An introduction to Roam Research

My friend Andy Henson wrote an excellent primer on Roam Research, a tool I’ve been using a lot recently.

With Roam, you have to break some of your built-in expectations and assumptions. The atomic unit of a note is no longer a page. If you have only been used to the concept of a note being a page of text with a title, filled with one or more paragraphs you may be immediately put off with the bullets. This is part of its secret sauce. Each bullet, or block in Roam’s parlance, is its own thing. Typically a complete thought. It’s a note in itself. You can indent blocks infinitely, much like an outliner. But then, each word or phrases within it can be turned into references and given its own page. At which point, you can add more blocks of thoughts about that idea or concept, and collect further references to it.

I’ve had a sneak peek of Andy’s upcoming Roam Course and it’s going to be incredibly useful. If you have any interest in writing to improve your thinking, sign up to be notified when it launches.