I wrote out everything I could.

Do this alongside your usual recordings for fleeting and reference notes to finish out Week 3.

By your fourth week, you're ready to go back and add the last layer to your Content Castle: permanent notes. This is where we're going to take several of the literature notes you've made so far and synthesize things together.

What you should do here as you read through your literature notes is ask yourself:

If you see a pattern and know how to express to others, write down how you would do so and make that your permanent note. Much like with your literature notes, it shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes to do per note.

Here's an example of a work-in-progress permanent note I have:

You can see that, right now, all I have are fleeting notes for this topic. I need to do some research from other sources about AI tool usage in writing and create some reference notes before I dive deeper on this topic since all I can speak from right now is my perspective.

I prefer a multi-layered analysis when calling something "permanent" in my mind, so I still have some reading and learning to do before I call this note solid.

Once I've done more reading, I'll have a better idea of what patterns exist right now for this topic, and can better articulate my thoughts on a level other than my currently limited perspective.

That's the ultimate goal of a permanent note: a holistic synthesis of your ideas, other's ideas, and your reflections on other people's perspectives.

Once you reach week five, the goal here is to solidify the notetaking habits for your Content Castle. This week should be focused on fine-tuning the timings I believe are the best to get the most out of your Content Castle without getting bogged down in obligation.

Keep making all four kinds of notes from the previous weeks. Ideally, you'll want to aim for these frequencies of note creation:

Fleeting and reference notes should be part of your daily habit as this point. I recommend keeping your literature and permanent note creation to a few times per week so you have time to let the information digest. It also makes the habit feel more approachable since it isn't a big ask of your time.

For the last week of building your Content Castle, keep working on creating all four kinds of notes while also asking yourself questions about the system itself. This is the week to thinking about how the notetaking structure of your system helps you (assuming it is, of course).

If you need some help, ponder some of these questions about how the system works and if it's currently a good fit for your routines or proclivities:

During this week, you have my full permission to tear apart anything in this system that doesn't work for you. Disregard pieces of the system that get in your way, amplify the things that work, and organize as you best see fit in ways that are different, or even counter, to what I have outlined here.

The goal of this week is to take the experience you've gained from learning the Content Castle system and evolve it into something that works for you, if it doesn't already.

I don't assume systems I build for me will work for everyone. That's why I wanted you to have the pieces of the system, so that if you need to make something that rhymes with what I do, rather than strictly adhere to what I do, then I'd rather you do that.

Making that sort of decision represents forward progress, and forward thinking.

In case I haven't made it clear yet, I think this system rocks. It's helped me better understand my understanding of my knowledge on the topic of storytelling in ways I both did and didn't expect:

In other words, this system creates a reference index of knowledge and thought synthesis unique to you, and catalogues in a way that you can always know where your thoughts and ideas came from in case you need to evolve or rethink anything.

It is a fortress of ordered thought that makes you an expert in your topic. You become a king or queen in their castle of thought, ruling over your understanding with careful thought and confidence in your knowledge.

So, if you want to get started, you can try the six-week plan I outlined above. Or, if you'd rather start smaller, just start recording your thoughts and quotes you hear on whatever you have lying around.

As that stack of notes builds up, you'll see the need to organize those thoughts, if only so they stop cluttering your mind so much.

Cluttered minds prevent powerful stories from spilling onto the page, and keep speakers from knowing what words will sway their audiences the best. Don't let your own knowledge, and a lack of understanding it, be the reason you can't express yourself.