Evergreen Note

A note that is strong yet always growing. Popularised by Andy Matuschak and are well described on his blog. Name derived from trees that are green all year, similarly Evergreen Notes are always in season.

Principles of an evergreen note:

• Have titles like APIs. I have Advice for writing better note titles.
• They are always Atomic notes - they describe a single idea or have a single named purpose.
• Concept oriented, usually.
• Densely linked to and from other notes.
• Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies Associative ontologies enable more growth than hierarchies
• Written for the writer. Notes should disregard the public.

These principles mean Evergreen notes are a safe place to develop wild ideas

In my opinion, Evergreen Notes are one of the most important artefacts people today should learn how to write. Most people don't write much at all, or write things that are non-atomic, with awful titles, and never cover interesting concepts.

Opinions

are similar to marginalia in that they are one's own thoughts
but different in that it cannot connect with other thoughts

similar to memorisation in that they're connected to other thoughts, but different in that recorded in a form others can read

can cause idea formation!
can result from article capture

reminds me of commonplace book

Can too many links be a form of clutter?