I got dirt under my nails from my digital garden

Happy Friday!

Well, things have been busy, but that is self-inflicted. One of those weird moments where I have something I'm really excited to work on, and so I'm running straight for it.

Digital Gardens

This is a really interesting idea that I bumped into. Remember back when the internet was a sprawling tangle of folks' homepages, ideas, and other odds and ends? The web was a maze where you may find something transformative or a dead end of rot. Then slowly, but surely, the web got organized around things like media, blogs, and things for sale. It lost its organic nature.

Digital Gardens are a way to reclaim the idea of having something living and evolving that is yours. It is an ethos that is unapologetic about creating a space online that is imperfectly yours.

This idea is deeply satisfying to me. If you want to see a wonderful example, you can look at some examples and information here.

Did you catch it?

My site has changed. This is where that whole busy thing comes in. You see, instead of doing important things like finding new clients or working on reko.day. I have been building my own digital garden.

It has been the most painless and enjoyable "migration" I've ever experienced.

I had my site up and running with 80% of my old site moved in about 12 hours. The last bit of the course took a few extra days, and it will continue. Claude Code was very helpful with this.

What's the point?

Well, this gets more complicated and nuanced, but my old site started in 2015.

Ugh.

Anyway, I built it the way folks told me to. Polished design, lots of articles with all the SEO stuff. A clear set of landing pages for my services and offerings.

Guess what? Nobody cares.

So, I figure I might as well do this on my terms since I'm going to lose exactly nothing. In fact, the experience of writing and publishing has become exactly the way I wished it had been all along. The same tool I have been using for writing and notes is also my website. I don't have to copy, paste, or move anything. This means it's my mess, and there is no friction in creating it.

What do you think?

I suspect some folks will think that keeping that polished facade is the correct and right thing to do, and time will tell. I'm basically betting that the 0 people who read my site won't notice a difference.

If you want to see what it's like to wander through my garden, you can. It's just a few hours old.

Sincerely,
Ryan