Top all-time · #1322
Nat Eliason
Personal blog · nateliason.com/blogproductivitywriting
Nat Eliason's personal blog at nateliason.com covers productivity and writing. Since 2016, 53 different Hacker News readers have linked it 64 times, most often “Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-01-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (21) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Nat Eliason's book summaries and notes, plus posts on Roam Research and psychology myths. One commenter praised his Roam articles as a starting point for new users.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- A summary of a book that made one commenter want to buy it; Roam articles that can show new users what the app is about.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 21 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Program Director of Founders School, a $150K/year entrepreneurship high school launching in NYC. Author of Crypto Confidential and Husk. Articles, notes, and books from Nat Eliason.
Most-linked posts?
- Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-01-08
- The Life-Changing Magic of High-Speed Career Sampling3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-08-17
- How to Start a Blog That Changes Your Life2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-18
- Is Productivity a Worthwhile Goal?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-01-25
- Increasing the Difficulty2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-29
- De-Atomization Is the Secret to Happiness (2022)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-03-29
- Soylent isn’t Healthy (2017)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-11-10
- Popular Psychology Myths You Probably Still Believe2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-06-18
- How to Take Smart Notes2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-06-02
- No, Soylent Isn’t Healthy. Here’s Why2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-05-24
What Hacker News says?
Seven things came up for me, reading this: Permaculture has a concept that it is the boundaries where interesting things happen - Where desirable life can be found. Between the forest and the meadow is where lies the life that may be desirable, whether fauna or flora. I had labeled the two distinctions as destroyer/creators versus maintainers. I tear things down to create better replacements, whereas my partner is a…
Comment linking /notes/freedom-unfree-world-harry-browne
on “How to Think for Yourself”Submitted Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It as a story · 288 points
HN discussionMy very elementary (just skimmed some blog posts about it for a few hours this morning [1]) understanding of why Zettelkasten is a game-changer is that: its a system of organizing notes in a bottom-up, atomic fashion, instead of the usual top-down categorization where the notes don't lend itself well to reviewing or linking with concepts you've previously learned. Basically, a graph (where links are bidirectional) i…
Comment linking /blog/roam
on “Using Anki to remember what you read”Submitted Fighting Infomania: Why 80% of Your Reading Is a Waste of Time (2016) as a story · 103 points
HN discussionHi, I come across a lot of blogs when I curate for my newsletter Interesting Things [1]. Just looking through the links that have been curated in the past month or so, I would suggest: Tech - https://wasteofserver.com/ - https://tonsky.me/ - https://brianschrader.com/ - https://blog.thea.codes/ - https://fasterthanli.me/ - https://jvns.ca/ - https://blog.royalsloth.eu/ Non-tech - https://www.drorpoleg.com/ - About w…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Soylent isn’t Healthy (2017) as a story · 84 points
HN discussion> hyperlinks are relevant for navigation. here hyperlinks (as hashtags) are used for discovery. Hyperlinks in Wikis are very much also structural/semantic. They are not primarily for navigation. Imagine reading Wikipedia without the links, and where you had to use the search box for every potential link. Imagine all the noise you'd get when you'd search. BTW, I suspect your question is more about Roam then about Zet…
Comment linking /blog/roam
on “Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead”Submitted De-Atomization Is the Secret to Happiness (2022) as a story · 67 points
HN discussionYou might like Nat Eliason's summary and notes of the book: https://www.nateliason.com/lessons/12-rules-for-life-jordan-... . I read that this morning and it was incredibly intriguing, I'll definitely have to pick up the book this weekend.
Comment linking /lessons/12-rules-for-life-jordan-peterson/
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?”- WA · 2021-10-04
Submitted Decomplication: How to Find Simple Solutions to “Hard” Problems (2016) as a story · 55 points
HN discussion This book is regarded as pseudo-science by psychologists. Although it's not like there is much good science when it comes to a subject this complex. For anyone wondering what the list of proposed laws are: https://www.nateliason.com/notes/48-laws-power-robert-greene > Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit Always shocks me that some people are actually proud of and recommend this kind o…
Comment linking /notes/48-laws-power-robert-greene
on “Key practices for achieving large professional goals”Submitted The Life-Changing Magic of High-Speed Career Sampling as a story · 13 points
HN discussionRoam is phenomenal, I seriously love this app. There are these two articles that can show new users what this app is about: - https://www.nateliason.com/blog/roam - https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/eho7de/buildi... There is also https://www.remnote.io/ , but it's too complex and clunky right now, at least for me.
Comment linking /blog/roam
on “Luhmann's Zettelkasten”Submitted I’m killing most of my email capture. Here's why. as a story · 13 points
HN discussionI liked the quote from Turning Pro [0] that was mentioned: > Sometimes, when we're terrified of embracing our true calling, we'll pursue a shadow calling instead. That shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. Its shape is similar, its contours feel tantalizingly the same. But a shadow career entails no real risk. If we fail at a shadow career, the consequences are meaningless to us I've unfortunately experie…
Comment linking /notes/turning-pro-stephen-pressfield
on “Be careful how you pay the bills”Submitted No More “Struggle Porn” as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI have been feeling this for some time. I think it is covered tangentially here https://www.nateliason.com/blog/de-atomization-is-the-secret... by the term "atomization"
Comment linking /blog/de-atomization-is-the-secret-to-happiness
on “Digital Echoes and Unquiet Minds”Submitted Don't Commit to Something; Invest in Something as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI've gotten a lot of use from a version of Zettelkasten in Roam recently. The general idea is this. 1. Take "Literature Notes" in your own words as you consume content. These are little summaries of ideas in the text that are usually 1-3 lines. For paper books, I do this in a little Muji notebook. For digital resources, these go straight in Roam. 2. When you have finished the resource, copy your notes to one page an…
Comment linking /blog/smart-notes
on “Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?”Submitted No, Soylent Isn’t Healthy. Here’s Why as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThanks for the warning. I'll go with my normal approach to non-entertaining non-fiction and just read a couple of online summaries. E.g. https://www.nateliason.com/notes/antifragile
Comment linking /notes/antifragile
on “Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails by Nassim Nicholas Taleb”Submitted I spend 5 minutes per day on email as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI agree on most of the arguments in the book "The Sovereign Individual" on what will most probably happen in the next decades. Summary: https://www.nateliason.com/notes/sovereign-individual
Comment linking /notes/sovereign-individual
on “Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?”Submitted Articles to Learn about BTC, ETH, and Crypto as a story · 3 points
HN discussionYou might benefit from a tool called Roam Research: https://www.nateliason.com/blog/roam
Comment linking /blog/roam
on “Ask HN: Why aren't you using spaced repetition?”Submitted How to Be Productive (2018) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-history/its-time-le... The 5 stages were from what I like to call the "just make shit up" era of psychology. Because if it sounded true it was psychology! Some would argue that era never ended, but I think that's just cynical. https://www.nateliason.com/blog/psychology-myths
Comment linking /blog/psychology-myths
on “Grief is not a process with five stages. It is shattered glass”Submitted How to Get Lucky: Maximizing Exposure to Life Changing Serendipity as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere may be some conflation of value creation with value extraction, they are not the same thing. Capitalism is a hell of a drug and can warp the mind. Some people can get very rich by running scams -- convincing other people to make bad decisions and taking their money -- but is that the person you want to be? SPACs in this time of cheap cash & extreme investor credulity... Ethics aside, you cannot judge the quali…
Comment linking /notes/fooled-randomness-nassim-nicholas-taleb
on “Why Even Go to Work”Submitted Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Summary Notes)(2019) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
