Roam Research: Why I Love It and How I Use It (Nat Eliason)

Author: Nat Eliason URL: https://www.nateliason.com/blog/roam One-line: Eliason’s unpaid 3,000-word case for Roam: bidirectional links let a note live everywhere at once, which removes the filing decisions Evernote and Notion force on you.

Key claims

• Lateral movement with vertical references: the book Emergency can live on Book Notes, Prepping and the Neil Strauss page without being moved.
• No filing decisions: “When everything can be everywhere, you don’t have to worry about the filing structure. You just keep adding links.”
• Tips Kyle took: filter the Graph Overview by topic; key sections — Projects, Areas (his Portfolio Ideas), long- and short-term goals; the structure traces back to Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain, which Kyle read the next day.
• Conclusion: having used Evernote, Notion and Roam, “Roam is the best way to record your ideas and things you’ve read” and turn them into connections and creative output. Kyle’s note-to-self: sign up for Eliason’s Roam course.

Notable quotes

• Read “Roam Research: Why I Love It and How I Use It” by Nat Eliason Productivity
  • Link: https://www.nateliason.com/blog/roam
  • Mad props for his honest - “I don’t work for Roam, I’m not paid by Roam, and I get nothing for writing this 3,000 word post about it. I just really like it and want more people to use it so they make money and keep growing.”
  • Sign up for Nat Eliason course on Roam - https://learn.nateliason.com/courses/enrolled/764250
  • Structure
    • Roam makes it super easy to move laterally across your information, while retaining vertical references. The book Emergency by Neil Strauss can live in my Book Notes page, my Prepping page, and my Neil Strauss page, without having to be moved.
    • This removes all the decision making about where to put things that you frequently run into with Evernote, Notion, etc. When everything can be everywhere, you don’t have to worry about the filing structure. You just keep adding links.

  • • Nat Eliason mentioned knee pain in one of his examples
  • Tips
    • Learned you can filter your “Graph Overview” by specific topics
    • Idea to use key sections:
      • Projects
      • Areas (e.g. Portfolio Ideas)
      • Long-Term Goals
      • Short-Term Goals
      • ---Inspiration for Nat Eliason came from Tiago Forte BASB philosophy
        • “Read Tiago Fortearticle on “Building a Second Brain (video)” - https://fortelabs.co/blog/basboverview/” (block reference from March 20th, 2020)
  • Conclusion
    • But now having used Evernote, Notion, and Roam, I can pretty confidently say Roam is the best way to record your ideas and things you’ve read, and use that knowledge to form new connections and creative output.

How it connects

• Nat Eliason
• Roam Research
• Tiago Forte
• Building a Second Brain
• Evernote
• Notion
• Productivity
• Knowledge Management