🪴 How to become a digital gardener?

Assalamu’alaikum,

Most of us have become digital parasites - sorry, I know I'm being harsh, but think about it - we rely on and consume digital content without adding value to the world around us (just like a parasite that relies on and drains resources from its host).

What if we shifted our mindset and became digital gardeners instead - ones who plant, nurture, and grow meaningful content, ideas, and projects that significantly impact our dunya and akhirah?

What if we shifted our mindset and behavior:

• From blindly liking and forwarding content to verifying, curating, and adding critical thought to the content we consume

• From mindlessly swiping through reels and videos to pursuing specific knowledge that would benefit us in our personal and professional life

• From reading lots of articles/tweets without critical thought to carefully selecting what we read, taking notes, and distilling our ideas in summaries that we capture in our journals or note-taking apps

• From listening to hundreds of lectures and videos, pausing to reflect on what we are listening to, challenging our assumptions about what we're learning, even debating what we listen to in our minds, and taking a contrarian view.

As a digital gardener, you're a critical thinker with a high himma to curate a digital garden of knowledge that pleases Allah SWT, and that can be used to produce beneficial knowledge that acts as sadaqah jariya (ongoing charity) for you after you die. 

Imagine seeing your Book of Deeds on the Day of Judgement, and you see hours and hours of mindless reading, watching, and listening that adds no value to your Akhira (or worse - earns you sin). Compare this to seeing your Book of Deeds full of mindful reading, listening, and watching, followed by taking notes, writing, and teaching beneficial knowledge that benefits future generations.

Practical tips to become a digital gardener:

1. Remove social media apps from your phone:  Yup, you read that right! Remove social media apps from your phone, and your mindless distraction will plummet to zero. You can always check your social media on your laptop/desktop (if you want to); in the meantime, you'll find meaningful ways to fill all that extra time you have.

2. Use a Read-it-later app as your content curator: Every time you receive a newsletter or someone forwards you a link to an article, podcast, or video, add it to the Read-it-later app (my favorite is Reader from Readwise.io). Then, whenever you're bored - you can go through your Read Later app and decide if you still want to read/listen/watch all those articles/videos/podcasts recommended. 

3. Take notes often: carry a journal or use a note-taking app and take notes on what resonates with you from what you read, listen, and watch. Summarize a book you've just read, capture that one idea that clicked with you from a podcast you just listened to, and write the 5 top ideas from that video you watched. Where should you write these notes? I use the simple Apple Notes app for capturing quick notes (or my voice recorder), and I've used a combination of Evernote and RoamResearch for more detailed notes (currently, I'm exploring Reflect as my go-to note-taking app).

4. Teach what you learn: after reading, listening, and applying what you learned, you'll have gained enough knowledge and experience to teach it to someone in your circle. It could be a young college kid who sees you as a mentor or your colleagues at work who admire how much you know or you could start your own newsletter and share your learnings with the world. I’ve found that teaching is the best way to consolidate your learning and develop novel ideas to share with the world.

These four steps will get you started on growing your digital garden full of meaningful content and projects that impact the digital and real-world, and something you’ll be proud to show everyone on the day of Judgement insha’Allah:

Wishing you a great digital gardening week!

Sincerely,

P.S. We’re a few days away from closing the pre-order campaign for my new book The Barakah Effect. All pre-order bonuses would be removed once the books hit our warehouse in Dallas insha’Allah. If you want the special pre-order bonuses including a special free Barakah Culture Ambassador workshop - pre-order your books here.