A digital garden is a curated knowledge management system based upon the principles of capturing thoughts, ideas and concepts as Evergreen notes. An evergreen note is a unit of knowledge in the system, so to Allow ideas to emerge, Link evergreen notes by contextual association.
The garden metaphor describes the necessity of curation: Evergreen notes are never finished, but remain timely and relevant through the act of successive refinement (a form of Deliberate practice). Conventional information systems impose a top-down structure, usually hierarchical, as a mechanism for quick information retrieval. Digital gardens represent an inversion of this as they Prefer organic structure to hierarchical structure - the structure emerges. Rather than performing thinking up front and only then capturing the output in written form, which leads to writer's block, note that Writing is thinking and the Curation of ideas broadens horizons and helps draw patterns. Equally, the exact mechanisms of working with and in the space should form progressively (Learn along the way) rather than up front (Avoid premature optimization) to avoid procrastination and analysis paralysis.
Some prefer to call digital gardens a Second Brain, or an Integrated Thinking Environment, acknowledging the system as an augmentation to the thinking process, or a space that facilitates thinking, for example through the support of Backlinks. This isn't to liken the system exactly to the human brain, it is more that A second brain is closer to a GPU than a CPU, in terms of its purpose - generality vs specificity - serving a bespoke role.
Curating a digital garden is a significant investment in time, so when asking What am I looking to achieve with my digital garden, I consider that These notes are for me - they're not meant to be considered a golden source of truth, but instead are written in terms of my thoughts, my associations and my context, synthesized from external resources using my Record - Elaborate - Integrate method. Others may benefit from reading them, but there are additional benefits in publishing the evergreen notes (Why do I make my notes public).
Curating a Digital Garden
At the individual level, a knowledge worker should develop systems for effective knowledge management (my attempt of this is in Curating a Digital Garden) and also developing productivity structures to facilitate a state of flow, such as:
This question is about understanding the benefits from Curating a Digital Garden versus the investment needed.
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