zettelkasten method is overcomplicated

I'm about to commit PKM heresy: the Zettelkasten method is overcomplicated for most people.

Before the productivity Twitter mob comes for me, let me be clear. Niklas Luhmann was a genius. The Zettelkasten produced extraordinary work. The principles behind it are sound.

But somewhere between Luhmann's 90,000 index cards and your Obsidian vault, something went wrong.

:::quick-answer Zettelkasten method is overcomplicated for most people. You don’t need atomic notes or manual linking; capture ideas quickly, store them in one place, and let AI surface connections when you need them. Focus on retrieval over perfect structure; use search and automated linking to find what matters. :::

The zettelkasten promise

The pitch is compelling: create atomic notes, link them densely, and emergent insights will appear. Your note system becomes a thinking partner. Ideas combine and recombine. Creativity flows from the connections.

And for Luhmann, it worked. He published over 70 books and 400 articles. His slip-box was a legitimate intellectual infrastructure.

But here's what the Zettelkasten evangelists don't mention: Luhmann was a full-time academic whose primary job was thinking and writing. He worked on his Zettelkasten for over 40 years. It was his life's work.

You're probably not a German sociologist with four decades to invest.

Where it goes wrong

I've watched countless knowledge workers try to implement Zettelkasten. The pattern is depressingly consistent.

Phase 1: Excitement. They read How to Take Smart Notes, watch YouTube tutorials, set up their system with perfect atomic note principles.

Phase 2: Friction. Creating atomic notes takes time. Linking them takes more time. Every capture becomes a mini-project. The overhead starts to feel burdensome.

Phase 3: Guilt. The inbox fills up with unprocessed notes. The linking backlog grows. Using the system starts to feel like a chore.

Phase 4: Abandonment. They quietly stop using it, feeling like they've somehow failed at note-taking.

The system promised emergence but delivered maintenance.

The atomic note problem

Zettelkasten's atomic note principle sounds elegant: one idea per note, fully self-contained, densely linked.

In practice, it's a trap.

Turning a raw thought into a proper atomic note requires significant cognitive work. You have to distill the idea, make it standalone, identify connections, create links, add to your index. What could be a 10-second capture becomes a 10-minute processing session.

Multiply this across the dozens of captures a knowledge worker might make daily, and you've basically created a part-time job.

I run a digital agency. I don't have time to turn every interesting thought into a perfectly crafted atomic note. Neither do most professionals. The overhead kills the system before the benefits materialize.

Links aren't magic

The Zettelkasten faithful believe in the magic of linking. Connect your notes densely enough, and insights emerge.

There's truth here—connections between ideas are where creativity happens. But manual linking has serious problems.

First, you only link what you think to link. Your conscious mind decides what's related. But the most interesting connections are often ones you wouldn't have thought of.

Second, linking requires remembering what you've already captured. As your system grows, this becomes impossible. You end up with thousands of notes and links that represent your past associations, not necessarily the best associations.

Third, the linking itself is work. Every time you create a note, you're supposed to scan your existing notes for potential connections. This is theoretically unlimited labour.

Modern AI can identify semantic connections you'd never spot manually. It can link based on actual meaning, not just your incomplete memory of what you've written. Why do the work yourself?

The index card fantasy

Part of Zettelkasten's appeal is aesthetic. The image of the scholar with index cards, carefully cultivating knowledge. It feels more intellectual than tagging notes in an app.

But this aesthetic is a trap.

The physical constraint of index cards forced certain behaviours in Luhmann's system. Cards had to be small (one idea), filed linearly (driving the numbering system), and connected manually (requiring the index).

Modern tools have none of these constraints. Copying Luhmann's system into Obsidian or Notion is cargo cult productivity—recreating the surface appearance without understanding what made it work.

Digital tools can do things index cards never could. Full-text search. Semantic connections. Automatic tagging. Multimedia capture. Infinite space. Building artificial constraints to match a 1960s system makes no sense.

What zettelkasten gets right

Strip away the dogma, and Zettelkasten has solid principles:

• Capture what resonates. Don't let ideas evaporate.
• Make connections. Ideas in isolation are less valuable than ideas in networks.
• Write to think. Articulating ideas clarifies them.
• Build over time. Knowledge compounds.

These principles are timeless. The specific implementation isn't.

You can honour these principles without atomic notes, manual linking, or Luhmann's numbering system. You can capture freely, let AI find connections, and still build a valuable knowledge base.

A simpler path

Here's what I've found actually works for busy professionals:

Capture fast, process later (or never). A quick capture you actually make beats a perfect atomic note you don't. Lower the bar. Way lower.

Let search replace structure. Stop worrying about where notes go. Dump everything in one place. Use search when you need something. Works fine.

Automate connections. AI can identify related content better than your memory. Use tools that surface connections automatically.

Focus on retrieval, not storage. The goal isn't perfect organisation. It's finding what you need when you need it. Work backward from that.

This isn't as intellectually satisfying as the Zettelkasten fantasy. It doesn't photograph well for your PKM workflow tweets. But it actually gets used, which is the only thing that matters.

The heresy that works

The Zettelkasten method is a beautiful system that doesn't survive contact with modern professional life.

Its principles are sound. Its implementation is impractical for anyone who isn't a full-time academic with decades to invest.

You don't need atomic notes. You don't need manual linking. You don't need to cosplay as a German sociologist. You need to capture what matters with minimal friction and find it again when you need it.

Everything else is productivity theatre.

Ultrathink takes Zettelkasten's principles without its overhead. Capture anything instantly. AI handles the connections. Your knowledge grows without the maintenance burden. Try it free.