I spent about forty minutes this morning staring at a screen, and I couldn’t tell you a single thing I actually learned. It’s a familiar feeling, isn’t it? That sort of hollow, itchy sensation in the back of your brain after you’ve spent too much time scrolling through a feed that never ends. It’s like eating a giant bag of popcorn for dinner—you’re full, but you’re not exactly nourished. You just feel kind of dusty and regretful.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the internet used to feel. Maybe I’m just getting older, or maybe I’m looking back through rose-colored glasses, but I remember when the web felt like a collection of small, weird, interesting rooms. You had to go out and find them. Now, it feels like we’re all standing in one giant, loud warehouse, and people are just throwing flyers at our faces as fast as they can. Everything is “content” now. Everything is a “post.” And everything, without fail, has an expiration date of about six hours before it disappears into the void of the archives.
It’s exhausting. And honestly, I think it’s making us less creative. When we’re constantly reacting to what’s happening *right now*, we don’t really have the space to think about what matters to us in the long run. That’s why I’ve been leaning so hard into this idea of a “digital garden.”
The Noise We’ve Accepted as Normal
We’ve reached a point where we treat our online lives like a performance. Every time we share a thought, we’re looking for that immediate hit of validation—the like, the heart, the retweet. It forces us to polish everything until the edges are smooth and boring. We don’t share half-baked ideas because they might look “unprofessional” or because the algorithm won’t know what to do with them. We’ve become our own PR managers, and it’s a full-time job that nobody is paying us for.
The problem is that a “feed” is chronological. It’s a river. Whatever you put in it just floats downstream and is gone. If I wrote something really thoughtful a year ago, it’s basically dead now. It’s buried under thousands of newer, noisier things. That feels like a waste, doesn’t it? Our thoughts should be more like trees than like daily newspapers. They should grow, and change, and stick around for a while.
I started realizing that my best ideas weren’t coming from the fast-paced chatter of social media. They were coming from the books I was half-finishing, the weird hobbies I was picking up, and the quiet moments where I wasn’t trying to “produce” anything. But I had nowhere to put them. I had a blog, sure, but a blog feels like a stage. You have to have a “final” piece of writing before you hit publish. A digital garden is different. It’s a space where things can be messy.
So, What Exactly is a Digital Garden?
I know, the name sounds a bit precious. But stay with me. A digital garden is basically just a personal website that isn’t organized by date. Instead, it’s organized by topic. It’s a place where you can post a three-sentence thought today, and then come back six months later and add two more paragraphs to it because you learned something new.
It’s the opposite of the “stream.” While the stream is about what’s happening *now*, the garden is about what’s *interesting*. It’s a collection of notes, essays, links, and half-formed theories that you’re cultivating over time. It’s private enough that you don’t feel the pressure to be perfect, but public enough that you can share your process with other curious people.
It’s about the process, not the polish
In a garden, you have “seedlings”—these are just little ideas you’ve jotted down. Some of them will die. You’ll realize they were silly or wrong, and you’ll delete them or let them sit there as a reminder of where you were. Others will grow into “evergreen” notes—sturdy pieces of thinking that you return to over and over again. The point isn’t to show off a finished product. The point is to show your work.
I find this incredibly liberating. When I’m writing for a garden, I’m not thinking about SEO. I’m not thinking about “engagement metrics.” I’m just thinking. And surprisingly, when you stop trying to please the imaginary crowd, you actually start writing things that other people find useful. There’s something deeply relatable about seeing how someone else’s mind works, mistakes and all.
Why the “Latest” is the Enemy of the “Best”
We have this obsession with the new. New products, new news, new hot takes. But most of the things that actually help us live better lives are old. Or at least, they aren’t tied to a specific Tuesday in October. If you find a great way to organize your kitchen, that information is just as valuable three years from now as it is today. But on a traditional social platform, that tip is “old news” by tomorrow morning.
By moving our best thoughts into a more permanent, non-linear space, we’re rebelling against the “now” culture. We’re saying that our time and our attention are worth more than a fleeting scroll. I’ve started going back to my old notes and realizing that I’ve been thinking about the same three problems for a decade. If I had just kept those thoughts in a feed, I would have forgotten that. But because I’ve kept them in a space where they can interact, I’ rewritten them, refined them, and actually made progress on them.
It’s also much easier on the nerves. There’s no “inbox zero” in a garden. There’s no “missed” posts. You just wander in, pull a few weeds, plant a new thought, and leave. It’s meditative.
How to Start Small (Without Getting Overwhelmed)
If you’re feeling that same burnout I was, you might be tempted to go out and find the perfect “system” or buy a bunch of fancy subscriptions. Please, don’t do that. That’s just another form of procrastination. The beauty of a digital garden is that it can be incredibly low-tech.
- Start with a single page: You don’t need a complex hierarchy. Just make a page called “Things I’m Thinking About” on whatever platform you already use.
- Write for yourself: Imagine you’re writing a letter to yourself five years from now. What would you want to remember? What are you struggling with?
- Forget the date: Try to stop focusing on when you wrote something. Focus on what it connects to. If you’re reading a book about architecture and you see a cool building, add a note to your “Architecture” section, not your “Journal” section.
- Keep it messy: Use bullet points. Use sentence fragments. Use “I don’t know yet.” The goal is to lower the barrier to entry so much that you actually do it.
I’ve found that the best gardens are the ones that feel lived-in. I love stumbling across a personal site where the links are a bit weird and the opinions are specific. It feels human. It feels like someone’s actual home on the internet, not a sterile hotel room designed to appeal to everyone and no one at the same time.
Choosing Your Soil
People always ask me what “tools” they should use. Honestly? It doesn’t matter. You could use a basic WordPress site, a simple folder of text files, or even a physical notebook if you really want to go analog (though it’s harder to search later). The “soil” is just wherever you feel comfortable being honest with yourself.
What matters more than the tech is the *intent*. Are you building a place to store your thoughts, or are you building a place to perform? If you find yourself spending more time tweaking the font than writing the ideas, you’re probably still in “performance mode.” Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve spent days choosing the perfect theme only to realize I hadn’t actually written a single meaningful sentence in a month.
The best advice I can give is to pick the simplest thing that lets you write quickly. For some, that’s a dead-simple blog. For others, it’s a more structured note-taking space. Just make sure it’s yours. Not a platform that could disappear tomorrow if a billionaire gets bored, but a space that you own and control.
The Mental Shift: Writing for Yourself First
This is the hardest part. We’ve been trained for years to think about an “audience.” Even when we’re just posting a photo of our lunch, we’re thinking about how it will be perceived. Breaking that habit takes time. It’s like learning to breathe again after being underwater for too long.
When you start writing for yourself, something strange happens. You start becoming more curious. You start noticing patterns in your own life. You realize that you’ve been interested in the same obscure type of 1970s interior design for years, or that you always get grumpy in February, or that you have a very specific theory about why some coffee shops feel “productive” and others don’t.
These aren’t “content pillars.” They’re just… you. And the more you cultivate those specific, weird interests, the more you’ll find that you’re not just consuming the internet anymore—you’re actually contributing something unique to it. Even if only ten people ever read your garden, those ten people are getting the real version of you, not the polished “feed” version. That’s a much deeper connection.
A Few Closing Thoughts
I’m still working on my garden. It’s not perfect. There are broken links, and some of my notes from two years ago make me cringe a little bit. But I’m okay with that. I’d rather have a messy, living space than a pristine, dead one. I’ve noticed that my anxiety levels have dropped since I stopped trying to keep up with every “trending” topic. I don’t feel the need to have an opinion on everything immediately. I can let things sit. I can let them compost.
Maybe you don’t need a full website. Maybe you just need a place to be quiet for a minute. We’re all so busy being “online” that we’ve forgotten how to just be “present” with our own thoughts. A digital garden is just one way to reclaim that. It’s a slow, quiet, and deeply personal way to exist on the web. And in a world that’s constantly shouting for our attention, I think a little bit of quiet is exactly what we need.
Take it slow. Plant something small today. See if it grows. And if it doesn’t? Well, there’s always more room in the garden to try something else tomorrow. No pressure. No algorithm. Just you and your ideas, finally having a bit of space to breathe.