I came across the concept of digital gardening a few years ago:
A garden is a collection of evolving ideas that aren’t strictly organised by their publication date. They’re inherently exploratory - notes are linked through contextual associations. They aren’t refined or complete - notes are published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time.
I remember falling in love with the idea and thinking it would be wonderful to have my own one day, when I’d have content worth writing and sharing with the public.
Initially, the purpose of this site was straightforward: to be my portfolio. I wrote a little bit about how I built it from scratch. As time passed, and keeping an up-to-date portfolio isn’t a priority anymore since I’m not looking for new opportunities, this site has bloomed into something bigger that I didn’t anticipate or really had a clear vision of while going from one iteration to another. I’ve been following many great blogs where people share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions about all things in life — not just work — as human beings, and it is so refreshing to see and get to know them on a personal level, even though I have never met them in real life.
For a long time, I tied my identity solely to what I do for a living. The truth is, I love being a designer and working in tech — it’s not just a job, but a core part of who I am. It allows me to have a lifestyle my younger self probably would never have imagined. It has shaped my mindset, given me invaluable tools and skills, and offered perspectives that altogether became my unfair advantage. As I grew older and became more attuned to my inner world, I realized that design has deeply intertwined with all aspects of my life. There’s no point separating the “professional” me from the “personal” me as I attempted to — it’s all just me. I’ve been journaling and documenting many things in my life for half a decade, and my default mode has been writing for myself. It feels timely for me that these personal musings can now evolve into a living, growing collection of insights and learnings — pieces of myself that I want to share with the world, too.
Throughout the last few months, I’ve added some new pages that I regularly update and maintain. I enjoy learning to craft a good bio, having a place to share what I’m up to, and sharing interesting links. I’m revamping the space for my portfolio, and this is a project on its own that I’ll tackle later. The page that took me the longest to publish — also the biggest reason for the site overhaul — is this Blog page, and I’m stoked that it’s finally out there because it was the missing piece. With a new direction and a clearer vision set, I can focus on content. I’ve been writing infrequently on Medium, and I think I’ll continue to publish there for distribution and reach, but only for certain types of posts, such as my annual-ish toolkit update. As for posts on this site, I intend to write more personal and experimental pieces that are meaningful and hopefully can add value to the audience, whether it’s in their work or life. I’m also learning to let go of perfectionism to become a better writer, which means I have to keep writing and publishing even when it’s not the most polished work. After all, this is also my wiki — a place to post and curate ideas, thoughts, and resources that I find helpful and interesting, as well as my personal space for learning in public.
So, welcome to my garden. I’m happy to have you hang out here. You could be anywhere, yet you chose to be here.