notes

Growing the Evergreens

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

A

proposed the term 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

method , and Sonke Ahren's system.

My personal notes system has been heavily influenced by the Evergreening ethos. In both my

and on this very 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.


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
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