# Zettels should be optimised for retrieval strength
Understanding requires elaboration, and elaboration is an act of connecting ideas to as many contexts as possible. Connecting new ideas will be difficult if you can't retrieve your previous notes easily. Remembering can be improved by deliberately creating cues, therefore zettels must be optimised for their retrieval by creating more cues. These are the approach that you should take to make them more retrievable:
- Zettels should be linked. Links provide contextual cues as it'll be included in a sentence. Extra cues are generated when you generate backlinks.
- Zettels should capture an atomic concept. Not only a well thought concepts are more linkable, they are also more retrievable as the title itself is a cue
- Zettels should be tagged. Tags are useful as supplementary cues.