Digital Gardens
A digital garden is a different approach to content creation - less polished blog, more living notebook.
Key Principles
- Imperfect & Evolving - Notes don’t need to be perfect before publishing
- Networked Thinking - Ideas connect to other ideas through links
- Growth Over Time - Content is updated and refined continuously
- Non-linear - No chronological pressure like traditional blogs
Gardens vs Blogs
| Digital Garden | Traditional Blog |
|---|---|
| Evergreen content | Time-stamped posts |
| Interconnected notes | Linear archive |
| Work in progress | Finished pieces |
| Exploration-focused | Publication-focused |
Tools for Digital Gardening
- Quartz - What this site uses! Publishes Obsidian vaults
- Obsidian - Local-first note-taking with backlinks
- Notion - All-in-one workspace
- Roam Research - Networked thought
My Approach
I use Obsidian for note-taking and Quartz to publish my garden. This workflow lets me:
- Take notes naturally in Obsidian
- Link ideas together with
[[wikilinks]] - Publish selected notes automatically
Further Reading
- A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden by Maggie Appleton
- Learning in Public