There's a huge community on the internet in multiple languages that discusses Zettelkasten very profoundly. The reasons for that can be easily understood - the positive impact this approach might potentially bring is immense.

However, people try to adopt it for various purposes, often missing the key point - Zettelkasten is a tool for generating ideas. It might bring huge benefits if used correctly, or waste a lot of time otherwise. People like writers and scientists might find it useful or at least interesting to try, but otherwise the benefits are, in my opinion, questionable.

The core approach is that one creates a mirriad of atomic notes on various topics and establishes connections between them, where "atomic" describes a note focused on a single idea and self-sufficient in a sense that it can stand as a standalone entity.

The file system structure may look like a single folder with thousands of notes. It makes it harder to find individual notes but allows one to find unexpected connections and thus produce new ideas. It becomes especially interesting when your notes reach a "critical mass," i.e., a stage when your system is able to consistently produce ideas without feeding it ideas from outside anymore. Or so they say.

Most of the time, notes are given unique names like "2026-06-13-20-10" and, as has been said, contain links to other notes inside their contents. There's a lot of software that can do it.

An important point to make is that the Zettelkasten method is probably not suitable for managing regular notes such as plans, diaries, outlines, checklists, etc. Again, it is very hard to find individual notes in such a system, so I think it would make sense to keep these two in different folders.

If you're interested, you may find these tips somewhat handy:

1. Focus on quality instead of quantity, or you'll end up with a pile of garbage.
2. Do not try to connect every note to some other note. It's okay if some of them stay unconnected for a long time or even forever.
3. Do not delete your notes. With time, you can see your notes grow with your understanding, which may provide insights.
4. Save the source of information. It may be a link, PDF, quote, entry in Zotero, etc.
5. Finally, separate facts and interpretations. Later, you may discover that it is possible to understand something in different ways.

I don't think it's a good idea to just list out any more rules because, as far as I am aware, there are no any official guidelines, and so most rules are quite arbitrary. So, it would make sense for one to explore and come to one's own conclusions. Good luck!