Evergreen notes are notes you intend to develop and refine over time, instead of writing once and forgetting. Andy Matuschak's essays popularised the term; here is the practical version.
The four properties
From Matuschak's notes: atomic, concept-oriented, densely linked, and written for yourself. Most notes fail one or more.
Atomic = one idea
A note titled "On meetings" is not atomic. A note titled "Default-yes meeting culture creates schedule debt" is. The title literally states the claim. The note develops it.
Concept-oriented = not chronological
Daily journal entries are not evergreen. They are timestamps. An evergreen note pulled out of a journal entry — "I work better in 90-minute blocks" — is.
Densely linked = the network does the thinking
The graph is the asset. Each evergreen note should link to 3-5 other evergreen notes. Auto-linking via embedding similarity reduces the manual labour but doesn't replace the deliberate links you create yourself.
Written for yourself
Notes you write to teach others are blog posts, not evergreen notes. Notes you write to develop your own thinking — using your own shorthand, your own examples — are. PARA treats this distinction usefully.
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