1/ Takeaways from the @fortelabs x @nateliason @RoamResearch webinar, a quick thread

@nateliason writes a popular weekly newsletter called 'Monday Medley'. He's written it for 224 weeks (4.3 years) and it goes out to 25,000 subs.

2/ How does @nateliason consistently deliver a newsletter with robust research and a diverse surface area of topics?

He showed us a typical newsletter writing session on @RoamResearch.

3/ First, Nat goes to his Roam page for the week's newsletter.

Typically, the page already has some linked references of articles and tweets he wants to mention.

He creates sections for them in his draft.

4/ Once added, he filters these articles and links out with an #added tag on Roam so they disappear from view.

Then, he jumps into his Inbox page, which follows a GTD style of organizing information.

5/ I wasn't clear how @nateliason organized his Inbox since I'm not familiar with GTD.

It seemed that he used it as a holding point before moving articles and links to different newsletters or to his Backlog.

6/ One really powerful hack @nateliason uses to categorize his reading is @readwiseio.

Readwise recently intro-ed a @RoamResearch integration, which makes importing highlights from Kindle, @Instapaper, @Pocket, and @Airr super easy.

7/ @Readwiseio even lets you add metadata for highlights, saving the categorization work needed once those notes and highlights go into Roam.

I'm definitely using this moving forward to save information better.

8/ @Nateliason uses a Backlog page in Roam to store articles and links that don't have a home in each week's newsletter.

He uses it as a source of inspiration and serendipity when drafting the newsletter each week.

9/ Before the backlog, he felt like he needed to add every link he found in that week's newsletter.

Now, he can be more selective and allow organic patterns to emerge in each week's newsletter.

10/ It was really cool to see @nateliason writing live in @RoamResearch.

I've been trying to write long-form in it myself, and have found the act of linking and referencing without breaking my flow to be really challenging.

11/ @nateliason jumps between his main document and the right sidebar to quickly pull text from his cited articles and to add his own thoughts in the newsletter body.

He also freely jumps across his tags to find other connections and related notes to bring into the newsletter.

Overall, it was a really insightful look at a high-output process of curation and writing.

Thanks again to @nateliason, @fortelabs, and @will_mannon for hosting!

The full video to this session can be accessed here (coming really soon): https://fortelabs.co/blog/second-brain-week-v11/