Notes

evergreen

Growing the Evergreens

Illustrated notes on the concept of 'Evergreen notes' and how to write them

Planted over 4 years ago

A ndy Matuschak proposed the term Evergreen Notes to describe a system of note-taking that aspires towards cumulative personal knowledge, rather than simply information capture.

Evergreen notes are a fundamental unit of knowledge work. They're a way to build up a personal library of clear opinions, beliefs, and original thoughts.

The idea builds off many other note-taking philosophies like Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten method Andy also wrote a good post Comparing Evergreens vs Zettles , and Sonke Ahren’s How to Take Smart Notes system.

My personal notes system has been heavily influenced by the Evergreening ethos. In both my Roam Garden and on this very Digital Gardening website. My notes taxonomy flows from “Seedlings” to “Budding” to “Evergreens”

To help myself internalise some of the main Evergreen principles, I illustrated them out below. These aren’t a comprehensive explanation, so I recommend reading the original source material if this piques your interest.


Evergreen Notes Should Be…

Atomic notes should capture one single idea concisely and in its entirety
Densely-linked notes help you connect them through organic associations rather than heirarchical structures
Notes should have imperative and declarative titles that make clear statements
Notes should be concept-oriented. This means they're based around big ideas rather than specific books, articles, or media

2 Backlinks

Tending Evergreen Notes in Roam Research

A walkthrough of how I manage and tend Evergreen notes in Roam

Programmable Notes

Agent-based note-taking systems that can prompt and facilitate custom workflows

Mentions around the web

Daniel Straussmentioned in Finding a Standard for Capturing Knowledge
One of the most important principles behind this project is that the notes I publish here are not finished. Today, I want to revisit some of my notes and make them better. And I want to take this opportunity to work out a few of the design principles behind this project.The Stand
Harsh Brownsmentioned in Bookmarks #9
I’ve done such little reading over the last couple of months. But I suspect the following links will be picked up by my RSS followers. Plenty of blog posts from other personal sites around the Web. “Work needs to stay in its place.”, 10 mins Settings are not a design failure
www.deboramontoli.itmentioned in Condividere o non condividere
In linea generale si tratta di approcci da seguire per scrivere note, appunti e idee con il fine di prenderci cura della nostra conoscenza personale. Oggi ci focalizziamo su quella che è una Atomic Note – una delle caratteristiche delle Evergreen Note – intesa come l’unità più
www.deboramontoli.itmentioned in 6 Evergreen, atomic, boat… ???
In linea generale si tratta di approcci da seguire per scrivere note, appunti e idee con il fine di prenderci cura della nostra conoscenza personale. Oggi ci focalizziamo su quella che è una Atomic Note – una delle caratteristiche delle Evergreen Note – intesa come l’unità più