26/02/2022
Notes vs the Garden
I'm having some kind of existential crisis with regards to where I store things.
The Garden has always been underutilised. I like the idea of it but the reality is that I don't put as much in there as I should to make it a worthwhile resource.
With the creation of my notes page I find myself putting a lot more in there. It's quick and easy, each item is separate and distinct whereas I tend to put a lot on the same Garden page.
The notes page has replaced Google Keep on my phone's homescreen as a convenient link for quick capture and I can envisage Notes replacing the Garden even though I'm not sure if that's a good idea.
Notes apps are where ideas go to die and that's certainly been the case for the Garden. 1 I don't know if it's just 'shiny new syndrome' but the Notes page feels more fluid, more vibrant. Maybe it's a size thing: the note vs the page. The garden feels almost like a dumping ground whereas notes are being created and deleted all the time: to do's, shopping lists, quick reminders. It feels more alive.
As the link above says, maybe that's just a short term thing, this new tool temporarily feels like "the one" only for it to lose its lustre after a while and become another idea graveyard.
This post began life as a note.
Maybe the Garden as it currently exists isn't very approachable. Maybe it needs a redesign with less emphasis on collating items into pages and more on each snippet as a separate entity. There needs to be more interlinking but that really needs more data. What about a random entry point to pique the curiosity? Again, more data needed.
It is more likely that a combination of the Garden and Notes would be a better option, the connections between pages but with a format more similar to the Notes cards.
Much thought required.
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a perfect example is the article I liked earlier only to find that I'd already bookmarked it in the Garden ↩