Here's my 3 day journey into @RoamResearch so far and why I like it + how to get started. As a 10+ year evernote user, if you are curious like I was it only takes < 5 min to get started and get a feel for the core functionality. Definitely worth a try. THREAD TIME (no emoji):
1/ Roam has often been described as a garden where your thoughts can germinate and grow, vs Evernote as a library and Notion as architecture. This is definitely accurate and we'll be using this analogy
2/ The 3 words that come to mind after using it extensively this past week are: simplicity, trust, anticipation. The core functionality is dead simple, I trust that I can easily access everything, and I now anticipate new ideas forming. There's not really any magic or hyperbole
3/ Simplicity: Roam may seem a bit daunting but you can see the immediate value within 5 minutes. The key is to pick just one note to start with, and build out from there. You can follow this awesome guide by @anthilemoon ! nesslabs.com/roam-research-…
4/ Trust: you can trust that you will easily find what you've put into it thanks to bi-directional linking (see image). everything connects to everything else (whether explicitly linked or not)
5/ I know that it has my back (hence why I call it my Roamie Homie). Evernote on the other hand feels like a lazy one-sided friendship. cmon man help me out
6/ Anticipation – Roamie Homie pt 2. Roam will reveal new connections to me (faster pattern recognition) thanks to the bidirectional linking goodness. E.g. I ported over my journal entries and it picked up that #mindfulness #grit were themes
7/ btw, why does the UI look so janky? @robbylit has a really good take – maybe its intentional to keep casuals out:
"Roam is clearly seeking obsessive users over market-share...no patience for tire-kickers right now"
goodbetterbest.substack.com/p/roam-researc…
8/ ok some other things I love: daily pages, very smooth collapsible lists (better than Dynalist), copy pasting large chunks of text/images is surprisingly quick. and some fun bells and whistles 🔔 are the slash commands, embedding blocks, date picker, word count, version control
9/ one glaring weakness is the lack of Capture. @culturedcode's Things3 (my go to task manager) actually works really well as you can capture from anywhere -> tag it with a # -> dump everything into Roam at the end of the day
10/ Summary: Roam is great and I'm excited to see what cray plants this garden reveals to me the more I plant. 🌱definitely give it a test drive. Thanks @Conaw for creating this beast, and @nateliason for educating us
(tagging those who pinged about this @jamierusso @kadlac @AustinCalvert1 @toddemaus @taylorbarada )
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