Those of you who have been paying attention know that I’m embarking on a project to implement a Zettelkasten to organize my notes and ideas. My current plan is to base this on Jethro Kuan’s org-roam. Org-roam is an Emacs package that attempts to replicate the capabilities of the Roam Research note taking application.
Given that the package I plan to use for the project is based on Roam, it’s worthwhile taking a look at Roam to get an idea of what it can do. Happily, Thomas Frank has a video that take a detailed look at the application. As you can see, Roam does an excellent job of implementing the Zettelkasten idea. It can even draw a graph of how your notes are linked. The program has already earned itself a cult following. All in all, it’s a great app.
Sadly, as with Notion, I can’t recommend Roam for the same reason I can’t recommend Notion: Your data lives on Roam Research’s servers and, as they say, they can terminate your account at any time for any reason. That doesn’t mean they will, of course, but the point of a Zettelkasten is to gather a lifetime’s collection of data and ideas and the last thing you need is to lose that data or even have your workflow destroyed. At least for the paranoid like me, an open source package that stores your data locally, as org-roam does, is a much safer bet.
Frank’s video is 14 and a half minutes long so you can probably watch it on a coffee break or at least easily find time to schedule it.