Evergreen notes are written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects. This is an unusual way to think about writing notes: Most people take only transient notes. That’s because these practices aren’t about writing notes; they’re about effectively developing insight: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”. When done well, these notes can be quite valuable: Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work.
It’s hard to write notes that are worth developing over time. These principles help:
This concept is of course enormously indebted to the notion of a Zettelkasten. See Similarities and differences between evergreen note-writing and Zettelkasten.
See:
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers.
Many students and academic writers think like the early ship owners when it comes to note-taking. They handle their ideas and findings in the way it makes immediate sense: If they read an interesting sentence, they underline it. If they have a comment to make, they write it into the margins. If they have an idea, they write it into their notebook, and if an article seems important enough, they make the effort and write an excerpt. Working like this will leave you with a lot of different notes in many different places. Writing, then, means to rely heavily on your brain to remember where and when these notes were written down.
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
To avoid a proliferation of anxiety-inducing browser tabs and a terrifying folder of PDFs, it’s important to have an automatic procedure for capturing references to readings which might prove useful.
Once captured, each item in the inbox either:
Importantly, this isn’t a “someday maybe” list. It doesn’t accumulate indefinitely, because then it wouldn’t be a reliable way to Close open loops.
So, when constructing a reading inbox, the important considerations are:
Interestingly, no existing “read later” or reference management system fits these criteria. They’re usually siloed by content type, and none of them encourages lingering items to be removed. See also: Beware automatic import into the reading inbox.
The reading inbox is an important release valve for things I encounter when on my smartphone (see Use phones to collect and triage, not (usually) to read).
Related: Incremental reading
Note-Taking when Reading the Web and RSS • Zettelkasten Method
The Inbox is the place to hold the items we either want to or need to pay attention to. A lot of stuff will never reach our inbox; we can shut off the noise outside.
Some things that found their way onto the reading lists turn out to be useless. Toss them. Putting items on the reading list is a tiny commitment only: we commit to pay attention to them later, but we don’t need to hold on to them if they don’t withstand a critical look.
Because it’s important to Write about what you read to internalize texts deeply, we should be wary of reading on our phones: we’re usually not in a position or mindset to write!
This can be dangerous because reading articles on the phone can feel like it’s doing work, but Knowledge work should accrete, and this kind of reading mostly doesn’t. It’s mostly just for entertainment.
In a pinch, I can use my Pocket memo pad to capture into writing inbox while out to take notes while reading on my phone, but it requires a stable, flat surface: otherwise I’d need one hand for the phone, one hand for the memo pad, and one hand for the pen.
When I feel tempted to read something thoroughly on my phone, I should instead Close open loops by using A reading inbox to capture possibly-useful references. I can just add that thing to my queue and move on.
Reading a whole article on the iPhone is a welcome pastime, but it’s not an efficient way to expand my knowledge. Thus I ask myself: do I want to read something just to “ ” myself, or do I need to work with it later? edu-tain The answer to this question determines whether I will read the article or just skim and file it.
On my phone, I prepare stuff – that’s web pages and news feed items – to become an actual thing in terms of my knowledge management system. That’s what a reading list is for. Although I can’t write notes for my archive in a reasonable way, I can still decide which articles I want to take note of. In this respect is my iPhone a device to filter the web and my feeds.
If you want to deeply internalize something you’re reading, the best way I know is to write about it:
For deep understanding, it’s not enough to just highlight or write marginalia in books: there isn’t much pressure to synthesize, connect, or to get to the heart of things. And they don’t add up to anything over time as you read more. Instead, write Evergreen notes as you read.
But of course, it doesn’t always make sense to read in this way: much of the time you’re not really trying to internalize the text deeply, and text may not be worthy of that much attention: The best way to read is highly contextual.
Also, it’s worth noting: The most effective readers and thinkers I know don’t take notes when reading. Speaking at least for myself, experience has suggested that I need more support to effectively engage with what I’m reading.
Our broad approach is an alternating cycle:
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
It is impossible to think without writing; at least it is impossible in any sophisticated or networked (anschlußfähig) fashion.
Levy, N. (2013). Neuroethics and the Extended Mind. In J. Illes & B. J. Sahakian (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics (pp. 285–294). Oxford University Press.
Notes on paper, or on a computer screen … do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavour easier, they make it possible.