Roam Research is the perfect writing companion because of it's powerful block references that make writing outlines a breeze.
As my gathering process happens every day and has several built-in filters, I prefer to draw from my database when it’s time to write. I know that what’s in my Roam database is of high quality, which reduces my writing time as I have less need for rewriting.
Step 1: List sources
Before I write anything, I first list pages I want to search for useful blocks. These can be structures pages with literature notes, also links in blocks. In Roam, there are plenty entry points, so this step generally takes no more than 10 minutes.
In the case of newsletter I’ll often have tagged the newsletter edition where I want to mention the article:
Step 2: Curate sources
Nested underneath the source, I’ll collect block references that have caught my attention.
At this point, I simply select blocks that resonate with me. It’s not a perfect filter, but it’s the best one I have. I don’t worry too much about the structure yet, I just copy what I like and mark the source as done when I’ve gone through it.
Step 3: Add commentary/tie together
The next step is to tie the highlights together into something coherent. I like to summarize the content I link to and “sell” people on reading/watching the entire piece.
Step 4: Synthesize in article
The beauty of this approach is that I dive deeper into the materials I’ve read and prime myself to write an article. In fact, my article writing workflow is quite similar to how I write my newsletters, although I research more for an article and do more planning.
Read the resulting newsletter and article here.
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