A ndy Matuschak proposed the term Evergreen Notes to describe a system of note-taking that aspires towards cumulative personal knowledge, rather than simply information capture.
The idea builds off many other note-taking philosophies like Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten method Andy also wrote a good post Comparing Evergreens vs Zettles , and Sonke Ahren’s How to Take Smart Notes system.
My personal notes system has been heavily influenced by the Evergreening ethos. In both my Roam Garden
Tending Evergreen Notes in Roam Research
A walkthrough of how I manage and tend Evergreen notes in Roam and on this very Digital GardeningA Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden
A newly revived philosophy for publishing personal knowledge on the web website. My notes taxonomy flows from “Seedlings” to “Budding” to “Evergreens”To help myself internalise some of the main Evergreen principles, I illustrated them out below. These aren’t a comprehensive explanation, so I recommend reading the original source material if this piques your interest.
Evergreen Notes Should Be…
