Let’s talk about atomic notes.

For years, note-takers were told to make their notes atomic - one idea per note. It sounded tidy, scientific, even inevitable. Break everything down, link it back up, and your thinking will scale.

But the promise never matched reality.
Instead of clarity, most people ended up with scattered fragments and stalled systems. Atomic notes have broken more notes system than they’ve built.

What if the golden rule of note-taking was never the future at all?
What if atomic notes are already dead?

The problem isn’t the pursuit of clarity. It’s the obsession with isolation.
When you reduce every thought into a single, sealed-off note, you strip it of the context that gives it meaning.

Individually, that leaves you with fragments that never progress. A notes system that looks full but feels empty. A structure that gives the illusion of order without generating momentum.

I felt this first-hand.
When I started experimenting with atomic notes, I was meticulous. Every insight became its own card, perfectly titled and tagged. Within weeks I had hundreds of them, a beautiful grid of precision.

But when I tried to actually use them, I hit a wall.

There was nothing to build on. There was just a sea of isolated sentences. I wasn’t thinking more deeply. I was just storing thoughts at a smaller scale.

And I wasn’t alone.
Across the PKM world, atomic notes have broken more systems than they’ve helped. The model spread on the back of Zettelkasten hype:

“if it worked for Niklas Luhmann, surely it would work for us. “

But most of us aren’t writing 90 books. We’re navigating projects, research, and creative work that demand synthesis, not fragments.

Today’s tools make it easier than ever to resurface, layer, and connect ideas. Clinging to “one note, one idea” feels like carrying a typewriter into the cloud era. It solved yesterday’s problem of clutter by creating today’s problem of stagnation.

Ideas don’t evolve in isolation. They grow by being revisited, expanded, and connected.

Instead of shrinking notes into atoms, I’ve found it more useful to think of them as layers. A note begins as a quick capture. A line from a book, a question, or an observation. On its own, that’s just raw material.

But the note becomes valuable when you return to it: adding reflection, linking it to something you’re working on, drawing out a possible application. Over time, the note accumulates layers of thinking. It’s no longer a static record. It’s alive.

This is the foundation of Layered Thinking Notes: notes that change as you do.

This week, open three old notes you’ve ignored and breathe new life into them.

Take one as an example. Say it’s a highlight from Cal Newport: “Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.”

Now the note is no longer a static highlight. It’s part of your active system, guiding real decisions.

Do that with three notes, and you’ll start to see how layering shifts your notes system from storage to momentum.

The rise of atomic notes was a reaction to bloated systems. But in fixing one problem, it created another. Notes became smaller, but also emptier.

Real thinking is not atomic. It’s layered. It requires space for context, revision, and growth. The goal isn’t to make your notes perfectly modular, it’s to make them capable of evolving with you.

The next chapter of note-taking isn’t about breaking thoughts into fragments. It’s about cultivating living notes that can grow alongside your projects, your work, and your curiosity. That’s the promise of Layered Thinking Notes: not a prettier archive, but a thinking partner that matures over time.

Atomic notes helped a generation of note-takers start thinking differently. But they were never the destination. Notes don’t need to be small. They need to be alive.

I hope this week’s letter gave you a fresh way of looking at your own notes. How do you structure yours? I’d love to hear.

Until next time,

Gav