When you wrote that evergreen notes should have titles that are declarative or imperative, did you explicitly omit interrogative?
Seems to me that questions form a key part of one's notes.
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Questions are a key note type for me, and a subset of them really are evergreen notes (the others are prompts for daily writing that I return to over time). Thanks for the nudge; I'll revise accordingly.
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An example of an evergreen interrogative: notes.andymatuschak.org/z6Ndn5nmxLWsrQ. This note is unlikely to ever drop its "?". It's not really a creative prompt—more a nexus.
An example of a prompt-style ? note: notes.andymatuschak.org/z57S2Fte6gAnnM. I return to this regularly. It'll lose its "?" in time.
I'd been doing prompts for a while, keeping track of open questions (tend to be more project specific) and important questions (more general field specific). Your idea to put them onto a spaced repetition schedule (heard in podcast) has been huge for me. Thanks!
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I had never even considered taking spaced repetition beyond memory. Still grappling with implications, seems to solve many problems I’ve had for a while.
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In the instructional design framework Understanding by Design they present the idea of Essential Questions which fit this model
![- Tip: For now, just brainstorm possible essential questions. Later you can fine-tune the wording and edit for kid-friendliness.
- Are meant to be explored, argued, and continually revisited.
- Have various plausible answers; often the “answers” raise new questions.
- Should provoke thought and stimulate students to engage in sustained inquiry and extended thinking.
- Essential questions are the authentic questions that we ask about subjects. They are closely related to the [[Big Ideas]] and are meant to explore the "why" and the "how"
- Developing essential questions requires research. Methods like [[Sales Safari]] provide a framework for developing [[authentic essential questions versus lab-grown bull shit]].
- The development of essential questions also relates to the ideas found in [[Jobs to be Done]] approach to a more user centric design process. If we aren't answering essential questions with the tools we build or topics we teach, [[why fucking bother?]]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXmL2h_U4AMNk56?format=jpg&name=large)
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Ah, that's a great point—I hadn't thought about it, but UbD was one of my biggest influences when I was focused on edtech, so I'm sure this influenced how I think about framing questions as prompts.
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Yes! I’ve been discussing best approaches to this with a friend over the last few days and was going to ask about it too. Currently have a few that will hopefully turn evergreen in the next few weeks and others that I’ll likely be working on for the rest of my life.