Evergreen notes should be conceptually oriented.

Topic-orientation calls a good "summarizing criterion" a "topic" and counterposes it with "summarizing on a time line.

The text calls a good "summarizing criterion" a "concept" and uses "author, book, event, project, topic" as an example of a bad summary.

The claim is the same, just the use of the word "topic" is different.

When reading a book and taking notes on its contents

If you write A, B, and C in your notes about X when that book X contains multiple concepts A, B, and C, when you see something related to A elsewhere, you will say, "Huh? I think I saw something related to that, but where was it?" The problem is that

Evergreen Notebook is conceptually oriented.

Evergreen Notes are,

Not authors, books, events, projects, topics, etc,

It is best to factor in each concept.

This way, when you take the time to update your notes and post links,

Discover connections across books and disciplines

[Evergreen notes must be closely linked

The easiest way to take notes is to start a new one for each book, project, or research topic.

This notebook covers so many concepts that it is hard to find what I wrote when the concept comes up again later!

You need to remember the name of each book or project that deals with that topic

If you read another book written about the same concept,

I might write a new note about that book, though,

That way, there is no accumulation

(Contrast: Knowledge work should accrete).

In that way.

New ideas combined with old ideas,

It does not form a stronger whole.

Notes on that one concept are scattered in several notebooks,

Perhaps referred to by a different name,

Each will be embedded in a larger document.

It is not just about accumulation.

Also with new ideas about the concept,

Must integrate previous thoughts on the concept

There is no pressure to do so.

Is there tension between the two?

Only when all of these ideas are considered simultaneously do we see some powerful distillation?

We need to make an effort to understand.

Suppose you read two books on the exact same subject,

You may be able to easily tie your notes about those two books together.

However, novelty connections can appear in unexpected places.

Organizing your notes by concept can create surprising connections between ideas that came from completely different books.

You may not have realized until now that these books are related, and in fact, they may not be related except in this one respect.

Organizing by concept makes note taking a little more difficult

but it is a convenient method.

In other words, when you write a new note, you need to look for where it fits into the whole.

Therefore, you may find yourself exploring a web of previous notes and ending up in unexpected places.

Over time, we accumulate notes,

Combine it in increasingly complex ways.

(Evergreen note titles are like API's),

Generates new insights (writing evergreen notes helps accumulate insights).

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