"The goal is not to take notes—the goal is to think effectively."

"Better questions are “what practices can help me reliably develop insights over time?”, “how can I shepherd my attention effectively?” etc."

"“Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”"

"Because Evergreen notes can be used as part of a strategy for writing public work (Executable strategy for writing), it’s tempting to “save time” by writing notes in publishable form."

"But I find it substantially increases the overhead and effort in writing, often to the point of producing blockage."

"Q. Why do I often find myself stuck when I try to write evergreen notes as publishable prose for an audience?"

"A. When a topic is hard enough to distill on its own, the extra cognitive load of considering a reader overwhelms me."

"Evergreen notes are written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects."

"they’re about effectively developing insight: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”."

"Write notes for yourself by default, disregarding audience"

"Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies"

"Evergreen notes should be densely linked"

"Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented"

"Evergreen notes should be atomic"

"This concept evolves in large part from Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten, which he regards as the independent intellectual partner in writing his 70 books."