Many tools for thought offer a single-player experience centered on storing and retrieving information, and don’t integrate well with the biggest multiplayer platform of all time: the Internet. Part of the problem is that we have been idle when it comes to its foundation: the hyperlink. In more than 30 years, the way we link …
Roam is a note-taking tool for networked thought which I find incredibly powerful. One of the exciting aspects of using Roam is joining a community of curious minds interested in metacognition and thinking in maps. While Roam is a pleasure to use out of the box, this community has created many browser extensions to improve …
One of the most exciting aspects of Roam Research is metaprogramming: the ability to modify Roam’s behaviour inside Roam itself, without ever touching the source code. This ability opens the door for building custom algorithms for thoughts, and designing a thinking environment as close as possible to the way your mind works. Using CSS to …
Read moreRoam themes: how to style Roam Research with custom CSS
Many people asked me how I built my digital garden. Here is a short step-by-step guide to create your own. The final files are here. We will not cover styling—there are lots of great resources to learn CSS out there. What’s the difference between a digital garden, a note-taking app, and a blog? You can …
TiddlyWiki is an amazing tool for thought. It’s free, open source, and extremely modular. If you gave it a quick try and want to take things a bit further, you’re in the right place. We’re going to look at TiddlyWiki as a static website generator. Static websites are fast, they’re easily indexed by search engines, …
Read moreHow to use TiddlyWiki as a static website generator in 3 steps
As you may know by now, I’m a massive fan of Roam Research. It’s a fantastic tool for thought and has the potential to become a powerful enabler of collective intelligence. But for various reasons, you may not want to rely on a SaaS to save your notes. For instance, a friend of mine mentioned …
Read moreOpen source and self-hosted alternatives to Roam Research
By this point, most of my readers know how much I enjoy using Roam for research. But many messages I get are about how to get started. People are convinced this is an amazing tool for note-taking, thinking, and metacognition, but the interface can be a bit confusing at first. So here is my super-simple …
Read moreA beginner’s guide to Roam Research: getting started in 5 easy steps
I’ve never been a huge fan of knowledge management tools. Too rigid, too complex, not adapted to the intricacies of the human mind. I never managed to get on the Evernote or Notion bandwagon. It always felt like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Instead, I have been using a combination …