Being an imperfect gardener of my digital garden

I’ve been writing. A lot.

This is a wonder as I used to produce two to three articles a month.

And there’s one good reason why: I’ve decided not to care about how perfect my article must be before I publish it.

I think part of the reason why I’ve felt so burned out by blogging before, was that I had to do so many things before hitting the publish button.

Research keywords, do tonnes of research and when it’s all done, write a magnum opus and optimize content for SEO. Each article can take up to a month to produce!

I’ve adopted two new philosophies that has supercharged my blogging volume:

  • Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (also called POSSE) or Publish Elsewhere Syndicate (on your) Own Site (also called PESOS)
  • Digital Gardening

Blogging the POSSE/PESOS way

Twitter’s meltdown has awaken me to the fact that I’ve been producing content for social media platforms free for years, when it could be on my blog.

The POSSE/PESOS philosophy is all about having a homebase on the Internet. That homebase should be a website with a domain name you own. All your content should pulse from the website to channels you do not own like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

I’ve worked in marketing communications for years and we’ve always told our clients and stakeholders to practice this, but for some reason I have not implemented this in my online life!

So, I began populating my blog with content that I would’ve shared on Twitter or Facebook. Short posts recommending an article I read. Jornal-like posts about my life. Half-baked articles.

It’s all messy and imperfect and I love it.

Digital Gardening

Another philosophy is to treat my website/blog as a digital garden of random notes, unfinished articles and jottings. The idea of digital gardening is that sometimes you do not know where a note or a jotting would go, but you’re here to record its journey towards an article. So digital gardeners will create an article, only to return to it later to add more notes or ideas. They eschew chronological formats. In the place of a date, their articles will contain something like “Last updated on …”

Some enthusiasts who literally publish their Obsidian archives on the Internet. I’m not like this, but I have embraced the philosophy of “perfecting it as I go”.


Comments

114 responses to “Being an imperfect gardener of my digital garden”

  1. Doohickie :verified:: @liztai I need to read some more of your blog. I read a few posts some weeks ago and was intrigued. via mindly.social

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  2. Dendan Setia (Nins): @liztai Just found out about digital garden concept! Think it might suit u too https://mefi.social/@cendawanita/110664772643444707 via mefi.social

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  3. Dendan Setia (Nins): @liztaiHahahaha she new to me! Ayyyy re: RSS (I need to get back into that habit man) via mefi.social

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  4. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @cendawanita My feedly is a monster of 100+ feedbs but a constant joy. Honestly this is just old fashion social media! via hachyderm.io

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  5. Doohickie :verified:: @liztai I’m no writer, and do not aspire to be. There are things in life that are magic to my eyes. I don’t want to brew my own beer or make my own ice cream, I want someone else to make it with magic. Same goes for writing. Still, I appreciate the encouragement. via mindly.social

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  6. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @Doohickie You can be a notetaker then. A recorder of experiences 😉 via hachyderm.io

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  7. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @Doohickie Feel free to do so! I hope it’ll encourage you to experiment with writing as well 🙂 via hachyderm.io

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  8. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @cendawanita I love Maggie Appleton! Speaking of which I need to add your RSS to my feedly. I keep forgetting to do so lol via hachyderm.io

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  9. axblain: @liztai I love the concept of the #indieweb. I read about it a few years ago. Since then, I’ve played around with blogs and other tools but I’ve never managed to have a lasting “digital home”. And to be honest, I don’t publish a lot.So is your “internet home” your blog? Are you aiming for POSSE and you publish manually in Mastodon and other places or do you have some sort of automation? I’d be interested to know
    indieweb via octodon.social

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  10. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @axblain I wrote a lot about this recently: https://elizabethtai.com/2023/07/03/how-i-am-blogging-the-indieweb-way/It’s still a work in progress, as I’m in the process of mirroring my Substack to the website, but it’s getting there. I also have a professional website where er, employers go to, hopefully. This is more of a place where I record my thoughts. Due to Google’s recent changes I may have to gate a lot of my stuff. argh
    How I am blogging the IndieWeb way via hachyderm.io

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  11. Doohickie :verified:: @liztai I may go back to blipfoto. The details are hazy; I think I was so frustrated with the takeover I deleted the bulk of my photos. I just looked around and my account is still there; I may have started blipping again and then eventually stopped. Maybe I should pick up where I left off https://www.blipfoto.com/PaulHalicki
    PaulHalicki’s latest photos | Blipfoto via mindly.social

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  12. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @Doohickie As an Indieweb person I’ll always say, own your own platform and content, but I know it can be a tough slog for some people. Do what’s best! via hachyderm.io

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  13. Doohickie :verified:: @liztai For a while I posted religiously to blipfoto. The format allows you to post one picture per day, no more. I enjoyed that, but then Polaroid bought the platform and polluted its elegant simplicity with features that I couldn’t stand. But for a while I was a photo recorder. Perhaps I should try that again. via mindly.social

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  14. Elizabeth Tai :verified:: @Doohickie Yes, maybe on Pixelfed or even on a wordpress website geared towards photographs! I’d read that! via hachyderm.io

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  15. Kristof Zerbe: @liztai The most beautiful flowers grow in the wildest gardens via indieweb.social

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  16. axblain: @liztai thanks for that. I had not read that post. Very interesting. So in a way, it’s a two-way stream. You use POSSE but posts in social media might end up as a longer form content in your blog.Your approach seems very sensible to me.What I really agree with is adjusting the content to the platform. In some past “experiments” I didn’t and it didn’t feel right at all via octodon.social

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  17. Roelant (EN): @liztai very recognizable in many respects and going trough a similar process. Thanks for sharing. 🙏 via eu.mastodon.green

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  18. Alice 🌻: @liztai I’m going through a very similar process right now in an effort to make it easier for myself to post more, I just didn’t know it was called “digital gardening” 😆 I like the term via universeodon.com

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  19. […] I saw a Mastodon toot from Elizabeth Tai this morning link to her own blog about Digital Gardening which made me realise I’d been thinking about something really […]

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  20. […] Being an imperfect gardener of my digital garden. (web) […]

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  21. Andrew Wooldridge 🌱: @liztai Yes! That’s such a great attitude. Have you read this article about digital gardens? https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history It’s been hugely inspirational to me
    A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden via social.yesterweb.org

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