What do I do with all the stuff?
I have gathered information about medicinal herbs and their use for over 30 years.
During these years I have made notes about everything I think is relevant about medicinal herbs. First in an informal, unstructured way on bits of paper I stuffed in drawers, then in a structured degree way, in different notebooks which I stuffed in cupboards and on shelves.
At the back of my mind I know I have scribbled down a quotes from famous herbalists about the uses of comfrey and yellow jasmine, or of a relevant study that was done on the ability of skullcap to induce sleep, or of plantain to protect mucous membranes, but where are they?
I have looked around my office and my many drawers and shelves with notebooks, and bits of paper and sighed…
Yes, I know I have textbooks, and I know I can google, but these have limitations. Google cannot tell me where I stuffed that piece of paper where I jotted down that quote from a certain textbook that would be just perfect for the essay I am writing now. Or which notebook in that pile at the bottom of a cupboard contains all the scribbles from a seminar on turmeric where a lecturer explained why it isn’t always advisable to mix black pepper with it for absorption because you want the action on the gut endothelium.
But I have found an answer, my friends.
I am probably late to the party as usual, but this system is new to me. It is the [analogue] Antinet Zettelkasten. And I feel like I have come home.
The Zettelkasten is a way of adding information on index cards instead of notebooks and odd bits of paper, and them interlinking them and categorising them in a system for easy retrieval. And it is not anti-internet. It stands for Analog Numeric-Alpha Tree Index.
When I was at University I tried writing facts and random bits of information on index cards to revise for exams. I have tried to retrieve information from those index cards that I know is in there somewhere and have spent a long time looking. [When you have made notes on index cards for 6 years you will have a lot of cards]. I have a large wicker basket at the bottom of a cupboard with these index cards gathered in bundles with an elastic band in no particular order.
With Zettelkasten you have a system of organising these cards like a library system and it becomes your ‘outside brain’. I can gather cards on specific herbs on specific pathologies, or herbalists, or side effects or anything… And I can cross-reference them, so I have all my info at my fingertips.
This may seem a lot of work to those of you who can use digital notetaking organised and retrievable by Microsoft or Apple. But I have tried and failed. I really wanted to use Notion – I just can’t get the hang of it and found myself still relying on my notebooks, and I still have more trust in what I can touch and handle than something in the ether which may [and has] disappeared.
One of my notebooks has already been transcribed to cards and it was a satisfying experience to do it because I found some notes that I had completely forgotten about in connection with endometriosis. The notebook is now in the bin and the index cards are waiting to be filed in their new system which will come tomorrow.
You can buy plastic index card storage, but I have bought a set of eight old-fashioned wooden drawers from eBay. I can now play at being a librarian as well as being a herbalist, and for a woman in her 60s, that is a very satisfying place to be.
If anyone else uses the Antinet Zettelkasten and has experience to share, let me know…
