Now that I have my Zetttelbloging workflow down and a Tinderbox file with about 100 notes in it, I’m thinking about next steps. That is besides staying current with the workflow and creating index and summary notes as areas get build up a bit.
I’ve been thinking about publishing the output of the process. I’m journaling at the front end, collecting links and making notes on the information. But once I’ve synthesized some thoughts on a few months of Zettelblogging, what’s the best way of publishing the result.
The simplest idea is to publish the summary note. But the summaries in Tinderbox link to other topical notes, not back to original journal post here on the Blog. It make sense because I treat these posts as casual and temporary. It’s the notes file that I’m curating and organizing.
That all leads to the idea to publish the Summary note with all of its supporting notes. Most of the note taking software that supports links between notes can output an HTML version of the notes respecting the links and transforming them into relative HTML links. Tinderbox can do this of course. In fact, many years ago I put together a website to publish notes. DEVONthink also can do this and actually can run a server so that notes can be read via browser on the local website. I’m sure this can be done with some of the new crop of “tools for thought”
This idea of working notes in public certainly isn’t new. It’s related to journaling, but in line with the philosophy of taking notes that have more durable use and curation of ideas over time.
I’m shopping tech to implement now. Clearly the first step is publishing HTML versions of finished notes with their links and folder structure intact. Sadly, WordPress, this site’s platform is just too beholden to its origins in blogging and its themes. The approach I need is really a static site where the site is built anew out of the current set of notes. Either right out of Tinderbox like Dave Rogers and Mark Anderson. Or use one of the fancy new static site builders like Jekyll or Hugo. We shall see.
