Alexey Anshakov's Digital Garden

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Content Box

Last updated Mar 7, 2023

Content Boxes (CBs) are the 2nd level of the Knowledge Base and contain Zettels. I recommend keeping CBs completely blank, without even headers, and inserting Zettelkasten notes only.

I create Content Boxes according to the 5Ws:

  1. opening – introduction, description
  2. what
  3. why
  4. who
  5. when
  6. where
  7. how
  8. closing – conclusions, links, related

opening and closing are auxiliary. I include corresponding tag(s) in the Zettelkasten notes1 for cataloguing.

Each block is represented by one or more Zettels.

I recommend adhering to the structure and section order of the 5Ws2. But the effectiveness of providing information in the first place, therefore there can be multiple whats, hows sections and in any order.

When writing a thought, I advise keeping it within 100-200 words: that’s about five notes in the size of a tweet. 5Ws allow you to consider a thought from the point of view of different aspects. Additional information is given in the footnote: source, references, etc.3

  1. I also find it valuable to add tags to the note title. It helps to track CBs structure ↩︎

  2. 5Ws sections (e.g. What + Why) can and should be combined if they fit in one block ↩︎

  3. This information is not included in the tweet but is visible on the pages of the Digital Garden ↩︎

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