What does it mean that separate claims from evidence?

A claim and its supporting evidence are different objects that should be stored separately.

Example: You write a note: 'Remote work increases productivity — Buffer's 2023 survey found 98% of respondents want to continue working remotely.' This note fuses a claim (remote work increases productivity) with evidence (a survey about preferences, which is not even evidence of productivity). Stored as one object, the claim inherits false credibility from the citation, and the evidence can never be reused to support a different claim. Separate them: one note states the claim, another records the survey finding, and a link connects them. Now you can see that the evidence doesn't actually support the claim — and you can link that same survey data to a different argument about employee preferences.

Try this: Find three notes in your system (or three beliefs you hold strongly) where a claim and its evidence are fused into a single statement. For each one, split it into two separate objects: (1) the claim, stated as a declarative sentence, and (2) the evidence, stated as a factual observation with its source. Then draw the link between them and ask: does this evidence actually support this claim? You will likely find at least one case where it does not.