# mind garden #mindgarden ![[trees2.jpg]] This web project is my public [[mind garden]]. I’m [[learning in public]]. I have a personal mind garden as well that includes years of cool content clipped from the web. It is a record of several failed attempts at different Personal Knowledge Management systems (believe me, I've tried them all). It is made up of different formats and formatting since I've experimented with different software platforms and formats. Now that I've discovered the joy of [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md) and markdown, I'm now trying to consolidate and make sense of it all. Most of the content in the private garden isn’t sorted much beyond inconsistent folders and tagging systems. I've been trying to figure out a workflow to explore the content. Often I'm spending time formatting and highlighting. Since most of what I have is clipped from the web, I can't share it on my public website. I'm still figuring out the best way to sort through ideas on the much larger private garden so that I can build content for this smaller public garden. For some reason, figuring this out feels like a monumentally important project and I have no idea how to go about it. The private garden is a massive overgrown forest that lost any sense of intentional landscaping long ago. It is exhilarating to dive into despite feeling like a jungle explorer hacking through dense thickets with nothing but a machete and an old out of date map. There's really good stuff in here waiting to be rediscovered. I'm continually adding to it too as I find new things online. There's almost the start to a whisper of a vague sense of order. Almost. This public garden is closer to an intentionally manicured landscape with different planting areas set aside for specific themes. Some of the areas are filling in quite nicely, while others are nothing more than tilled ground still waiting for seed. There are yet other areas that only exist as vague possibilities in my mind. They haven't been sketched out yet, let alone planted with anything. The process of organizing thoughts and [[making connections]] helps me to [[write to understand]]. I recently made the completely obvious realization that it was kind of dumb to have redundant topic pages in both my private and public vaults. So i’m trying to move topic pages (aka [map of content](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/a-case-for-mocs/2418) pages) into the public side of the garden. This means a visitor will probably find even more pages that appear mostly empty. On my side, though, there’s a tangled mess of backlinks waiting to be cultivated. Eventually those curated pages will start getting content filled in as I spend time diving into the concepts. I understand that cultivating and refining a mind garden takes time and effort, much like a real garden. I won't always be able to spend time in my garden, although I know I feel better when I'm able to carve out regular visits. Some areas are going to languish while I work on different sections. Still, I find it fun to try making sense of ideas and finding connections. I hope you enjoy exploring my garden.