Creating evergreen notes
So far, what I have described is a fairly by-the-book implementation of Tiago Forte’s PARA method. However, I found that one of the limitations of PARA is that I was still losing ideas. That is, I would read something, get some hunch or seed of an idea, but didn’t have a good place to keep it.
PARA’s based heavily on Getting Things Done, which means it is heavily focused on a well-defined next action; however, an idea I have today might not really have the legs to become a full-blown project (of any size) until much later. I needed a way to incubate ideas a bit better. As well, I am a firm believer that writing is a way to master information. Translating my highlights and summaries into my own words, sentences, and paragraphs doesn’t just help me better capture knowledge; it facilitates the generation of new knowledge.
For this purpose, I’ve added an additional layer to Forte’s progressive summarization: a zettelkasten. In the zettelkasten, I try to capture those hunches or original ideas that come up as I am reading. As I read more, these connect with new ideas, hopefully (though not always) blooming into paragraphs. Then, those paragraphs connect with other notes in the zettelkasten to form constellations of ideas that can may develop into essays or blog posts.
These notes either represent strong opinions or strong facts. I’ve taken inspiration from Andy Matuschak’s idea of evergreen notes. I see them as the place in which I develop my personal perspective on the kinds of things I read. I try to write these in something approaching final copy, including extensive links to other evergreen notes.
I’ll also sometimes compile Maps of Content (MOC) notes, which curate and comment on relationships between notes on a related topic. They often start as a hypothetical outline that will help guide my future self.
Per Ahrens’ advice, I keep my zettelkasten notes separate from the fleeting notes I take in Evernote. For now, I am using Obsidian. One of Evernote’s weaknesses is how it handles linking. You can create links to individual notes, but it’s quite effortful compared to markdown or wiki-based approaches like Obsidian or Bear. And, Obsidian offers the additional ability to quickly see what notes link to one another. This can help to identify unexpected connections and foster serendipitous discovery of new ideas.