---
title: One Thought Per Note
tags: [Note-taking, Writing]
summary: The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
---

When using the Zettelkasten Method to organize my notes, I have
found it important that each note file contains only a single
idea.[^tkn]  I try to take this single thought and articulate it in
as clearly as possible.  This may take anywhere from 50 to 500
words.  After I have spelled out the single idea I now have a
mental hook that I can attach other ideas and pieces of information
to---and this becomes more useful the more specific the hook.  For
instance, suppose I kept all my thoughts about Plato in a single
file.  Whenever I want to connect a thought to this information I
would add a link: `[[Plato]]`.  But this link could refer to
*anything* within my Plato research.  As it stands, however, I have
split my research into bits as fine as possible while still
maintaining the intergrity and coherence of the ideas.  The
specific thought that Plato's account of tripartition in the
*Republic* arises out of a need to explain internal motivational
conflict goes into a single file.  In other notes I can refer to
this specific thought with a link: `[[Plato - Tripartition -
Internal Conflict]]`.

This also gives me a way to manage my references to secondary
literature.  As I'm reading Lloyd Gerson's article "A Note on
Tripartition and Immortality in Plato," I find that he talks about
this subject on pages 85 and 86.[@gerson01]  So I add a brief quote
and a few comments to the bottom of a section labeled "References"
in the note.  If I had not split up my notes on Plato into fine-
grained topics, I would have trouble knowing where to put this
information and I would have more trouble finding it again when I
need to know what Gerson says about this specific topic.  The
"References" section in the note is already populated by several
other references to secondary literature.  This way, when I go to
write the paragraph in Chapter 4 of my dissertation that deals with
the link between tripartition and motivational conflict I have
already prepared both my own position and a list of references to
my sources.


[^tkn]: See [here](http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-idea-one-factagain.html).