All about my garden, the general premise
This is what the gardening guide for my mind looks like:
Seeds
Seeds. Seed your garden with quality content and cultivate your curiosity.
Practice of noticing. Notetaking. What resonates?
Lots of this comes from marking up a book
Sprouts
Sprouts. Plant seeds in your mind garden by taking smart personal notes (taking raw notes is useless). These don't need to be written in a publishable form.
Shoots
Buds. Shoot. This is when side shoots and stem elongation. clusters. Grow your knowledge by forming new branches and connecting the dots. Write short structured notes articulating specific ideas and publish them in your digital garden. One note in your digital garden = one idea. (what you're currently reading is such a note) Do not keep orphan notes. Thread your thoughts.
Blooms
Flowers. Bloom. draft
Fruit & Flowers. valuable on it’s own. enough to go out into the world.
Fruit. Ripened. Produce new work. These are more substantial—essays, videos, maybe a book at some point. The kind of work researchers and creatives may hope will help them live beyond their expiration date.
My Garden in Action
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Seed | While reading a book or article, listening to a podcast, or scanning Instagram, I come across an idea that creates a spark in me. For whatever reason, it gets me thinking, leaves me wanting to think about it more, or triggers a possible connection to some other idea in my head. I merely capture that idea and my thoughts as a seed. |
Sprout | At some later point, I take time to summarize the idea of the seed into my own words and jot down any other sources I might be able to connect this to. |
Shoot | Then some sprouts will grow as I add additional connections to the idea and collect examples of this. As the shoots grow, the idea expands as my own complex idea with depth and range. |
Bloom | 1) draft an essay about the question “how do we live like this?” how do we move forward? 2) draft an essay that explores the various forms of witness, |
Update this with a full example:
Seed | Jessica Dore’s idea of witness, quotes from |
Sprout | Summarize the idea of witness into my own words, could bring in other sources that it makes me think about like to May in Secret Life of Bees, plus the definition |
Shoot | 1) connect Dore’s idea of witness to Charles’ idea of taking it all in , 2) where do we see witness, start collecting examples |
Bloom | 1) draft an essay about the question “how do we live like this?” how do we move forward? 2) draft an essay that explores the various forms of witness, |
