Mini Garden

Start in 5 minutes

1Open the Templates folder. Find "Idea Capture." That's your starting point for every new idea.
2Create a new note inside 01 - Captured. Copy the template in. Give it a title — the idea in plain language, not clever.
3Fill in three fields: what the idea is, where it came from, and why you think it might matter. That's it. You're in the system.

How it works

Mini Garden tracks one thing: whether an idea is real.

Most ideas feel real when they arrive. Few still feel real a week later when they've shown up from three different directions. Mini Garden gives you a way to tell the difference.

Ideas move through five stages. The first four you manage manually — that's the point. The friction is the filter.

Captured

01 - Captured/

Raw input. The idea exists. Nothing else confirmed yet.

Rooting

02 - Rooting/

You've linked it to at least one other idea. It's not floating.

Growing

03 - Growing/

The idea has shown up independently from more than one source. It's gaining real weight.

Ripe

04 - Ripe/

You've decided this is ready. Time to do something with it.

Harvested

05 - Harvested/

Used. Became a piece of writing, a decision, a project, a conversation.

Moving an idea forward

Mini Garden is manually operated by design. You decide when something moves.

Captured → Rooting

Link the idea to at least one other note using [[double brackets]]. If you can't find anything to link it to, it might not be ready.

Rooting → Growing

The idea has shown up from more than one independent source — a podcast, a conversation, something you read. Add the second source to the note.

Growing → Ripe

You've decided this one is real. Update the status field, move the file. This is a deliberate act. That's intentional.

Ripe → Harvested

You used it. Write one line in the harvest field — what it became. Move it to 05 - Harvested.

Folder structure

Mini Garden/
├── 00 - Start Here.md
├── 01 - Captured/
├── 02 - Rooting/
├── 03 - Growing/
├── 04 - Ripe/
├── 05 - Harvested/
└── Templates/
    ├── Idea Capture.md
    ├── Resource.md
    └── Weekly Review.md

The weekly review

Friday (or whenever your week ends), open the Weekly Review template. Takes about 10 minutes. It's the only maintenance the system needs.

Without it, things pile up in Captured and the garden stagnates. With it, you'll find ideas in Growing you forgot about — ready to promote.

What Mini Garden doesn't do

Mini Garden gives you the lifecycle and the logic. What it doesn't include:

Automatic scoring. Neural link mapping. Morning confirmation queues. Convergence alerts. Nightly automation that processes new captures while you sleep.