🪴Digital Gardens

“Digital garden” is a new term I’ve seen popping up to describe a place to collect related thoughts over time. It’s a collision of indieweb, wikis, the “learn in public” movement, and the tradition of 📖Commonplace Books .

It’s primary organizing principle is the web of connections between ideas. (As opposed to a blog, which is ordered around recency, timelines, the new.)

Examples

• Andy Matuschak’s Notes — I love that these are developed ideas, written in sentences, and published for others to read (although that probably wouldn’t work for my writing ideas). I really like the way he links between notes, and lists link back from other notes.
• Dave Smyth’s Commonplace — I like the ability to reference a link to something else and comment on the idea. More generally, I really like his approach to capturing lots of things on his site — bookmarks, the “unoffice hours,” etc. (outlined in this post).
• Everything I Know (wiki) — Interesting approach to splitting up topics, and I like the way each page separates notes, links, inspiration, etc. There’s flexibility for each page to be different, but still a basic structure to keep things organized, keep track of bookmarks without pressure to develop thoughts, etc. (Also specifically really like his rules for focusing. And keeping a list of everything he owns. And frontend links.) He uses Docusaurus to maintain content in markdown files — I like the “within the page” navigation links available on the right.
• Another wiki — I like the wide variety of subjects (including great job interview questions!). Also interesting how they mix knowledge offloading and memories and personal info. I’m not sure I like that approach exactly for myself, especially in a public wiki, but it’s different.
• Ryan Holiday’s guide to how to keep a commonplace book — Great historical references. Love Montaigne’s focus on “better, happier, wiser,” and the focus on collecting wisdom over random facts.
• On building a “digital garden” — Lots of other great links here to follow.

Planning my version

What do I want in a commonplace book?

• Easy access on multiple devices
• An inbox to jot down ideas by date, and expand on them later
• Ability to tag by topic and link to original sources
• Rich formatting for quotes, links, etc.
• Enjoyable writing experience to try to write every day
• Some way to distinguish between “evergreen notes” and ideas in progress
• A list of media I want to read/listen to/watch
• A place to track current reading, watching, projects, etc.
• A way to display books and movies visually, with links to notes
• Some ability to make sure it doesn’t just turn into a list of links with no returning to curate, annotate

Learning

• The Zettelkasten method is one common approach to creating a commonplace book/second brain. It focuses on connecting (vs. simply collecting) info — understanding something new requires really working with it (the “Collector’s Fallacy”). (This is kind of linked to what I’ve been learning in the Second Brain course about the importance of summarizing new learning for myself.) Each atomic content note should focus on a single concept, have a unique ID, and be tagged; as related content notes accumulate, you should organize them in a structure note that serves as a table of contents or a map. Structure will emerge and evolve as notes accumulate. You can also keep a buffer file (like my 🔒 Private Note) to hold tidbits until you gather enough for a subject note.
• Great guide to Zettelkasten note-taking here. One thing I don’t want to lose sight of: Zettelkasten’s famous because this system empowered him to do something with all this knowledge and collected information. The note-taking isn’t the point (as much as it might be satisfying). It has to be actionable. And it has to inspire me to take action.

Resources

• Maggie Appleton’s The Digital Garden
• Joel Hooks’s My blog is a digital garden, not a blog
• How the blog broke the web