(2019-02-18) Critchlow Building A Digital Garden

Tom Critchlow: Building a digital garden. The TL;DR is that I built a personal wiki out of files and folders and a few templates in Jekyll hosted on Github Pages. If you want to head straight to the wiki head here: http://tomcritchlow.com/wiki/.

Catch up by reading my last post of digital streams, campfires and gardens. 2018-10-11-CritchlowOfDigitalStreamsCampfiresAndGardens

I set out to build something that would focus on stock over flow, be a blogging product without a publish button and create a space for collecting the dots

Stock over flow

If you’re familiar with this blog then the chances are high that you’ve read this seminal piece from Robin Sloan: stock and flow. 2010-01-18-SloanStockAndFlow

And is clear not to deride flow - it’s the currency of the modern world - but rather to ensure you’re well-balanced

Personally? I’m out of balance. I spend too much time in flow and not nearly enough in stock.

A blog without a publish button.

It’s a less-performative version of blogging - more of a captain’s log than a broadcast blog.

The distinction will come down to how you blog - some people blog in much the same way. For me however blogging is mostly performative thinking and less captain’s log. So I am looking for a space to nurture, edit in real time and evolve my thinking. (ThinkingOutLoud)

A space for collecting the dots

a two-step creative process: collect raw material, then think about it. From this process comes pattern recognition and eventually the insights that form the basis of novel ideas.

Longevity, text files and folders

Firstly - apparently, folders and files is the “best in class” tool (better than tags and search) for personal information management This gem came via the Ink and Switch article linked above.

Secondly - I write this blog on Github pages using Jekyll - aka using folders and files!

So what if I could build the digital garden I want right here using Jekyll using nothing more than folders and text files?

Using files and folders allows me to drag and drop files into my wiki with zero authoring - CSV, pdf, png and txt files all are hosted and contained gracefully

How it all works

For those that aren’t so interested in the technical details you can skip past this section

Some other interesting wikis... And, you can of course find this list of wikis on my wiki :)