Note-takers, be aware of the tourist syndrome — There are notes born to be burned. Sometimes, taking notes is only about taking notes, without being worried about capturing the notes and keeping them in a folder, the cloud, or an app. The fact we have the technology — note-taking apps, tools for thought, or PKMs — doesn’t mean…

An alternative to complex methods for taking notes — Let me ask you something. Which application do you use for note-taking and note-writing? The Notes app on your phone? Google Keep? Bear, Evernote, Notion, Ulysses, Roam Research… Is this the same application you were using one year ago? What about two years ago? Are you finally using one app…

Take your time thinking — Thinking on time and space Thinking is an activity that depends on time. We give that for true not just because we think about time as a real object or a resource, but because we think about thinking as a sequential, time-dependent thing. So if thinking lives on time, we think about its optimization: thinking…

How to shield your writing process to prevent the unpredictable — Your note-taking and writing are constantly at risk of Back Swans. A Black Swan is a very unlikely event but highly catastrophic. Some catastrophic events are not extremely unlikely. We just think that they can’t happen because of some personal or professional bias, because we are too involved to judge…

Word processors, text editors, outliners… and still exploring — This is part of the collection of articles Antifragile Writing and Tools for Thought (PKMs) by Adolfo Ramírez Corona. If this article was of your interest, you may like to check The Antifragile Writing Workshop on Maven where we explore ways to level up your note-taking systems; develop a personal…

And I like to be open to new connections — I always loved to write. Just to give you an idea, my grandparents had a little school where they taught typewriting. I learned touch typewriting when I was very young, and I loved it. In high school, I attended a bookbinding workshop just to learn to stitch my own binding…

The variations of expression — O writer with what letters can you convey the entire figuration with such perfection as drawing gives us here? —Leonardo Da Vinci, Notebooks On Anatomy To paint the Mona Lisa you don’t just sit and paint it. That’s the problem with the myth of the artist. We can see the…

Hierarchical vs territorial writing. What’s the difference between both? The first is based on structure, the second one in relations. What I want it’s more territorial writing and a less hierarchical one? In a hierarchical writing, I’m always thinking in an institutionalized mindset. Who am I writing to, why, how…

The singularities of space and time within Roam Research — Roam Research embraces disorder. Disorder makes us creative, productive. Just look at the desks of creative and productive people. Einstein, Jobs, Twain, Edison, etc. They are always far away from minimalism and cleanness. Or look at the notebooks of Leonardo or Nietzsche. Disorder. I know there is a lot of…

Or how to grow a digital jungle — In this installment of [[Roaming Writing]] newsletter, we talk about self-organized systems, antifragility, optionality, principles, and rules — with special appearances of ants, organs, gardens, jungles, desires, fishes, and baits. This diversity of topics — chaos? — is a consequence of writing on Roam. «I myself, while writing these lines…

Writing on the graph — This is one of the most difficult preconceptions we must get rid of when using Roam Research: there is no structure or location where you put the text you write but phrases — blocks — that relate to other phrases or even phrases born from the relationship between others. (I…

Or how to be a phrase-thinker — I believe in a kind of writing that is rhizomatic, fractal, or in modern terms, antifragile. Writing as the doing of thinking. I believe that Roam is an ideal app for this kind of writing. I want to talk about my experience in both — the antifragile writing and the…

Or what is the difference between a library and a forest — […] does an incredible job as a note-taking, brainstorming, information-gathering tool, working much like your brain does to allow you to capture, link, and organize ideas in a flash. It really shines as an IA tool. …

No, it’s not about the backlinks — Some say it is a note-taking app with the power of backlinks. Others say that its main distinction is its transclusion properties. There is who says that the outline is the core of its mechanism. Or the unlinked references. The graph visualization. The networked thoughts. The potential to build a…

Building a writing that gains from disorder — Fragile is the property of things that aren’t good with any kind of stressors. Glass is fragile. Resilience is the property of things that can go back to its original state after a stressor is applied. Metal is resilient. Robust is the property of things that resist stressors. …

From taking notes to building a second brain — I can’t stop thinking in this quote about the market for note-taking apps. A market of more than 1 billion for note-taking apps is huge. Why? I mean, they are just note-taking apps, right? “ According to Verified Market Research, the Global Note-Taking Management Software Market was valued at USD…

And one billion dollars reason to care about. — My mom is a highly-organized person. She has been the one who handles payments, banks, agenda, charges… and she has done that very well from what I can remember. …