- Most blog posts are sorted chronologically. Sure, you can classify them with categories or tags within the blog. But in the end they're still sorted by time. And it's hard to slice categories finely enough.
- Unless you're writing with a deliberate plan, as a series, chronological ordering just confuses whoever is browsing. I've had the experience of landing on the blog of someone who writes well and spending ages trying to find only the posts on the topic I cared about, buried under an overwhelming volume of writing.
- So if you want to organize writing by context, something like this digital garden seems necessary. Granted, the digital garden approach isn't yet widespread, nor is it a proven method that readers find useful. But I think it has more potential than a blog that simply lists things in chronological order.
- Because nothing is sorted by time, there's no need to force out posts on a schedule — you can post or revise whenever you have room to. Since you can arrange the writing however you like, whenever you like. Also, I write without worrying about spelling and grammar. Either way, what matters is to keep planting thoughts and connecting them. Maybe this is a form of personal branding?
- Being connected means you can keep your writing from evaporating.
- There may be posts here that say something different from what I think now, so check the created and updated dates — if a post is fairly old, just keep in mind that it may not match my current thinking.
- With notes only I will see, I don't put much effort into the writing (which is probably for the best), but the moment I set out to write for the digital garden, some amount of effort inevitably creeps in. Less than for a blog, presumably. Anyway, from the standpoint of writing consistently, a digital garden works well. It can serve as a daily workout for writing. Like CrossFit's WoD.
- Actually, this part is a contradiction too. The moment you write something that will be published, effort creeps in, and since you can't put in just the right modest amount of effort, it ends up simply becoming a blog. In which case the only differences from a plain blog are the connections between posts and the possibility of revising at any time.