2b1 - The 3 paradigms of notes

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

• What is a note? How do notes work? What can you do with notes?
• The answers can be understood through three paradigms. Each paradigm can break our preconceptions and unlock a deeper understanding around how we work with notes.

• 🍯 Notes are containers of thought 💭
  •  You can put anything inside—a journal, a grocery list, an idea…anything.
• 🗣 Notes allow conversations across time ⌛️
  •   Notes allow your old self to send messages to your future self.
• 🌱 Notes can change 🌲
  •   Notes don’t have to be permanently written in concrete. Notes can be living.

• Most of us treat notes as containers of thought.
• Some of us recognize how profound it is that notes allow conversations across time.
• Few of us treat notes as changeable.

Once we realize that notes are alive, we can start to see how many of our notes are dead—but still lingering.

These are zombie notes. If you have too many zombie notes, your system gets overrun.

• The most common zombie notes are ==web-clipped articles== (which is why Evernote encourages the growth of undead PKM systems so well), but they can arise in other ways. ==Ancient task lists== and ==long walls of text== from other people are ripe to become zombie notes.
• You won’t notice it at first. But over time, the zombie notes will grow in numbers. They will grow in strength. Eventually, they will cause  so much chaos, you won’t be able to ever focus on what matters.
• Some scholars suggest it is best to maintain a ratio of less than 1 zombie note for every 10 living notes.
• How can you identify zombie notes?
  • “Zombie notes are unlinked, unloved, and ever-lingering.”
  • Zombie notes are static notes.
  • Compare that to living notes…

• Living notes are linked, loved, and ever-evolving.
• Notes can change and evolve. Notes can be non-static. Notes can mature. Notes can make new friends, and lose their connection to old friends. Not all notes need to go on living. Some notes get deleted. 
  • Living notes can continue to mature.
  • Living notes maintain much of their value.
  • Living notes are what make up a dynamic collection of digital notes. 
  • Living notes are part of an emerging system of ideas (see “Idea Emergence”).
• Living notes are like paintings by Bob Ross. He would paint beautiful mountains in the distance. Then, he would cover up half the mountains with splotches of dark green. But five minutes later, those splotches of dark green would become evergreen.
• Living notes are the same way. 
  • Over the days, weeks, months, years, and decades, you will might return to your notes and throw in some new splotches.
  • You can then curate those splotches into “happy little accidents” that become more meaningful versions of themselves. 
    • This is exactly what we are going to do in the next section on note-making.

• “Zombie notes” aren’t something we can perfectly quantify (like the term “thought collisions”). In Western culture, we try to reduce everything to its component parts, but squeezing too hard just ensures the water escapes our grasp. Too much yang. Needs more yin. ==By cupping the concept like we might cup water in our hands, we can better grasp the meaning. ==
• Simply put, you will be able to ==sense your zombie notes== because they add noise and stress to your PKM system. If that isn’t enough, then ask: “Is it linked? Do I love it?” A double “no” likely means a double tap (right-click, delete).

Not all unlinked notes are unloved. If you open the graph view, you will see lonely “orphan” notes. They may just need a home. Using the graph like this is a good way to give orphans a home, before they have a chance to become zombies.