I've decided to experiment with a completely different setup to better understand whether/why Roam is an improvement for me:
• notes: markdown
• tasks: uncertain – plaintext, Things, or OmniFocus
• time: uncertain – plaintext, spreadsheet, or Noko
Conversation
I expect to prefer:
• smoother, more polished interface
• ability to customize via scripting
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I expect to miss:
• block-level references, filtering, search, queries
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and I'm uncertain about:
• single system & context vs clear boundaries between tasks/notes/time
• which processes translate from Roam, which are unable to without Roam features, and whether I miss them
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reporting back after a whole.. 2 days
I really miss "outlining": nested, collapsible, draggable lists, and block references (which take outlining to the next level). got me thinking about why...
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it has to do with how it encodes associations via a crude 2D discrete space: vertical encodes time (which itself loosely associates/relates thoughts, like a rolling window), and horizontal encodes different streams of thought
Max's comic explains it well
Quote Tweet
can we augment our online chats with new affordances?
what does a conversational medium that supports *thinking* look like?
Is there a pathway from the linear, one-dimensional, immutable logs we call "online conversation"?
I made a comic!
a9.io/glue-comic/1
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I ultimately still prefer mapping ideas in richer spaces, like paper + ink. but digital offers too many other advantages around findability, and navigability. and outlining is one step in the right direction
also, my stack of notebooks isn't getting any smaller...
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speaking of navigation, Bear doesn't have any builtin action to open a page by fuzzily searching for its name. I've resorted to an Alfred workflow
I miss Roam's emphasis on keyboard shortcuts. "fuzzy search and open a page" is cmd-u, open in side-bar is shift-enter, etc
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Cmd+click to open in new window is key. I also found it important to assign a keyboard shortcut to File > New Note in External Window (it doesn’t have one by default)
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It’s in an obscure system prefpane.
