Three different types of notes:
- Fleeting notes - the “inbox” to collect any small thought so it doesn’t get lost. These notes will be expanded into full permanent notes after review, thought, and expansion (or be discarded). Processing should ideally be done within a day or two, and then these notes can be destroyed or archived.
- Reference system - the bibliographic information as well as literature notes tied to those items as external ideas are consumed from books, videos, articles, podcasts, etc. These can be short; just enough to capture the gist of things we read, and for us to link to our own ideas.
- Permanent notes - the “slip-box” itself. This contains only relevant information to ideas we’re exploring. The thoughts should be fully written out, and when applicable, connected to other existing thoughts in the slip-box. This is the work we care about.
There are also “project notes” which are used to temporarily pull information together for a specific purpose of publishing, so it will reference the permanent notes, but may also be outlines, drafts, etc.