WHAT
This action creates a new draft from selected text with appropriate back links in the new and source drafts. You can specify a title to be used for the new draft and corresponding back-link by placing ((double brackets)) around an appropriate title within the selected text. If no title is specified within the block of text, the action prompts for a title.
If you have selected text, that selected text will be replaced with a back-link. If you don’t select any text, the text of the current line will be used to create a new draft, and the back-link will be appended to that line in the source draft (rather than replacing it).
WHY
“If your notes are too broad, you might not notice when you encounter some new idea about one of the notions contained within, and links to that note will be muddied. If your notes are too fragmented, you’ll also fragment your link network, which may make it harder to see certain connections.”
—Andy Matuschak, Evergreen notes should be atomic
https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes_should_be_atomic
I can see the wisdom of atomic notes, but I don’t think in atoms. For me, atomic notes emerge from free-flow thought (or other note-making). This action allows me to write expansively as ideas occur and extract emerging ideas after the fact, while retaining some sense of how those ideas emerged and where they came from.
I thought a few other actions like this already existed, but I couldn’t find them on a quick search. If you find this useful, you might also be interested in @jochi’s Link Helper action group (which includes an action that does something similar to the the action I’ve made here).