digital gardens

combating brain rot through intentional engagement

In the vacuum of finishing my honours thesis and temporary unemployment I found myself slipping into the toxic habit of doom scrolling. Consuming so much content passively was not only a huge waste of time but often left me feeling overwhelmed, drained, and pessimistic afterwards.

Over the past few months I’ve been trying to spend less time on my phone and laptop, and have also been trying to engage more intentionally with the content I am watching/consuming/reading. One of the most useful things I’ve discovered recently is a digital garden, which I wanted to write about in case you also wanted to start your own.

What is a digital garden?

I was first introduced to the idea of a digital garden through a video on youtube by Anna Howard, in it she explains how by creating one it can help us consume content more mindfully and help to combat doomscrolling:

Anna explains it in more detail in her video but to put it simply a digital garden is kind of like a digital commonplace book or even a personal wiki. It’s a place to collate ideas, notes, information, quotes, reflections etc that you find interesting. The purpose being to engage intentionally with the content you are consuming and reflect on any key ideas or thoughts you may want to return to later.

This website also explains it further:

A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden

And even provides a visual explanation:

Creating a digital garden

At first it seemed a little complicated, but eventually I found a system that worked for me. I don’t think there is any one system that works for everyone, so it is worth investing the time to find what works for you. Many people prefer to create their digital garden in Obsidian which is a personal knowledge base and note-taking app. I prefer to use Notion, which is also relatively popular, because that’s what I am most comfortable using. Others prefer to craft their own websites dedicated to it entirely.

Technically, digital gardens are supposed to be public although I don’t currently have mine set to public, and I think there is still value in incorporating the ethos even if you don’t want to make it public.

Mine is still a work in progress as I’m still finding things that work and don’t work, but here is what it currently looks like:

Things I’ve learnt along the way:

A lot of constructing a digital garden has been trial and error so here are a few things I learnt while building one that may help you if you want to build one too:

• There is no ‘right’ way to do it.

  You really just have to create what makes sense to you, there’s no better way to do it. I use notion simply because I’ve used Notion for years to organise notes, and thoughts.

• It needs to be uncomplicated.

  The more complicated the process the more unlikely it is that you will want to write down your thoughts, it should be easy and natural to access. At first I tried to make things too complicated and it started to feel like a chore, so I simplified and now it feels more easy to complete.

• There is no pressure for your thoughts to be profound.

  The more pressure you put on yourself the harder it will be to maintain a digital garden. Just let your thoughts flow, you’re not being graded and assessed, you’re learning and part of the learning process is starting somewhere.

The impact of using a digital garden

Since creating a digital garden I have been forced to slow down and really consider in greater depth the content I’m engaging with. I find myself reflecting on what I’ve watched, or read, and noting down my thoughts even if it is only a few words and even if I don’t end up noting anything down. I don’t reflect on every single thing, it’s okay to passively consume occasionally (and also to sometimes just not be bothered to catalogue thoughts on a thing).

But what I have found so valuable is that digital gardens develop the habit of thinking more deeply with whatever you are engaging with — whether it’s a book, a movie, a youtube video, or a substack essay.

In this way it is changing the fundamental relationship I have with engaging with content and in turn the world around me.

I hope you found this useful!

Thanks for reading,

— caity