- In the Evergreen System, you spend most of your time doing “productive” work, like fleshing out your ideas and connecting the dots. The organization takes care of itself.
- Organization isn’t decided beforehand – it happens organically (through association).
- Principles
- They are atomic. Each note is about one thing, but comprehensive. Think about them as software modules, keeping in mind low-coupling-high-cohesion.
- They are concept-oriented. You don’t write evergreen note about one book or author, you write it about one idea, and when you read another book on topic - add to existing note.
- They are densely linked. When you write about idea - think about how it relates to other ideas. Building links will make you reread existing notes, which in turn will work as a form of spaced repetition. Links not necessary have to be made to existing notes, they could serve as a writing backlog for the future.
- Associative ontologies (graphs) are better than hierarchical taxonomies (trees). Structure of notes should emerge organically, and not be enforced in advance. Tags are ineffective in organizing knowledge, because they do not add weight (measure of how much something belongs to a tag) to association. Labeled associations are better: why is this associated with that?
- Evergreen note titles are like APIs | Concept handles, after Alexander
- Some effective note “API design” techniques:
- separation of concerns (Evergreen notes should be atomic)
- sharp titles (Prefer note titles with complete phrases to sharpen claims)
- and positive framings (Prefer positive note titles to promote systematic theory).
Links