Suppose you had an awesome second brain, that could surface content up to you where you wanted it. You have a bunch of unrefined ideas sitting around, thoughts you had speaking with friends, or from reading something on the web. Link them up together, and you have a paper. Instead of beginning with the research question, and going top down, we begin with the notes, and build and refine ideas from the bottom up. This also breaks writing down into small, reasonable steps (one note at a time). This is the driving principle behind the Zettelkasten method.

The primary purpose of note-taking should not be for storing ideas, but for developing them. When we take notes, we should ask: “In what context do I want to see this note again?”

— How To Take Smart Notes With Org-mode