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

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

and on this very

Digital Gardening

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

if this piques your interest.

Evergreen Notes Should Be...