Created: May 01, 2020
Modified: May 01, 2020
Modified: May 01, 2020
evergreen notes
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.- evergreen notes are a concept from Andy Matuschak. They're a framework for thinking about writing, note-taking, and intellectual organization.
- Evergreen notes are not 'about' a particular project, a particular book. Instead they should be about concepts. This allows knowledge to accumulate and be synthesized across projects.
- Evergreen notes should be densely linked. At writing time, it's useful to try actively to connect concepts. At reading time, dense linkage is useful as spaced repetition: it helps us come across and revisit old ideas regularly.
- Associations between notes should be fine-grained: links should between particular paragraphs or words, not tags or 'see also' references that leave it unclear what the actual connection is.
- Write notes continuously while reading and thinking. Every time I write a new note, also add a link to it to some outline (creating an outline if needed). Some of these outlines will naturally develop into writing projects I'm excited about developing.
- The daily routine includes actively jumping into the web of knowledge: fleshing out stubs, resynthesizing your understanding of a topic, adding new connections. I should find more time for this in my daily routine.
- He spends two hours every morning writing. That feels like a lot, to me. But I think it might be one of the most profitable ways to spend time. Right now I feel like I can't do this, because it'd take time away from my work, and it feels to me like writing is disconnected from work: the things I write about might help me personally but they won't further my work projects. But: ultimately, writing will help me find things that I am interested in to work on. And as that happens, writing about them will make me more effective and productive.