Topic Notes

In many ways, Topic Notes are the ultimate destination for notes in § My note taking system.
They are atomic notes about a single concept I’ve given some thought to.
The title of a Topic Note should be descriptive, somewhat self-explanatory and become something I remember, to help me link to it from other places. Related: 𝍌 Evergreen note titles are like APIs.
Topic Notes should come naturally to me, rather than feeling forced. In that way, I should not have a blank page problem when it comes to Topic Notes.
Sometimes (though rarely), a single Topic Note could be published externally as a blog post or a memo. More often, I may combine multiple Topic Notes to form a publishable piece of content.
They should contain a few paragraphs of text, any more and it’s probably more than one concept and should be split out into multiple Topic Notes, or be an Outline Notes.
Topic Notes will generally link to Clippings or other Topic Notes, so that they become densely linked.
Topic Notes are evergreen in nature and I should be regularly and serendipitously visiting them and amending them.
In this way, my note taking overall should be a fully living system and process. This helps to remove a level of friction for me, and helps me be much more prolific in my writing and note taking. This helps me over time have a lot more knowledge both in my brain and in § My note taking system.
In a sense, notes may over time “graduate” from Clippings to Topic Notes.

In increasingly complex stages of development. Inspired by Taxonomy of note types by Andy Matuschak.

I briefly thought about having a separate tag, topic-draft as a 𝍌 A writing inbox for transient and incomplete notes. However, for me, it started to feel like extra unnecessary structure and actually created friction. I like thinking of all topic notes as drafts instead. They should be living notes, being updated and amended regularly. With that in mind, a stub for a note is just as valid as a polished note.