tool farming 🛠️🌱

28 Feb, 2026

a small perspective on technology

technology and its trajectory isn’t the problem. how we make and use it is.

most digital tools today are built for dopamine, not durability. they aren’t made to ease our lives, liberate our time, or enchant the mundane. they’re built to capture our attention, not cultivate wellness.

this log introduces a new way to think about technology: not as a product, not as a service, but as a garden.

it introduces something i call tool farming.

what is tool farming?

tool farming is a philosophy and practice for building tools that are personal, regenerative, and joyful. inspired by farming and permaculture, it proposes that tools, like plants, can be grown, tended to, and harvested in rhythms that work with your life, not against it.

each tool you create or adopt should:

ease your effort
liberate your time
make the dull or drab feel magical

tool farming is not about tech for tech’s sake. it’s about human-centred tools that grow from the fertile soil you’ve prepared yourself.

a tool farming cycle

just like a farming calendar, tool farming moves through seasons and stages:

1. research (observation and intent) 🔬

observe your daily life and your workflows or friction points.
ask, what feels tedious? what steals time without giving back?
gather inspiration, listen to the land before you plough it!
create an almanac, plan for the future.

2. soil preparation (environmental setup) 🪏

prepare your environment(s), clean up your physical and digital spaces, and furnish/install only what you need.
remove invasive species, declutter your physical and digital workspaces, delete apps, limit notifications, and remove systems that no longer serve you.
build fertile ground. use open formats, distraction-free interfaces, and minimal or simplified platforms.
create a space, an environment that brings you comfort and joy.

3. planting (tool seeding) 🪴

start small, buy a physical journal, set up an ergonomic workspace, create a calendar, write a bash/zsh script, use a .txt or .md file as a journal, or build a small custom html journal page.
each tool should solve a specific problem or spark some small joy.
don’t overthink. a simple seed is better than a perfect plan.

4. irrigation (support and maintenance) 💧

tend your tools with care. reorganise your spaces, update when necessary, and automate what you can.
schedule self-check-ins. ask yourself, is this still serving me?
clean your desk, printer, computer, whatever.
keep your cleaning supplies organised.
tools need water too.

5. sprouting (emergent use) 🌱

let tools evolve. a calendar might become a journal, a script might become a system, a shortcut might become a habit, an old table a new workspace ...
share your sprouts and ideas to let others adapt and remix.
don’t control growth, just observe it.
let tools breathe, give them space, but give them purpose.
find the joy in using each tool, find where routine becomes ritual.

6. pest control (distraction and burnout management) 🕸️

watch for scope creep, feature bloat, and dopamine loops (pleasure cycles are different from joy, so be mindful).
weed out what steals more than it gives.
don’t be afraid to pull up what’s no longer needed.
don't work when work is not required, sometimes we are our own pests.

document your work. share code, templates, and even your failures.
feed the commons. give freely to others what helped you grow.
turn the peat. create a communal compost through documentation and sharing that nourishes future tools.
pedagogy through doing. many learn from observation, so do and act accordingly.

8. harvest (liberation of time and attention) 🌾

reap what you’ve grown. more clarity, more joy, and more time.
use the harvest to rest, play, create ... let there be fallow spaces and times.
celebrate your effort. share your story, write a blog, teach a workshop, and pass the seeds of your knowledge on.

9. preservation (canning, fermentation, archiving) 🫙

the harvest isn’t the end. in farming and permaculture, we preserve what’s valuable: that which feeds. the same goes for tools.

in tool farming, preservation means:

canning: turn a working script into a reusable template, github repo, or shared installer. document your workspaces and tools, share them.
fermentation: let ideas sit. engage with them or refactor months later as unexpected uses may emerge.
pickling: archive raw data, logs, journals, and experiments that may inspire future tools, even and especially if they were failures the first time around.

preservation transforms a fleeting solution into a long-term companion.

principles of tech preservation:

save, but don’t hoard. keep what serves future seasons and share what might serve or help others.
document clearly. your future self is a stranger, the climate can change and you may need to work backwards next season.
share in open formats, so that others can plant from your preserved seeds.

10. return to research and observation 🔃

time to observe again, do more research, up the ante, but use your knowledge garnered and gleaned from the previous season to mitigate and lower stress ... keep finding what brings you joy.

tool farming for beginners

you don’t need to be a botanist to grow tomatoes. you just need to be patient, curious, and willing to learn from the soil. you also don’t need to be an engineer, die maker, programmer or computer scientist to be a tool farmer.

the beginner’s garden

beginner gardeners are often the most observant. they ask questions. they try slowly, they notice details, they experiment, and that’s all a strength.

a good tool garden can thrive under a gentle, curious beginner. you don’t need mastery. you need mindfulness and to be resolute. you will learn from the process of becoming a [tool] gardener or farmer.

learning from the garden

watch how tools behave, and let them teach you. be mindful of yourself and your garden:

what drains you? compost it.
what feels natural? water it.
what breaks? don’t panic. broken tools are just like plants; they are simply asking for different care.

low-tech, high-yield tools

some of the best tool-farming projects are small:

a custom calendar or journal
a small shell script
a shared grocery list
a group chat with friends
a text note system with meaningful tags

these are the gardening gloves and watering cans of technological and digital life. you don’t need complex machines. just tools that grow with your rhythm.

failure is fertile

every garden has a dead patch. that doesn’t mean you’re bad at this, it means that you’re learning.

maybe the soil wasn’t ready
maybe the plant wasn’t right for the climate
maybe it’s just not the season

failure is feedback. learn, adapt, and replant.

collective gardens

some gardens and farms are shared. ask for help, learn from others, and try using the tools others already made (you don't always need to reinvent the wheel).

permaculture isn’t about going it alone: it’s about designing with — with the land, with the community, and with the moment.

tool farming ethics

a tool is only as good as the values behind it. so the ethics of tool farming are rooted in care.

care for self and others. build tools that reduce burnout, not increase it.
care for the earth. choose low-energy tech. prefer open tools, and avoid extractive tools/platforms.
return the surplus. share knowledge, code, templates, and ideas. don’t hoard tools, share them, gift them.

what’s next?

in future logs, i hope to explore more tool farming kits, seasonal patterns, and beginner walkthroughs. until then, take a walk through your digital garden. ask yourself what’s thriving? what’s rotting? what needs water? what should be harvested?

start small, start slow, and start with care.

welcome to the garden. 🧑🏽‍🌾🌱