Wisen's notes

# Note-writing system

# Workflow

  1. Process daily note todo list
  2. Process untagged notes:
    1. The priority is to make to tag is as an evergreen note
    2. If the idea is not maturing yet, tidy up, and mark as a transient note for now
    3. Add at least one link, and object tag
  3. Process interconnected notes into connection notes.
  4. Process all above into outline notes.

# Building blocks

# Daily log

This is my dumping ground. Any notes that I take during the day will start here. It may or may not contain new ideas.

Template:

# yyyy-mm-dd

Here is the content.
- [ ] really transient idea

# Transient note

Evergreen notes won’t emerge by itself. Transient note is meant to be a very frictionless way to create notes. Whenever there is a new idea that pops in my head, I will start by writing them as transient notes.

Transient notes generally will start without any tags so that it’ll be processed further in my workflow.

Template:

# yyyy-mm-dd The Title

Here is the content.

# Evergreen note

Evergreen note is a processed transient note(s). It will evolve and overtime be updated. Keep the revision section as evergreen note will evolve over time.

# The Title

Here is the content.

---
## Revision
yyyy-mm-dd: ...

Even though the creation date of the note is useful, I couldn’t find a good way to include that in markdown file nicely. Using YAML front matter will be nice, but as I’ve decided that I’m 2020-05-21 Going with Bear for Zettelkasten, it doesn’t support YAML front matter. What I ended up relying on is the Bear stored creation date.

# Connection note

When you have many random notes and finally you can see how they are connected to each other, create a (connection note (opens new window)).

# The Title

Here is the content.

# Outline note

Interlinks and sequence all other notes into a narrative. Typically this note will have many bullet points.

# §The Title

Here is the content.

I have no idea what § is for, it’s practiced (opens new window) by Andy Matuschak.

# References

It’s important to keep references, so follow this format. When referencing a book, we should cite the book with ZoteroBib (opens new window) with "Modern Language Association 8th edition" style, or Bibcitation (opens new window).

...content...

---

## References

[Name of reference](link)
> quote from the reference

# Tagging

Tagging should be done at the end of the post to prevent conflict with note-link-nanitor. These are the tags we want to use

  • Transient: transient
  • Evergreen: evergreen
  • Connection: connection evergreen
  • Outline: evergreen

Some useful principles:

  • Don’t use nested tags
  • Tag the object, not topic

The Difference Between Good and Bad Tags • Zettelkasten Method (opens new window)

I try to come up with a similar problem in my programming notes. I learned a lot of Python in recent weeks, but it doesn’t make sense to put # Python anywhere I talk about the language. Or say I come up with an algorithm to illustrate something, and the algorithm is written in Python — I wouldn’t tag the note with # python at all, since it’s not a note about Python. When I compare code snippets in 5 different languages, I apply tags for all 5 languages, though.

but I found this doesn’t scale. It creates the same problems like directory hierarchies, where topics come up in different contexts, like in # productivity/reading and # hobby/reading, or # webdesign/layout and # print/layout.

# Inspiration

This system has been inspired by these systems:

Initially, the system started as an attempt for copy the Zettelkasten method (2020-05-20 Discovering Zettelkasten), until I realise that Andy Matuschak’s evergreen note is different to Zettelkasten (opens new window):

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.

  • To write is to rubber duck
    • I was presented with an architectural problem, and couldn’t really think clearly on what my options are. As I’m experimenting with my Note-writing system, I started to pour down my thoughts into my daily log. To my surprise, after writing for roughly 1 hour, I progressed really well and got down into a solution. This revelation reminds me of the experience that I got from rubber ducking debugging.