Stop drowning in notes. Start thinking clearly.
Most productivity systems promise to help you capture everything. This book offers something better: the courage to capture almost nothing. The Minimalist's Zettelkasten strips the popular note-taking method down to its essence—three simple moves repeated over time. No complicated software. No thousand-note archives. No digital hoarding disguised as knowledge work.
The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten: Think Better with Less, authored by Edmund Gröpl, is set to be independently published in late 2026. For readers who want to put these principles into practice, I’ve created two open resources on GitHub:
- Obsidian-Templates for Zettelkasten: minimal examples that support the three moves — capture, write, connect.
- Obsidian-Zettelkasten-Starter-Kit: a small, ready-to-use Obsidian vault with the essential note types and workflows described in this book.
Notes & Figures
- The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten - Notes: all notes from the book. Download PDF with links to sources.
- The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten - Figures: all figures from the book to zoom in for details.
Previews
- Podcast from NotebookLM on YouTube: The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten
- Simple rules to start with from: The Minimalist’s Zettelkasten
11.01.2022
- Digital Sketchnotes.
- My first book project.
- Project stopped at 05.03.2022 with v.33 and 184 pages to start new project.
- Why? Focus shifted from visual notetaking to combining sketchnotes with Zettelkasten.
05.03.2022
- Make Useful Notes.
- My second book project.
- Project stopped at 24.07.2023 with v.18 and 233 pages to start new project.
- Why? Increasing complexity evolving from the established outline needs a fresh start.
10.09.2025
The Minimalist's Zettelkasten. Think Better with Less. It strips the popular note-taking method down to its essence—three simple moves repeated over time. No complicated software. No thousand-note archives. No digital hoarding disguised as knowledge work. This is not a comprehensive manual. It’s a pocket guide you can read in an afternoon and apply immediately. Whether you’re new to Zettelkasten or buried under years of accumulated notes, this book offers a way forward: lighter, clearer, freer.
- My third book project.
- Now at v.20 and in the beta-reading stage.
- Self-publishing on KDP is planned for late 2026.
- Read the first chapter
18.02.2026
The Philosopher's Zettelkasten. A Pocket Dictionary. This pocket dictionary will not make you wise. Nothing so small could promise so much. But it will give you the vocabulary of wisdom — which is, in most drawing rooms, a perfectly adequate substitute. An indispensable volume for the curious, the methodical, and those who have always suspected that thinking is a craft worth learning properly.
- My 4th book project.
- Self-published on Amazon KDP.
- Read the first chapter
- Available at German National Library
- Available at Amazon since 30.06.2026
22.02.2026
- The Economist's Zettelkasten. A Pocket Dictionary.
- My 5th book project.
- Now at v01.
- Self-publishing on KDP is planned for late 2027.
18.03.2026
- The Politician's Zettelkasten. A Pocket Dictionary.
- My 6th book project.
- Now at v01.
- Self-publishing on KDP is planned for late 2027.
Sketchnotes are a way of taking notes using drawings and illustrations, along with words. The sketchnote concept was coined by Mike Rohde and allows you to add visual element to your notes, making it more engaging, memorable and easy to understand the subject.
More about: https://rohdesign.com/handbook
Obsidian is a note-taking and knowledge management app from Shida Li and Erica Xu. It works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files and lets you turn a collection of plain text files into a rich network of linked thought.
More about: https://obsidian.md
Zettelkasten is a personal tool for thinking and writing created by Niklas Luhmann. It has hypertextual features to make a web of thought possible. The difference to other systems is that you create a web of thoughts instead of notes of arbitrary size and form, and emphasize connection, not a collection.
More about: https://www.soenkeahrens.de/en/takesmartnotes
- First published at LinkedIn 25.04.2022.
- Obsidian-Templates
- Obsidian-Zettelkasten-Starter-Kit
Please leave feedback here in the GitHub discussions or file a new issue if you found a bug or have a feature request.