Digital Gardens
General notes
Not about perfection
ever-evolving, should grow over time
Seeds (new, rough ideas, cultivating curiosity)
Budding (putting seeds into some form of an idea, expanding, work, that's been cleaned up and clarified, growing your knowledge)
trees (full formed texts, forming new ideas)
Dates: planted and last tended
What is a digital garden?
A digital garden is the cross between a blog and your notes app. It's a public space designed for you to share your entire thought-process rather than just the final product. The purpose is to allow you to cultivate and grow your ideas and knowledge in the same way you would tend to a garden.
Unlike a blog that prioritizes a chronological order, digital gardens are typically navigated through links and tags. The goal is to create a non-linear, ever-evolving set of notes and ideas that link together. Much like a living garden, it's your living and growing personal knowledge base for public consumption and exploration.
The key to creating a thriving digital garden is to forget about perfection. In a world where everyone's obsessed with curating the perfect repertoire of content, digital gardens feel like a fresh new (or old) way to share your thoughts.
How notes are organized
While you can organize your notes however you like, here are some typical hierarchies that people use.
Seeds
Seeds are your new ideas. They're typically going to be pretty rough, and is a way for you to keep track of what peaks your curiosity.
Budding
Budding notes take your seeds and grow them into some form of a coherent opinion or thought. At this point you're starting to expand on your ideas.
Trees
Trees are your full-formed bodies of text that may draw from multiple budding notes and seeds to create an essay sharing your thought or idea. This can often lead to new ideas coming up (like trees dropping nuts/seeds).
How to use
You want to
- capture - creating a new note to keep the idea
- contextualize - adding further information, citing sources, and interlinking notes
- organize - making it easier to retrieve info later
Resources
“Digital gardening is the Domestic Cozy version of the personal blog. It's less performative than a blog, but more intentional and thoughtful than our Twitter feed. It wants to build personal knowledge over time, rather than engage in banter and quippy conversations.”
— Maggie Appleton
Great article on creating digital gardens in Using Obsidian : https://fransfieldnotes.substack.com/p/how-to-make-a-digital-garden-a-beginners
