Evergreen notes are meant to evolve and accumulate over time. Most people only us transient notes which don’t accumulate and often go stale.

Principles

These are taken from Andy Matuschaks note , which goes way more in depth.

Evergreen notes should be atomic

Evergreen should be about only one thing but capture the entirety of that thing. That makes it easy to form connections across topics and contexts.

Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented

If you factor your notes by concept (instead of hirarchical) you’re able to discover connections across notes that you wouldn’t discovery oterhwise.

Evergreen notes should be densely linked

Pushing yourself to add lots of links to your notes forces you to think about your other notes and concepts that might be related, therefore reviewing the notes already written.

Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies

Organic structure is free of premature constraints that can occur when you start with a structure (e.g. folder-based). Items often belong in many places and don’t fit exactly to one category.

Write notes for yourself by default, disregarding audience

Don’t explain every little thing (as the extra effort can lead to blockage), instead make sure you will understand it in a few years.