The subject of note-taking stays related at present. We all know the advantages it offers to the writer. We’re conversant in numerous approaches to note-taking and instruments that can be utilized, and we now have decisions. Think about you’ve discovered your strategy, your device, and your observe base is rising and pleasing to the attention. What subsequent? I need to talk about one path of improvement on this space.
This text is devoted to the idea of a digital backyard — the philosophy of publicly sustaining private notes.
My Path
For the previous 20 years, I’ve stored notes utilizing strategies that lacked systematization, reliability, or usefulness: paper notebooks, textual content recordsdata, Evernote, and different purposes whose names have light from reminiscence. Three years in the past, I began utilizing the Zettelkasten type (as I understood and tailored it for myself). I realized about this strategy from Rob Muhlestein whom I encountered on Twitch. Experiments led me to my present note-taking methodology: within the type of Markdown recordsdata saved in a Git repository. On my laptop, I work with them in VSCode, and on my telephone, I take advantage of the default “Notes” app. Why not Obsidian? I attempted it and determined to stay with VSCode for the next causes:
- VSCode is a fundamental editor that’s at all times open and used for work recordsdata.
- I couldn’t arrange Obsidian synchronization by way of Git, and iCloud synchronization precipitated app crashes on my telephone.
- I want a rapidly accessible app on my telephone to jot down fleeting ideas earlier than, for instance, reaching for a roll of bathroom paper and experiencing discomfort from ready. On the identical time, I want the observe base on my telephone a lot much less incessantly than the necessity to urgently write one thing down.
Separating apps for sudden ideas and the principle base has a bonus: it creates a ritual of transferring notes from the telephone app to the principle base. I evaluate recent notes, tag them, and add particulars. This enables me to revisit the recorded thought and improve the probabilities of not forgetting it.
What Is a Digital Backyard?
The phrase “digital garden” is a metaphor describing an strategy to note-taking. It’s not only a set of instruments like WordPress plugins or Jekyll templates. The thought of a backyard is acquainted to all of us — it’s a place the place one thing grows. Gardens might be very private and full of gnome collectible figurines, or they are often sources of meals and vitality. And who is aware of what a sudden customer to your backyard would possibly see? Are you in a stunning pajama with a glass of recent juice below an apple tree? Or maybe standing the wrong way up, attempting to deliver a little bit of order and pull out weeds?
The digital gardening metaphor emphasizes the gradual development of concepts by writing, rewriting, enhancing, and revisiting ideas in a public house. As an alternative of fastened opinions that by no means change, this strategy permits concepts to develop over time. The objective of digital gardening is to make use of the collective intelligence of your community to create constructive suggestions loops. If accomplished proper, you should have an accessible illustration of your ideas that may be “sent out” into the world, and other people will have the ability to reply to it. Even for probably the most uncooked concepts, it helps to create a suggestions loop to strengthen and totally develop the concept.
Core Ideas of Gardening
- Connections over timelines: Gardens are organized round contextual and associative connections; ideas and themes inside every observe outline how they relate to others. The publication date just isn’t an important side of the textual content.
- Steady development: Gardens by no means finish; they’re continually rising, evolving, and altering, like an actual backyard.
- Imperfection: Gardens are inherently imperfect. They don’t cover their tough edges and don’t declare to be a everlasting supply of reality.
- Studying in public: To create constructive suggestions loops
- Private and experimental: Gardens are inherently heterogeneous. It’s possible you’ll plant the identical seeds as your neighbor however get a distinct association of crops. You manage the backyard round concepts and implies that suit your mind-set relatively than an ordinary template.
- Unbiased possession: Gardening is about creating your individual little nook of the web that you simply totally management.
Studying in Public
This level could elevate questions, because it suggests sharing one thing without spending a dime. The strategy implies that you simply publicly doc your steps, ideas, errors, and successes in mastering a brand new subject or talent. This enables you not solely to share the end result but additionally to display the pondering and studying course of, which might be helpful to others.
Apart from altruistic motives, private curiosity is price noting. Typically I’m too lazy to obviously formulate ideas in notes, which then backfires — I can not perceive what I meant. It is amusing how I at all times depend on my future superpower to decipher my very own nonsensical notes — a perception that is still unshakable, although fully unfounded. However in the case of others, I don’t enable such naivety. Figuring out that my observe may not solely entice consideration but additionally genuinely assist somebody motivates me to make an effort and articulate the thought correctly.
How To Share
At the moment, handy instruments have made creating a completely customizable web site a lot simpler. Providers like Netlify and Vercel have eliminated deployment complexities. Static website mills like Jekyll, Gatsby, 11ty, and Subsequent simplify creating advanced websites that mechanically generate pages and deal with load time, picture optimization, and search engine marketing.
Obsidian provides the flexibility to publish notes by its subscription platform. Utilizing this service doesn’t really feel like “independent ownership.”
I selected Quartz for myself. It’s a free static generator primarily based on Markdown content material. Quartz is designed primarily as a device for publishing digital gardens on the web. It’s easy sufficient for folks with out technical expertise however highly effective sufficient for personalisation by skilled builders.
My Digital Backyard
As talked about, I retailer my notes in a public Git repository. Most of it’s in Russian, with some in English. Adjustments are mechanically revealed on GitHub Pages and obtainable on my digital backyard web page. The design, resolution scheme, and GitHub Actions scripts can be found for evaluate on this observe if you wish to create one thing related. Some use RSS for updates, whereas I take advantage of a Telegram channel for this function. It’s particularly an replace channel, messages aren’t posted individually.
Supplies for Additional Examine
The idea has a philosophy and historical past; I will not retell them however will present hyperlinks the place you possibly can learn extra:
- Maggie Appleton
- Jacky Zhao
Examples may also be discovered by a GitHub search if the repository is tagged with the related subject. See right here for extra.
Conclusion
Establishing a digital backyard has been a logical continuation of my journey, beginning with the Zettelkasten methodology. How has it affected me? After the preliminary effort to arrange and deploy the system, I hardly preserve it besides for infrequent points. And now I proceed to push my notes to Git. The one factor is that I’ve began to make them extra comprehensible.
Thanks for studying the article, and good luck in your quest for organizing ideas and creating an efficient house for concepts!