Knowledge doesn’t grow linearly. It branches, loops, overlaps. Progress rarely feels tidy, because insight rarely is. The best ideas often emerge from unexpected connections between things that, at first, seem unrelated.
One of the few systems that embraces this reality is Zettelkasten. It treats notes not as archives, but as living parts of a thinking system. Each note captures one idea and connects to others. Over time, those links form a network, a reflection of how knowledge actually grows.
The same pattern appears in how we learn: reading fills the mind, writing clarifies it, teaching tests it, and building grounds it. Each cycle turns abstraction into understanding.
For knowledge workers, this matters. We don’t get paid to recall facts, but to interpret them, to see patterns, to connect old ideas in new ways.
For builders of any kind, it means turning scattered information, data, behavior, experience, into insight. A connected knowledge system reveals how small choices ripple through outcomes.
It is how we think better. How we move from information to insight. From work to meaningful work.
Any system that helps us do that is worth keeping close.