Presenting: My digital garden
Ever since I created this blog, I've been thinking about alternative ways to write online. I wanted something that allows me to break free of the technical and formal restrictions of a blog.
A digital garden is something that offers this freedom. It is something like a personal wiki: A public place where a person curates, collects and connects ideas. It's similar but different from a blog. While a blog is there to publish polished pieces of writing, usually displayed in reverse chronological, a garden consists of notes with no clear hierarchy or final publish date. The notes are meant to be evolved constantly, like plants in a garden have to be watered.
For too long, I was mulling over how to do it, if I could create a mix of blog or digital garden, or if I could integrate a digital garden into this site and how I would do it. All things that kept me from actually doing anything.
Enter One Big Win, a program designed to help people achieve a personal victory in eight weeks. It is by David Cain from the blog Raptitude, who has a very philosophical take on productivity and personal growth. David is one of my favorite writers and he gave me a lot of interesting perspectives on life as well as inspiration to work on myself – so it was a no brainer for me to buy the course when it came out.
While it can be done solo, once in a while there are cohorts where people will achieve a Big Win at the same time, updating and encouraging each other in the forums. In my first cohort I learned the basics of the programming language Python. And in my second cohort, which ended on the 8th June, I decided to tackle the digital garden again.
The result: I spent about 14 hours setting up my digital garden, connecting it to my domain and creating the initial 37 notes. It still feels very unfinished and in progress – but then that's kind of the point of a digital garden, it will always be a work in progress.
Check it out here: garden.romanrey.com