Gardens

A garden is Gentleward’s word for what most tools call a project, space, or list — a calm grouping that holds related tasks and notes in one place. Anything not sorted into a garden lives in Loose Leaves (the unsorted catch-all, sometimes called the Inbox).

The metaphor is deliberate. You don’t complete a garden; you tend it. Archiving one is gentle, and deleting one never destroys its contents — its tasks and notes simply fall back to Loose Leaves. Gardens can also be shared with someone you’ve connected with.

Why it’s here. “Project” carries a faint demand — a thing to finish, a deadline implied. “Garden” carries care instead. For work that’s ongoing and never really done, tending is the truer verb.

The psychology. Externalizing tasks into named containers offloads working memory (which ADHD taxes heavily). The forgiving language lowers the activation energy of even opening the thing.

A contemplative thread. A garden is the classic image of patient, non-attached effort: you prepare the ground and water it, but you don’t yank the seedling to make it grow. You tend, and you let it be.