The author of this tree of notes is Andy Matuschak. He has a Zettelkasten esque note site that follows a related philosophy of “Evergreen notes”.
Due to the nature of his notes - my notes on this topic are going to be deeply nested as I capture the interesting ideas.
Most people take only transient notes - this is in direct contrast with the purpose of Evergreen notes. Transient notes are more about clarifying your thinking in the moment and not about creating good notes.
Like Zettelkasten and the ideas in How to Take Smart Notes - Andy talks about Evergreen notes as a fundamental unit of knowledge work. Knowledge work should accrete over time. The more of these notes you web and weave together, the more your note-taking and thinking and knowledge builds on itself.
It’s hard to write notes that are worth developing over time. These principles help:
- Evergreen notes should be atomic
- Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented
- Evergreen notes should be densely linked
- Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies
- Write notes for yourself by default, disregarding audience