I’ve been slowing focusing more on my writing — in a journal, status updates, client communications and documentation. Part of improving my writing is the taking of notes. The way I’ve taken notes has been rather slowly improving, but today I stumbled upon someone who is thinking and writing about writing notes.

Andy Matuschak has/is writing about Note-writing Systems. He’s also written Exalting data, missing meaning which I found interesting.

He comments on evergreen note-writing as the basic unit of measure for knowledge work, which is a new thought for me. I’ve typically measured work in terms of revenue, hours billed, or projects completed. While those measures are important, after reading his take, perhaps if I measure evergreen notes as the fundamental unit, that, I’m thinking will improve those other measures.

Says Andy:

… Most people use notes as a bucket for storage or scratch thoughts and Note-writing practices are generally ineffective.

• Evergreen note-writing helps insight accumulate
• Evergreen note-writing helps reading efforts accumulate
• Note-writing helps writing accumulate: these notes are the fuel for the Executable strategy for writing, particularly if you Create speculative outlines while you write.

It’s certainly fueling thoughts for me…