I bought it on a whim after somebody mentioned it and was very pleasantly surprised. Ahrens makes a convincing case for use of the zettlekasten, but the book is

I bought it on a whim after somebody mentioned it and was very pleasantly surprised. Ahrens makes a convincing case for use of the zettlekasten, but the book is mostly about how to acquire understanding of something. You could read it without having any interest in making a zettlekasten and still get a lot out of it. Having read about zettlekasten online I thought they were one thing, but after having read this I feel that I have a deeper understanding of them, and how to approach using them. The goal isn't necessarily to archive all your knowledge, it's to facilitate insights and new ideas. In a way, having your knowledge and ideas cross referenced is just a nice side effect. Prior to reading this, I would have taken an approach that would have just been a database of things I learned, which takes a lot of time to create and doesn't do much for you in the end. It's a short, easy read at around 150 (small) pages and the author keeps it pretty interesting. I plan on rereading it pretty soon. edit: I forgot to add that a lot of the book goes over study methodsmost people are taught growing up, and why they don't really work that well. I thought this was pretty interesting as well.