Similarities and differences between evergreen note-writing and Zettelkasten

My practice of writing Evergreen notes is heavily inspired by Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten practice and its contemporary advocates. I use a different term both because there are some distinctions and because I want to give myself space to explore ideas in this space apart from the culture surrounding Zettelkasten, which has its own prior values and proclivities.

Key similarities:

• concept-orientation (Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented)
• atomicity (Evergreen notes should be atomic)
• emphasis on linkage (Evergreen notes should be densely linked)
• serendipity as a virtue (Notes should surprise you)
• the centrality of one’s own ideas and their development over time, rather than merely accumulating summaries of others’ ideas (Evergreen notes are a safe place to develop wild ideas, Do your own thinking, contra Commonplace books)
  • emphasis on using one’s own words, even when describing others’ ideas (Write about what you read to internalize texts deeply)

Key differences:

• My approach includes a few methods surrounding the note-writing which expand its scope:
  • a method for capturing scraps which would not yet qualify as Zettel, then revising them over time: A writing inbox for transient and incomplete notes
  • an unusual method for managing that inbox: Spaced repetition can lower the stakes around destructive inbox-maintenance operations
  • a method for systematically revisiting questions and proto-notes over time: Spaced repetition may be a helpful tool to incrementally develop inklings
  • a concrete daily practice: My morning writing practice
• More generally, my approach uses a broader Taxonomy of note types which describes a hierarchy and methodology for capturing ideas very early and incrementally developing clusters of notes into increasingly higher-level representations. By contrast, Zettels are mostly meant to represent a few “middle” levels of this hierarchy.
  • Titles are very important indexes in my system. Zettels normally have numeric identifiers; modern adherents may give their notes titles, but apparently not with the same approach of “creating APIs.” Evergreen note titles are like APIs
• Contextual backlinks significantly change the nature of “links,” allowing emergent behaviors like Backlinks can be used to implicitly define nodes in knowledge management systems
• I’ve embedded a Spaced repetition memory system into my notes: The mnemonic medium can be extended to one’s personal notes. This has substantially changed the medium, but in ways I don’t yet understand very well.
• My notes are publicly accessible, and I integrate them into public conversation. I don’t understand the impact of this practice yet, but it certainly changes my relationship to the notes in a significant way and creates valuable discussion. There are likely some interesting networked intelligence angles here. I know of no prominent “live” public Zettelkasten. Luhmann’s is archived, but that’s a different relationship—he’s not using it in conversation, then using that interaction to inform his writing.

One final difference, this one a touch pointy: the primary purpose of my system is to develop ideas in my core creative projects. Most people in the contemporary Zettelkasten culture seem to use their systems primarily to write notes about others’ ideas. If they’re developing their own ideas with them, those ideas are an interesting hobby, not their core creative work. All this falls afoul of the issues around People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use. I don’t know how, exactly, but my context of use substantially shapes the note-writing practice.

Notes should surprise you

If reading and writing notes doesn’t lead to surprises, what’s the point?

If we just wanted to remember things, we have spaced repetition for that. If we just wanted to understand a particular idea thoroughly in some local context, we wouldn’t bother maintaining a system of notes over time.

This is why we have dense networks of links (Evergreen notes should be densely linked): so that searches help us see unexpected connections.

This is why we take Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented: so that when writing about an idea that seems new, we stumble onto what we’ve already written about it (perhaps unexpectedly).

References

Luhmann, N. (1992). Communicating with Slip Boxes. In A. Kieserling (Ed.), & M. Kuehn (Trans.), Universität als Milieu: Kleine Schriften (pp. 53–61). Retrieved from http://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes

One of the most basic presuppositions of communication is that the partners can mutually surprise each other. Only in the way can information be produced in the respective other.

Extend Your Mind and Memory With a Zettelkasten • Zettelkasten Method

If you look something up in your Zettelkasten, you need to get unexpected results in order to form new thoughts. Surprise is the key ingredient here, as I pointed out in my introductory post on this topic. The links between notes make this possible since you’ll generate new ideas by following connections and exploring a part of your web of notes. The non-apparent connections are generally more beneficial to creative thinking than the obvious ones as they generate greater surprise. While your mind usually continues to work with the obvious, your Zettelkasten instead shows you the bizarre. It sparks your imagination and blows your mind as it confronts you with the unexpected.

Also, it opens up opportunities to connect thoughts over the course of years which in turn will generate moments of surprise. This eventually leads to discoveries of unforeseen connections and enables you to think out of the box.