Share this page!

Robert Haisfield Profile picture
Twitter logo
12 Dec, 5 tweets, 4 min read
Just did a @RoamResearch tour with @beauhaan looking at his Zettelkasten. He uses block refs in a highly effective way that I genuinely have not considered before, so his database is VERY navigationally friendly when he’s trying to reuse his notes. I’m really excited to share it
Usually these tours are cool but don’t show me anything I’m too surprised by. This one was surprising! His style works w/ different mental models than mine, which are more query than structured navigation driven. His tour adds something novel to effective Roam usage discussion.
If you want to prepare yourself before I release Beau’s tour by watching other, more page-ref based implementations of a Zettlekasten for comparison, I recommend the following two tours:

First, @JoelChan86. This one helped convince @soenke_ahrens to try out Roam!
Second, watch @Mappletons as she shows us how she uses evergreen notes, a style developed my @andy_matuschak that shares many common principles with a Zettlekasten, as described in this bridge note notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfm…
@Mappletons @andy_matuschak It occurs to me that the ability to filter the inline block references display would change my thinking on some of my questions related to "when to page reference," "when to block reference," and "when to make attributes." You can still query by block ref

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Robert Haisfield

Robert Haisfield Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @RobertHaisfield

Robert Haisfield Profile picture
11 Dec
Some of you may be aware that @obsdmd now has aliases. I've been using this for language learning! I have a Spanish journal, and using aliases, I can collect unlinked references to conjugations of verbs, rather than just exact text matches. I'm building up my own SpanishDict!
If there's enough interest, I may make a video describing my approach and share some markdown files I use as templates for things like verbs. I'm also using this vault to host my notes about various grammatical conventions for quick reference.
In case the concept of aliases is unclear, notice how the page title is "estar" but the unlinked references include times when I've said "estoy."
Read 4 tweets
Robert Haisfield Profile picture
10 Dec
Interesting thread, but I disagree with taking Don’t Repeat Yourself to an extreme. I want to be able to speak fluidly without notes about the subjects in my notes. Part of what lets me do that is rewriting ideas with different wordings.
There was a period of time where I tried to use block or page refs literally any time I thought I had written about something before, but I ultimately realized that this amounts to rereading my notes rather than explaining myself in new ways, so it was hindering my recall.
I'll add that in addition to recall, it's helpful for creativity. If I first write down my new thought or way of explaining it, and then I pull up what I've written before, that gives me more diverse ideas and phrasings to compare and synthesize.
Read 5 tweets
Robert Haisfield Profile picture
8 Dec
On the left, a graph of an export of my public Roam. On the right, a graph of my MD file based website, written in Obsidian. While I didn't copy/paste content between the two, I discuss roughly the same topics. What does this tell you about how I'm writing in each medium?
Alternative behavioral design question: What is it about the design and limitations of each app that might encourage these differences in hypertext writing style?

Here are links to both:

robhaisfield.com/about

roamresearch.com/#/app/Rob-Hais…
Other interesting thing: my public Roam has 40,370 words, whereas my public MD file based website has 36,031 words. I wouldn't be able to tell there was that much of a disparity from looking at the graphs!

My private Roam has 765,026 words.
Read 4 tweets
Robert Haisfield Profile picture
4 Dec
Just to make this easier for #roamcult people who are hearing a lot about Algorithms of Thought and have no idea what people are talking about...

They’re essentially thinking workflows you standardize for yourself to reliably produce an outcome.
For example, I have a page in @RoamResearch for questions I like to ask new prospects. An algorithm of thought might be a repeatable process for coming up with the right questions for that specific prospect.
Alt example, I keep “lenses” for myself. Series of questions related to a concept allowing me to apply it to a new context. Lenses of failure states, feedback loops, expectations, etc.

Each is a small algorithm of thought.
Read 9 tweets
Robert Haisfield Profile picture
2 Dec
I wonder what a social media or personal knowledge management app would look like if it had *excellent* user-oriented newsfeed management built in. Given an endless stream of information, how can we give the user the most control over what takes up their attention?
Newsfeeds are essentially a jumping off point for exploratory browsing. More in QT thread on that. People browse information without a goal and sometimes new goals arise. Essentially, scrolling through your newsfeed can give you new goals when you had none.
A key question also would be: what are the effective responses to each block of content in a newsfeed? Most social media has functions for liking, commenting, and saving for later. What else? I would love to see newsfeed management around content I saved for later.
Read 9 tweets
Robert Haisfield Profile picture
20 Nov
Many apps have inbox management tools, like [snooze, leave unread, reply, archive] in email, or [schedule, sort, complete] in task managers. What "newsfeed management" tools could be given to users to enable them to make a never-ending stream of information personally valuable?
For people interested in applying BeSci to product design, this falls into a class of questions about Choice Architecture.

One question you could use to answer this: what are the user’s possible options in response to each card of information to train the algorithm favorably?
I’m loosely defining inbox management as how you handle a finite list of items to be process, and newsfeed management as how you handle an infinite list of items that can never be fully processed. I’ll expand on my thoughts on newsfeed management here but I want to hear yours too
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @RobertHaisfield has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @RobertHaisfield!

Read all threads by @RobertHaisfield