Using Roam Research to manage the firehose of information in venture capital — part 2
In part 1, I explored the information problem in venture capital. Now let’s work with Roam to build a solution.
Here are some basic steps to get started and immediately see the benefit.
Step 1: Just Begin — explore the magic of bi-directional links
Get your account on Roam Research and open it up. You will be faced with a very empty looking screen with today’s date at the top. This is your Daily Notes Page (DNP) and will become your new best friend. Most of my notes are collected on a DNP and then later queried from different places in my graph. In Roam, each bullet is called a Block and can be separately queried and rediscovered in different contexts.
As you write notes on pieces of information that you want to gather notes around, type “[[“ so that you you can create a [[bi-directional link]] for that information.
Now, a graph of related information starts to form. Click on a [[bi-directional link]] and you will go to a page where you can see all references to that link by clicking on Linked References. If you have added those references on DNPs then you will see when each of these entries was made.
After a few days, you will love how easy it is to scroll back through time to see any meetings with people and ideas you are exploring light up a timeline.
If you create a block and add a date as a [[bi-directional link]], when that date arrives and you open up Roam, you will see that block already on your DNP. Add a date like this: [[January 8th, 2022]]. This sends information into the future to be used in the right context.
I also tag people like this:
Here is an idea [[Things to Discuss]] [[Mike Zimmerman]]
Then I can use queries looking for both those links in Roam to instantly see everything I need to discuss with Mike next time he calls me when I am in transit somewhere. We’ll go into more details on queries later.
The main task here is to begin. Start making blocks on your DNP and capture atoms of information in [[bi-directional links]]. A few days later have a click around your graph and see what information it reveals.
Sometimes I fail to find something first time. If that happens, think about what I did search for and tag the block with that link when I find it.
This is the magic of Roam.
Step 2: Stay in the flow with keyboard and sidebar
As you are making notes in your DNP, if a task comes up you can add it directly in your current flow. Make a new block and describe the task. Hit Command + Enter (on a Mac) and it will instantly become a task. Hit Command + Enter again and it will be be marked as DONE. At any time go to a page called [[TODO]] to see all your task blocks listed.
You can also tag them with people, dates and other contexts to make various other lists as you need to.
Sometimes you need multiple blocks of information up. For example you might have a meeting coming up with [[Stella Xu]] in your DNP. Shift + Click on [[Stella Xu]] and all references to Stella ordered by date will show in the right sidebar. Instantly I can remember what we last spoke about. to quickly gain focus.
Step 3: Use queries to find the information that you need quickly
One use case I have a lot is meeting people and need to quickly get the information I need to make the meeting valuable. Sometimes these meetings might be six months apart.
My DNP may have the following entry.
15:12 — Meeting with [[Mike Zimmerman]]
I have lots of meetings with Mike and each meeting is quite dense in information. I have a query at the top of my [[Mike Zimmerman]] page that looks like this:
{{[[query]]: {and: [[Things to discuss]] [[Mike Zimmerman]]}}}
This lists all the blocks I have created that are tagged with both of those links. Below, I can also see all my notes from prior meetings in my Linked References
Explore queries by typing “/” anywhere and selecting one of the query options in the menu.
So that’s the basics. In Part 3, I will talk about my main workflow for a working day that I have built using Smartblocks.
If you are using Roam in your work as an investor, I’d love to hear your ideas on how you have built your workflow. I am @philmorle on Twitter.
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