Evergreen Notes

I am highly inspired by Andy Matuschak ideas on how he takes notes ¹ . He builds on the The Luhmann method , but acknowledging that Luhmann notes are static , therefore a new approach to note-taking can open the door to better ways of thinking. This are the pillars of Andy's evergreen notes:

It’s hard to write notes that are worth developing over time. These principles help:

• Evergreen notes should be atomic
• Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented
• Evergreen notes should be densely linked
• Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies

Combining evergreen notes with a digital garden , is what leads to the question of What happens when notes become long ?

Something central in the Luhmann method is the ordering of the notes. There are no links but physical proximity, and notes are normally traversed in one-direction (i.e. from note 22 -> 22a -> 22ab -> 23, etc.) This is a rudimentary form of transclusion , and perhaps the only one that actually works on an analog medium.

On the digital medium, notes can have links and backlinks (see: backlinks are the core of my digital garden ), which ease some of the requirements of mindful placement of notes, but also eliminate the act of browsing through notes. In my system, titles of notes are fundamental because they are the way to both link to each other and discover them.