Zettelkasten vs. Second Brain vs. PARA

What’s the difference?

At first glance, this title sounds like clickbait. Because in reality, the “Zettelkasten” is a second brain.

A “Second Brain” refers to any system or tool that helps you store information for later use. The “Zettelkasten” naturally falls under this category.

However, there is an issue. The term “Second Brain” is often synonymous today with Tiago Forte’s PARA method, which he refers to as a “Second Brain.”

In this article, I want to compare the Zettelkasten method developed by Niklas Luhmann with Tiago Forte’s Second Brain.

What is a Zettelkasten?

The Zettelkasten method was invented by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. His “Zettelkasten” consisted of actual index cards in shoeboxes, interconnected with hyperlinks.

Organizing and identifying these physical cards, as well as locating linked cards, was obviously a massive task in the latter half of the 20th century. Thanks to digital tools like Notion or Obsidian, these tasks are no longer challenging.

Physical space is also no longer a concern.

Back then, Luhmann needed several cabinets to store his 90,000 cards. Today, you could store several hundred million notes…