Takeaways From Reading Up On Digital Gardens

When I look at some of the examples, the 'gardeners' bring up tags/themes to the top and you'll find the same notes/posts in multiple categories.

I saw some gardens where a list of topics will let you know a lot about what the gardener is into, and how much their interests align with yours. Contrast with a blog like mine, where you might see the tag line 'Triathlon training, equipment and tips from a wannabe/dilettante/family man.' or read the top article (which might not align with said line) and still have very little clue as to the current content library.

Maggie Appleton calls them 'less performative' than most websites/blogs, and that's true of some that I've seen. There's less focus on fonts and images and more on text, which is up my alley, as focusing too much on aesthetics is tedious for me. Function before fashion.

Maybe this is why real-life gardening is unappealing to me; while I like beautiful flowers or vegetables as much as the next person, the hard work of destroying that which will hinder our efforts is unappealing. Still, equally so in the digital space, if we are hampered by noise and clutter, we won't reap the good fruit of ideas and thoughts.

Social Media and Blogs are chronological and thus show the latest first. A garden will ideally show your digital journey as a whole and not just the latest (latest != greatest).

Some of this reading comes across as navel-gazing and the pragmatic, utilitarian side of me wants to know how to get started, and how to accomplish it, and what it will actually do for me.

It seems like hosting your own Wiki might be the best option, but for every article I read, I learn about at least one other tool/platform that could be used to accomplish it.

If you started from scratch tomorrow and ignored everything you had created, written, read, annotated, etc. prior to that, you could start a very useful garden. Assuming you have information that you value and would want to include, you either have to migrate and transport across platforms or find a way to encapsulate your existing hosting/storage within the new garden. Who's paying for storage, by the way?

Given the time and number of articles I've read (so far) and if I mapped that against an amount of clarity or vision I've gained on the topic, I don't think I'm ready to start creating a digital garden for myself; I don't know what it would look like, so I don't have a blueprint or map to follow.

I think social media exhaustion is real, and the level of information we wade through on a daily basis has created a desperate need to separate the wheat from the chaff (especially in the age of misinformation). Being able to archive and store our knowledge and contextualize all we've learned and taught is going to be increasingly desirable going forward.