Atomic notes represent a fundamental principle in effective knowledge management: each note should contain one distinct, well-defined idea with its own clear title and explanation. Each note should capture a single idea/concept, complete with a descriptive title that immediately communicates its content.

An effective atomic note consists of 3 essential elements:

A distinctive title that clearly identifies the core idea: don't use titles that are broad, for example, instead of creating a broad note titled "Vitamin D," you would prefer to create individual notes with titles like "Vitamin D can prevent kidney stones" or "Vitamin D is generated by sunlight".
A focused explanation that fully develops that idea. This is an atomic note, please don't turn this into an academic paper, it's supposed to be short and expand to the initial idea from the title.
Supporting organizational elements like dates or tags anything that helps you contextualize and retrieve the information later.

When notes become too complex or lengthy, they lose their flexibility and become rigid. Complex/long notes resist decomposition and are less reusable making it nearly impossible to extract specific insights or apply them in different contexts.

Atomicity directly enables creativity by maintaining the fluidity of ideas. It needs to be compact! Small, focused notes can be easily recombined, cross-referenced, and applied in unexpected ways. They serve as building blocks that can be assembled into larger concepts while retaining their individual identity & utility.

A well-crafted atomic note can integrate into multiple projects, discussions, or thought processes because it carries a complete, self-contained idea. Insights developed in one area can naturally migrate to inform thinking in entirely different domains.