For someone who has as much experience as me in the task and note management app arenas, I believe I have finally found the tool that will serve me for many years to come. The tool is called Obsidian and it touts itself as being "a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files." For reference, a Markdown file is a text file that is organized in a standardized way. More info can be found [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#:~:text=Markdown is a lightweight markup,using a plain text editor.). Obsidian allows you to create bidirectional links between your notes. So, instead of having your notes be siloed into different folders and subfolders, you can let your notes be automatically organized based on how they relate to similar topics and points. A lot of people like to use the brain metaphor in that the bidirectional nature resembles how our brains work and how it makes connections with everything that we are thinking and learning about. For reference, here is a screenshot of what my network of notes looked like a few days ago:
Before using Obsidian, I had been using Roam Research for about 2 months, starting in April. It calls itself the "notes tool for networked thoughts." Like many others, I was on the hype train and I had it open all day on my computer. It was that good and I understood and supported what Roam Research meant when they replied with the following regarding their planned $15 pricing policy:
You're not our target user if Roam is worth less than netflix. - Roam Research (@RoamResearch) May 5, 2020
While using Roam Research, I had heard of Obsidian as being a comparable but limited alternative, but I didn't try it out until I encountered a hiccup with Roam Research's service towards the end of June. It kept deleting some text that I was trying to enter and it caused me to stop using the service that day. I had also been seeing people that were reporting data loss issues and that pushed me to give Obsidian a try. When you have someone that has made quite a bit of money from a course on how to properly use Roam Research report data loss, it doesn't ring very well in the trust and reliability departments, especially if you are paying for the service.
@RoamResearch Roam just froze and deleted everything on a super important page, is there anyway to rollback a page in a database? - Nat Eliason (@nateliason) July 31, 2020
I wouldn’t be surprised if the issues that I and other users encountered are because of the approach that Roam Research took when it came to developing their software. On Twitter, Sam Wight describes how he believes it wasn’t a very good one:
Quick thread on @RoamResearch and why their software approach is not a very good one. - Sam Wight (@samwightt) June 12, 2020
I was actually debating whether I would mention these issues. However, as a fellow software craftsman, this is a call for Conor and his team at Roam Research to do a better job when it comes to offering a reliable service. I shouldn’t need to set up a backup system myself if I’m paying for the service. With them hitting $1 Million in Annual Recurring Revenue within two months of starting to charge, I think they can take the criticism.
Now, I still wish them success with this endeavor. I'm also looking forward to seeing how much of an impact Roam Research will make in the collective knowledge management and academia spaces.
For those interested in the apps that I used for task and note management before Obsidian, here you go: (mostly chronological and from what I can remember/find the name of)
Task management: Reminders (iPhone), Trello, Google Tasks, Wunderlist, Google Keep, Plan, Asana, Things, Notion, Taskful, Planny, Quire, Habitica, Focus Matrix, Coda, Sorted3, Complice, and Roam Research
Note management: Notes (iPhone), Catch, Workflowy, Evernote, Google Keep, Notability, Outlinely, Milanote, Notion, Bear, Slite, and Roam Research
Regarding Obsidian, I have been enjoying the experience so far. Obviously, I have lost access to a number of features from Roam Research, i.e. filters, queries, block references (every bullet point you write is a block and you can reference all of them), and editable block embeds. However, I have been able to make do and haven't really missed them. Based on my experience and Obsidian's recent updates, don't let people like Robert Haisfield get you down with their comments:
If you're using @obsdmd as though it's @RoamResearch, then you get what you pay for. I use both, and both have their strengths, but Obsidian has page level backlinks and no filtering. As soon as you get more than a few linked refs, their backlinks implementation is burdensome - Robert Haisfield (@RobertHaisfield) July 20, 2020
Not trying to call out Justin, it's just that his tour is a visual example of this broader phenomena. Many Roam users will watch it and think to themselves "square peg, round hole" - Robert Haisfield (@RobertHaisfield) July 20, 2020