Kuehn on notes
by Alex Nelson, 11 July 2026
Mannfred Kuehn’s former blog “Taking Note” introduced me to Luhmann and his Zettelkasten. Kuehn has taken down his blog (unfortunately), but some of his blog posts are really insightful. Here are a few which I want to draw attention to:
“Loose Links” versus “Tight Links”
Flat outlines versus hierarchical outlines
Different kinds of links since a train of thought has “implicit” links (what Kuehn calls “weiterführende Zettel”) and “branching” links (what Kuehn calls “ergänzende Zettel”). Kuehn observes these are incidental to a paper-based Zettelkasten, not essential to a Zettelkasten system “in general” (e.g., an electronic Zettelkasten does not need to implement these).
Kuehn also wrote an essay Some Idiosyncratic Reflections on Note-Taking in General and ConnectedText in Particular worth reading.