## What are evergreen notes? Seems to be first described by [Andy Matuschak](https://andymatuschak.org/), Evergreen notes are said to be ==fundamental unit of knowledge work==. The concept draws its origins from the [Zettelkasten](The%20zettelkasten%20method%20and%20how%20to%20take%20smart%20notes.md) method and is a way to achieve a better note-taking practice and leverage more from your notes than the typical anarchic way of note taking (hear: accumulating notes with no purpose, called *"transient notes"*). ==Evergreen notes are written and organized to evolve over time==, hence the name *"evergreen"* and follow design principles (see [Software design principles applied to digital gardening](Software%20design%20principles%20applied%20to%20digital%20gardening.md) i.e): - **Atomicity**: notes should be atomic to allow reuse - **Concept-orientation**: notes should be around concepts and big ideas rather than specific things (books, articles, medias...) - **High density linking**: notes should be densely connected to other to create better and organic associations rather than strict hierarchical structures. - **Focus on your own ideas rather than others' ideas**: notes should be about your own idea and way to think about the concept you're writing, rather than a collection of references from books or citations I'll kindly add these other concept that I think relevant: - **Personnalisation**: ==notes should be optimised== for you rather than for a specific audience or target (but still presentable to a foreign reader) - **Medium diversity**: ==notes should be filled with diverse mediums==, like images, audio, video, books, articles, illlustrations, websites, links etc... - **Open-ended**: it's the key principle behind evergreen concept, notes should always be open to extensions I like how [Maggie Appleton](https://maggieappleton.com/) illustrated it (from her article Growing the Evergreens)  ## Links - [Evergreen notes - Andy Matuschak](https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4SDCZQeRo4xFEQ8H4qrSqd68ucpgE6LU155C?stackedNotes=z6bci25mVUBNFdVWSrQNKr6u7AZ1jFzfTVbMF) - [Growing the Evergreens - Maggie Appleton](https://maggieappleton.com/evergreens) - [Building a Second Brain - Maggie Appleton](https://maggieappleton.com/basb) - [How To Take Smart Notes - Sönke Ahrens (book)](How%20To%20Take%20Smart%20Notes%20-%20Sönke%20Ahrens.md) - [Extend Your Mind - Tiago Forte (book)](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FLQHLTK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=fortelabs07-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B07FLQHLTK&linkId=fa325112abe9ec6c0daf1bab6dee7f0c)