---
title: "Retro concept"
---

- #public<span id='4ZeH0PCFC'/>
- Video<span id='FupF8ygh1'/>
    - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1ia0YnuyY<span id='rRSujccDl'/>
    - Showcasing<span id='awMaEGIT2'/>
        - retro of Roam daily pages<span id='wS_Y1Y_5E'/>
        - **Spaced Repetition** questions from Instapaper<span id='wx-_1J2GJ'/>
        - automatic scheduling of content to process, like old blog posts<span id='j4HWt4pBI'/>
- [Thread](https://twitter.com/houshuang/status/1245592946952384516) on retro of Roam daily pages<span id='7-MeuGwug'/>
    - Thread: I've been thinking a lot about spaced repetition, but more broadly what @andy_matuschak calls Spaced Everything ( https://t.co/Y1K4b4BfOc.  The idea is to revisit notes and concepts at regular intervals, both to improve your memory, but also to<span id='9c9TD8XhA'/>
        - [https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1244842003369570304](https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1244842003369570304)<span id='AcHe1g4QR'/>
        - [https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Spaced_repetition_systems_can_be_used_to_program_attention?stackedNotes=z59aJSjgqr4B1k1ofoE7ZBF2dv8MeJ1Drf4TQ](https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Spaced_repetition_systems_can_be_used_to_program_attention?stackedNotes=z59aJSjgqr4B1k1ofoE7ZBF2dv8MeJ1Drf4TQ)<span id='reon5sMRh'/>
    - trigger new associations and insights. Traditionally Anki has been used for more factual questions, but I love Andy's "taxonomy" of cards, where he might ask himself to sing a song, reflect on a metaphor, refute the notion of philosophical zoombies, etc.<span id='qhwV5is4Z'/>
        - Embedded [tweet](https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/973020621847187500) by [andy_matuschak](https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak)<span id='hKEh8O23o'/>
            - I've gotten a bunch of questions about how I "encode knowledge" in flashcards. I think about it in terms of Bloom's taxonomy[1]. Here's the taxonomy juxtaposed with recent cards:<span id='WY3EE-MS4'/>
                - [1]  https://t.co/UvVfCUlkOK<span id='FSpNWZcEa'/>
                - [https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/](https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/)<span id='qcdKKY3Lc'/>
                - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYDdBJMVMAAobpq.jpg)<span id='JwP-eVU6m'/>
    - but it also lazily defers the decision about which notes to spend more or less time on, and when you revisit things in the future you have a better view of their relative importance, and might be able to make interesting links to ideas you have thought about in the meantime.<span id='5soEJqsfL'/>
    - On the other hand, @fortelabs's concept of progressive summarization ( is the idea that you first capture things, and then revisit progressively adding structure and refinement. This spacing out in time again improves memory, because you are revisiting https://t.co/EtixIOs1Sw<span id='gWoJSOOu2'/>
        - [https://praxis.fortelabs.co/progressive-summarization-a-practical-technique-for-designing-discoverable-notes-3459b257d3eb](https://praxis.fortelabs.co/progressive-summarization-a-practical-technique-for-designing-discoverable-notes-3459b257d3eb)<span id='cAPVoGbb-'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk5I6qUMAM3j2d.png)<span id='_OC1A-jpb'/>
    - The Roam Toolkit also has support for more advanced SRS algorithms  However, I just thought of a much simpler approach that seems to give much of the same benefits: daily page retro. Every day, I add a link to my daily page 7, 30 and 90 days ago. https://t.co/uQLmMeNz8m<span id='TBpIogPuX'/>
        - [https://github.com/roam-unofficial/roam-toolkit](https://github.com/roam-unofficial/roam-toolkit)<span id='x-q1jz2GM'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk7tQhUcAA6mm3.png)<span id='alXlwE7hf'/>
    - There's been a lot of enthusiasm around spaced repetition in @RoamResearch, and I particularly like @ShuOmi3's implementation of adding SRS questions while note taking  Advantage of doing it all in Roam is that you can always expand context. https://t.co/zB2tVqmSF5<span id='0w7-k0gUj'/>
        - {{youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6a-anGLyBE}}<span id='rG4R4MgLa'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk7WuiU0AAhdJ9.png)<span id='d3CTFAhpL'/>
    - @cortexfutura talks about what progressive summarization would look like in Roam, and proposes the term Context-Dependent Insight. @JoelChan86 proposes the term incremental formalization, which I also like ( https://t.co/lpGksQny2Y<span id='i4xL8QJLA'/>
        - [https://roamresearch.com/#/app/megacoglab/page/uqjCEC29Z](https://roamresearch.com/#/app/megacoglab/page/uqjCEC29Z)<span id='2VSFX-4Ry'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk7P8wUMAU03_X.png)<span id='vJaTQunDa'/>
    - but has a lot of benefits. You can revisit personal anecdotes (that's when my son did something cute), look back at predictions (I thought this project would go in a certain way), at practices (I tend to overestimate my time), emotions, but also process your notes...<span id='d_ObMq8Rh'/>
    - Then I click on that link, and revisit my notes. I ingest almost all of my primary content on Roam through my daily pages, but I also take notes on my emotions, motivations, ideas, meetings and time usage (how much varies a lot). This practice takes only 10 minutes a day, ...<span id='fp04FCb5N'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk74CIUMAAYIkU.png)<span id='f63PiY5W9'/>
    - less pressure to assign the perfect tag right now. I also take a few notes on my retro, which means that when I retro the current page, it functions as a portal to my older notes as well - providing denser interlinking...<span id='topgnMqT9'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk4qK9UwAEq_Co.png)<span id='QrotxA2hv'/>
    - see new connections, and so some "incremental formalization" as @JoelChan86 calls it ( Also makes me feel good that I can simply capture stuff on the daily page, and know that it will get revisited, it won't disappear into the black hole of old notes -<span id='19-U61dNu'/>
        - [https://roamresearch.com/#/app/megacoglab/page/uqjCEC29Z](https://roamresearch.com/#/app/megacoglab/page/uqjCEC29Z)<span id='BBu8osZWe'/>
    - I found a long Twitter thread from January which at the time seemed intriguing, but I didn't quite know "what to do about it". Now the topics are very relevant to other things I've read, and I went through adding some tags to make sure I rediscover. I look back at old ideas I had<span id='TUR1_BDj-'/>
    - Revisiting personal events, emotions etc is a bit similar to @tasshinfogleman's concept of Mindful Review  He also talks about an interesting concept of Lembranisation. https://t.co/rSOfORs1DV<span id='CJnYHj10-'/>
        - [https://fortelabs.co/blog/the-case-for-first-brain-memory/](https://fortelabs.co/blog/the-case-for-first-brain-memory/)<span id='v8a008IOF'/>
        - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUk5odCUMAQ-xzr.png)<span id='ZbNAu4IAz'/>
- Gmail retro<span id='GEb2r0kzE'/>
    - - I added another aspect to my retro process in  - email retro. I have had GMail since 2004 (remember sending someone a postcard from Mongolia to get a beta invite from them :)). Most of the emails is of course cruft, but hidden among the cruft there are gems. - **Twitter thread** by **Stian Håklev (侯爽)**, [link](https://twitter.com/houshuang/status/1249375388888903680) #myTwitterThreads #**Retro concept**<span id='Sy491fNmF'/>
        - In the last 15 years, I must have hundred of pages of ideas, reflections, etc. I used to write really long emails to my best friends, my PhD supervisor etc. Now I want to capture some of those, and put them in Roam. But where to start - I've sent 36,000 emails! https://t.co/FSMWdiuSjP<span id='76uy_5eka'/>
            - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVaqL3WXQAcZeML.png)<span id='EslOeH5en'/>
        - Well, how about a search which shows you only the emails you've written on today's date, for each of the previous years? Tedious to do manually, but with a quick Node script (https://github.com/houshuang/hypothesis-to-bullet/blob/master/daily.mjs) we can easily generate it. https://t.co/p3kFMO4Uf1<span id='xHPJeL7cw'/>
            - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVardKAXgAEzjbm.png)<span id='it8jfNZ7x'/>
            - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVarxRUXYAMCic1.jpg)<span id='26Xe9Xv-r'/>
        - About 115 conversations for today. But just looking at the titles and senders etc, it's easy to dismiss most of it. Time will tell if I find this useful, or overwhelming. I can of course easily limit the range of years (instead of finishing the full review in 365 days)<span id='mJXuT_aRG'/>
        - I could stretch it out over several years. Note that some of the dates are not exact, because I'm using conversation view, so it finds threads containing a post written by me on today's date. This means I also find people's responses, but I filter out all incoming notifications. https://t.co/wZ1lYQit24<span id='c5sWOytDU'/>
            - ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVasMyGWkAYwrrk.png)<span id='4GdrOHvXP'/><span id='f5PDJR08b'/>
- Other thoughts:<span id='sBc-c94Yt'/>
    - Love this idea! Riffing: divide emails into N segments (by year/phase): each conditions a GPT2 model that "comments" on things you write (and comments are entry points into specific emails). Viola, ongoing conversations with yourself(s)! **Joel Chan** comment on **Retro concept**<span id='Cg-mVLu_5'/><span id='y7mdTIS_l'/>
    - reading things as a way of doing retro of your own thoughts. When I read something about juggling, it's not so much that I'm learning something new about juggling. But I'm revisiting something that I used to do a lot. And I see it in a different perspective, based on all the things I'm reading and thinking about right now. #**Retro concept**<span id='Pvh0h0vCI'/><span id='McNLaEgSC'/>