In addition to the practices mentioned in the entry Catching the Run-off, there’s a whole hardware store worth of tools on the internet for your own do-it-yourself mental rain garden. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Pinboard: it’s a bookmarking site for those in a hurry. Did something on the web catch your eye? Throw the url here and tag it for later retrieval. Take a look at Renewable Enthusiasm’s account
- Library Thing: One of my all time favorite social media sites. I wish I made more time for reading books, but since time is difficult to come by, I can log the books I have read and want to read here, as well as find new books for future inspiration from enthusiasts with no pressure to buy. See Renewable Enthusiasm’s library.
- Springpad: a friend told me she writes her papers for grad school in a series of post-it notes through Spring pad. Jot your notes on the go and connect them in a notebook for later use. No, sorry, I don’t share my notebooks. Some wells are too deep for that.
- WordPress: There are many free blogging tools available. I chose WordPress.com. I like to think of this blog as my cultivated rain garden.
- A Plain Old Spiral Notebook: I love a fresh, clean, flat page of paper in a spiral bound notebook. Colored pens help, too.
- Mind maps: For when you don’t want to think linearly, you can scratch out an associative map of ideas. There’s all kinds of software available, but give me the color pens and that fresh sheet of paper or a white board, and we’ll go to town.
These are just a few of the things that I use to create my rain barrel. I’ll post more as I come across them.
renewable enthusiasm 
Loving the “rain barrel” and other metaphors/analogies you make here! The idea of enthusiasm being “renewable” resonates with me; I think too often we make the mistake of getting attached to a non-renewable ideas, like achieving certain income or status, for our gumption.
Thanks, Akira! That’s a good point about attachment to non-renewable ideas. I’m going to have to chew on that one for a while.
I like the optimism of renewable enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is hard to sustain. But it is a renewable resource, so you can get it back again. I’ve done some exploring of the concept of enthusiasm. Watch this space for an entry about it!