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I recently saw someone post on LinkedIn detailing the Zettelkasten “slip-box” method, a note-taking system created by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann to manage and connect ideas in academia. I’m always eager to find new ways to streamline the multitude of scattered thoughts running through my brain.
When I took my curiosity to ChatGPT-3I was surprised to find that today, a few artificial intelligence-supported platforms use the method as a business model. He was among – and often on – the list Roam Researcha note-taking and knowledge management tool built to function as a digital brain.
At the age of five, he founded the company Conor White-Sullivan in 2019 under the Planetary Fund. Its primary user base includes researchers and writers who have endless streams of consciousness and want to try to organize their thoughts in one place.
I seemed to fit in with Roam Research’s target audience and was open to new methodologies and tools that could help overcome the nature of the frenzy of thinking. So why not try it? Here is my take on Roam Research.
How Roam Research works
Roam Research’s main function is to capture and connect notes, then spot patterns and develop ideas and results in response. It works through Daily Notes, Two-way connection, Search and Custom templates. Consider streamlining. Consider saving time.
The company’s website also includes videos on how to get started with its platform, which details Two-way connectionshow to Create links, Basic navigation, Unrelated references, Filters, Tasks, Labels and Planning with videos shorter than 10 minutes. (I went through the first two before exiting.)
Artificial intelligence plays a role in Roam Research through Roam Depot, an extension library within the logging platform. Here you can download extensions that allow you to access GPT-3 AI-driven conversations for summaries and insights and to learn your workflow over time or approach Dall-ECreative visual integration while providing feedback so AI-powered tools can keep changing to your liking. These features excited me, because they could improve the process and make what looks like a bare outline more imaginative and stimulating.
What I failed to realize until this point of creating the note is that you need an API key, a code to access any of these features. I was confused if APIs are part of the membership. The setup turned out to be unclear — the limitations and costs weren’t understood until much later in the process.
Learning about and implementing the API key took an hour of energetic currency. It was a technical nightmare to navigate the new interfaces. After I copied my API keys, I got an error message that I used up all my tokens and needed to upgrade them.
That’s when I gave up.
If you are a developer or have a technical AI background, this could be a great feature for you. It was a huge headache for me.
Should you try Roam Research?
In the end, Roam Research can be a gold mine for academic researchers and structured thinkers, but for someone like me – who thrives on simplicity – it was too much. If you’re curious, the 14-day trial might be worth exploring. But if your current system works, like my personal favorite, the humble Notes app, there’s no shame in sticking with it.
While the tool has many positive attributes — like its GPT-3 model and Dall-E visuals — my muscle memory wasn’t ready for the change. It was annoying going back to the website (and the downloaded app) to express my continuous stream of consciousness… at a much slower pace than I had before.
Add a heavy dose of impatience to the learning curve and well… I backed away from Roam Research, given the idea that this might be a “me” problem, not a “them” problem. Admittedly, I screamed internally when I first went to similar sites, like A term and Obsidiandue to their interface and rabbit hole-like structure.
Although the company was created to serve the academic community, the site reads like a plug-in for Excel enthusiasts and web developers. (Read: not me.) I could also argue that the label “writer” is incredibly ambiguous. So maybe I, the storyteller, wasn’t really the target audience.
In turn, just as one Boomer relative says all too well, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the Mi Notes app isn’t broken — and yet, out of equal parts curiosity and embarrassment, I tried to fix it anyway.
Ultimately, the most promising tools are the ones that feel intuitive to you. If you thrive in structure, Roam Research could unlock new opportunities during your brainstorm-to-paper process. For others, simplicity remains key.
