Note composition is making links¶
Composing notes is done by building a network of hyperlinks - creating relationships between them. This is analogous to building relationships between ideas.
This can be done in-place within a note in the case of a stronger or one-on-one relationship. It can be done by creating a new note describing the relationship and linking to all the parties in the case of a weaker relationship or a many-to-many relationship.
Backlinks¶
- Creating a relationship between two ideas
- Compose notes
- Evergreen notes should be atomic
- A shared idea. A note should only be about a single concept. It should try and capture the whole of that concept if it can. This revolves around finding a sweet spot for creating links between notes. There's a trade-off between being too granular and too course. Too granular and connections become noisey and hard to find. Too course and connections are muddy and unclear as to what they're about.
- Create note-taking analogies for manipulating ideas
- Notes should be densely linked
- When writing permanent zettelkasten-style notes then composing notes is done by making links between them. Creating relationships between ideas builds context, and understanding requires an idea to have context.
- Abstract ideas by building patterns
- In reality, building patterns looks very similar to compounding and connecting your notes - making new files, adding hyperlinks between them. This is part of the power of keeping it simple - abstract ideas are no different from concrete ones, and building them up in this way has value. As is often the case, the value is in the links between ideas.