How I use Mem Chat to take charge of my knowledge (Mem.ai)

As you might already know (or not), Mem.ai is one of the new note-taking / personal knowledge management apps that are challenging traditional note-taking with a more streamlined experience, fresh ideas, and most importantly, AI features that amplify note-taking. I am a happy user of Mem and take dozens of notes every day and I really love the Chat feature.

How It All Started

One of the core concepts of Mem.ai was a smart search that resurfaces everything you are searching for and an AI feature (subscription-based) that suggests similar mems (that’s what notes are called in Mem.ai). With the advent of chatGPT, another feature called Smart Write & Edit became more intriguing, as it utilized chatGPT to edit or rewrite notes and even assisted in continuing to write. In the classic chatGPT style, you can let Mem generate brand new content, keep writing, serve as a copywriter, summarize, condense, write emails, create key takeaways, and so much more.

Both features are nice to have, but from my personal experience, the real game-changer was released in early 2023 with Mem Chat, a new feature that might ultimately even replace search, in my opinion. Mem Chat is like a personal assistant. You can ask it (almost) anything and even search for content in Mems in a way that a classic search wasn’t able to do. Here’s what Mem Chat can do and how I use it every day.

Just to clarify, I personally finance my Mem.X subscription (which includes the Mem Chat feature). I chose to write about Mem and other AI applications and services out of my own interest, due to the convenience and efficiency they bring to my life.

How To Start

First and foremost, it’s crucial to provide Mem Chat with all the information you want it to know, because Mem Chat relies on your personal knowledge base. The more content it has access to, the better it can assist. In other words, if you log everything (meetings, personal stuff, things you read online, notes on podcasts, and so on), Mem Chat can utilize this data.

In its simplest form, you could ask Mem Chat to summarize a meeting note or create key takeaways that you might want to bring into another meeting, but that’s just the beginning. If you start to extensively log your life (and I understand this is a habit not everyone wants to adopt), Mem Chat can provide answers that you might have never expected to get from a digital personal assistant. ChatGPT is great and can provide amazing helpful answers about everything on a general level. But with Mem Chat and the knowledge you’ve accumulated in Mem.ai, you can finally get answers on a very personal level.

As I mentioned, logging everything is important. Feeding Mem with everything that might be even remotely important helps Chat provide relevant answers in the future. For example, if I log every gym trainer appointment (with detailed exercises and reps) I’ve had in the past, I can ask Mem Chat about exercises or what it would suggest as a new training plan based on the appointments I’ve logged. This might seem minor, but when those notes are a year old, it’s a relief when Mem Chat finds this information quickly and can process and output it. Just searching for those old notes becomes tedious and doesn’t cut it anymore, especially when you’re used to ChatGPT and its way of retrieving and showcasing information.

The Basics

From my perspective, the essentials would include adding notes for meetings, noting down anything else of significance, and perhaps maintaining a quick daily log, as I have detailed in another article. In short, I strive to log anything important that I do throughout the day on a time basis and even link the Mems I have worked on at the respective time slots. A brief daily summary is also beneficial, but I don’t write that regularly.

This will provide Mem Chat with at least some content to work with. If you are just using Mem for work, you can skip this part of course and simply log meetings and create work-related notes. However, I have found Mem Chat to be very helpful when it goes beyond the basics and can surprise you with information you really forgot.

The Next Level

So, the next level would be to add more content like notes on websites, books, podcasts. Basically, everything you want to remember but might forget anyway because it’s just too much information. This can also include Emails for example (composed my Smart & Write or by yourself).

The Extra Mile

To achieve the best results, I personally log almost everything. Being a statistics enthusiast, I have a penchant for recalling details that others might dismiss as trivial. For instance, I keep a record of the TV shows I watch, rate every episode, and even jot down my thoughts. One of my hobbies is collecting Lego sets, and I meticulously keep track of all the sets I own, rate them, note down my personal building time, the number of tiles, what’s missing, and any thoughts I had during the build. While this both might sound laborious, it’s quite fascinating to ask Mem Chat questions like how many Lego tiles I own, or how I rated season X of a show. I can even ask Mem Chat to write a short summary of my show ratings. Although this might seem insignificant on the surface, after years, it’s interesting to see not only what I did at a certain time or over a period but also how my tastes have changed. You could compare this to writing a journal, but fully searchable and AI can find connections and even create new content.

Just imagine how frequently you find yourself trying to remember something you know but just can’t recall? With Mem Chat, you have a personal assistant right in your pocket (on your phone) that you can ask anything. This was something I have always been looking for and now it becomes a reality for the first time.

Is Mem Chat perfect?

Like any tool, Mem Chat has its strengths and weaknesses. It performs excellently when you provide specific dates and detailed queries. However, it struggles a bit with numbers and doesn’t fully understand relative dates and times. So, if you ask about something from “last week” or “yesterday,” you might not get the best answer. To overcome this, it’s best to specify the exact date and time in your question. For this reason I name each note with a date (ie. 23 July 2023). This helps Mem to understand my notes; date-specific could be a meeting, workout or an emails I composed for instance.

Key Takeaways

• Mem.ai is a note-taking/personal knowledge management app with streamlined experience and AI features.
• Mem Chat is a new feature that acts like a personal assistant, providing relevant answers based on your personal knowledge base.
• Logging everything in Mem.ai helps Mem Chat provide more accurate and personalized responses.
• Mem Chat can assist with summarizing meeting notes and creating key takeaways.
• It’s beneficial to log notes on various topics like websites, books, and podcasts to remember important information.
• Going the extra mile and logging detailed information can provide interesting insights and assist with recall in the future.
• Mem Chat has strengths in providing specific and detailed information but may struggle with numbers and relative dates and times. Specifying exact dates and times in queries can help overcome this limitation.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, I am fully invested in note-taking with Mem.ai. I find the Chat feature incredibly useful in recalling past information and generating new content from my saved knowledge. Although there are some areas for improvement, such as understanding relative dates and times, I have faith that these will be addressed in future updates. The AI features are locked behind a reasonable subscription fee of $10, which I believe is worth it considering the immense value it provides. Without it, Mem.ai is still a robust note-taking app, but with the subscription, it becomes a powerful tool that can drastically enhance productivity and knowledge management.

Hej there! If you find this article insightful and enjoy reading it, consider following me for more content about Mem.ai, productivity, and the general landscape of AI. Your applause and engagement are greatly appreciated too, as they help me reach a wider audience, enabling others to benefit from my stories and experiences. Thanks for reading and enjoy your day!