I Tried Obsidian Note Taking for a Week... (MD App Review, Tips, Features, Guide, and Setup)

if you've been looking for new methods of taking notes on your computer you've probably heard of obsidian it claims to be a permanent second brain putting emphasis on its unique methodology for note organization and customization if you're interested in switching up your digital note-taking i hope my experiences can provide some insight towards the benefits of using the program in this video i hope to showcase my own personal 7 day experiment with using obsidian as my main note-taking application will the features overwhelm me or am i going to start the cultivation of a new digital brain i was blown away by all the features and customizability obsidian has to offer if you're not familiar with its features i'll give you a rundown on some things that caught my eye when i first started using it seeing as i've spent the past few months looking at completely black screens when taking notes the themes on obsidian have been mesmerizing to work with i've always been a fan of vaporwave and outrun aesthetics and to see a theme that perfectly complemented my tastes instantly hooked me anyways a more functional feature i'm eager to experiment with is the easibility of linking notes within notes paired with the easily accessible and intricate search bar i feel like obsidian would make navigation way easier compared to having to individually open each document in google docs to add on to the accessibility and flow of the app there are countless customizable hotkeys that provide immense quality of life changes for example i'm able to switch between the different panes open using alt and wasd which saves the hassle of having to constantly switch my hand between my mouse and keyboard furthermore i'm able to instantly close and create notes within a few key presses as i'm typing up the script interacting with the program and discovering all of the intricate features it provides feels euphoric the customizability of obsidian has given me an abundance of tools to work with to help take my note-taking and information organization to a completely new level i haven't done much note-taking yet but i've been able to use obsidian for writing and assignment i have for my english class the customizability of the panes paired with my hotkey for switching about them have made it easier to traverse through text compared to a linear layout like the docx format i was so used to i'm able to create a main hub or good copy for my project with my brainstorming and ideas organized into separate notes which looks and feels productive although obsidian's convenience lies in the note-taking experience i'm going to try and transfer all my stuff from google docs into one vault this probably isn't the best idea but i'll keep making adjustments as i see fit and so i went to work unofficially copy pasting all my relevant documents into obsidian whether it be anime reviews book summaries or english essays i put everything in here with the hopes that somehow connections can be miraculously made from such distinct categories here's what my web looks like after importing everything upon further consideration i should probably think of a smart way to organize the different material i have in here should i separate references from ideas previous works from ongoing projects i've already spent quite a bit of time today so tomorrow i'll spend some more time organizing and thinking about how to approach this with my extensive experience in minecraft and terraria storage organizing i think i'll come up with something today i spent some time researching different obsidian workflows i could incorporate into my vault and luckily for me i came across this post on the obsidian forums the original poster had made a zip file for different storage templates so i decided to download it myself and see if any of them were fit for me the two that piqued my interest were the pera and imf models and as of writing this i've imported the imf template into my obsidian vault and i'm planning on transferring my recently imported documents into it credit to nick milo for popularizing this concept he also has a youtube channel for obsidian tips and tricks and just explanations so if you're interested in that check out the link in the description the imf structure uses three methods for organizing notes first is the i which stands for index the index acts as the main hub for the entire organization system and helps transition into the second level which are maps of contents also known as mocks mocks separate and organize the concepts that comprise your note system to organize the notes and ideas within these concepts fluid frameworks are used to appropriately organize the different notes and concepts within your mocks after finding a promising structure i think it's time to personalize it to my liking despite it only being five days since the switch i'm starting to better utilize the program through its various features and hotkeys i made some notes for the different kinds of computer gates i'm making and learning about while taking the infamous nand to tetris class let's take a look shall we first off i have some characteristics of the note like the status and connections it has with other notes credit to brian jenks for the idea i would highly recommend his youtube channel for obsidian and zettle constant knowledge next i have the title some quick notes for the purpose of the gate as well as any ideas that popped into my mind lastly i have the code i made to create the gate and a truth table to showcase the functionality and scenarios of the gate there's 16 of these gates i have to create and having to reformat every note would be quite tedious so i created a template for these gates and within the press of a single hotkey i can use this template upon the creation of a new note aside from taking notes i also spent some time decluttering and reshaping the template i downloaded yesterday for my own needs after creating a simple mock for my youtube channel i just couldn't help but fantasize of how organized my notes could actually be [Music] i like to spend an hour every day in the morning reading and for today's session i was hoping to finish the book how to take smart notes well the thing is i only had a few more pages until i was completely finished the book so i still had ample time to spare i thought to myself self wouldn't it be a good idea to you know practice the stuff you just learned about and so i did i went to my personal knowledge management mock created a wiki link called note taking and note systems and slowly added more categories depending on the different topics of my notes it was my first time taking decent digital notes but i'm really satisfied with the end result being able to use the wiki links and previews made it easier to navigate through the notes and i managed to create a decent looking and functional format for every new note i really enjoy how ideas can be briefly listed like this but easily expanded by opening the note in a new pane here's what it looks like now once again i spent some more time deleting irrelevant categories and grouping orphan notes i still have some progress to go but once this is over i can put more emphasis on making abstract connections and making it all cozy tomorrow is going to be my last day for my one week experiment so hopefully i can finish customizing my vault for a desirable end result [Music] i'll skip talking about the note taking i did today as it was nothing special after some further tweaks and organization i was finally able to end up with this beautiful web i can call my second brain here's a quick overview the structure of my vault is still pretty basic and empty but it'll only expand as i continue to read more and take more notes as for the overall layout i like to have my graph in the top left for aesthetic purposes with the search bar and starred notes in the bottom left as for the rest of the screen the amount of panes i have open depends on the kind of writing i'm doing but i tend to just keep it on preview mode as i don't mind the hashtags and square brackets as for the organization i mostly kept the categories from the imf template with the introduction of a concepts mock the rest of the categories themselves are pretty self-explanatory and are quite empty considering i just started taking note taking seriously a week ago when looking at my notes in the graph view there's the occasional group of interweaving notes but most of the time it's stuff i lazily shoved into a single category hopefully i can start making connections to these different notes later on for each layout of my notes i use a simple template that allows me to create connections tags and list references i haven't really been creating tags that often but i'm planning on adopting brian jenk's approach to using tags and links and yeah that's really all there is to it after spending a week using obsidian as my all-in-one note-taking platform i think it's time i share my opinions about the program prior to using obsidian i wasn't too fond of taking notes i find physical notes to be too tedious to navigate through and as a result i rarely come back to a note again after writing it using google docs to help write general notes for the different books i read helped me remember the ideas i learned but the lack of connections in idea organization has led to writing the same ideas over and over again fortunately obsidian solves both these problems the various methods of note retrieval helps reduce the friction of finding previous ideas and the flexibility and accessibility of taking notes makes it easy to create and build upon whatever ideas and topics i come across instead of writing the same idea over and over again i can dig deeper into the text i'm reading to further expand my notes and enhance my understanding of the topic [Music] i think the selling points of this app are accessibility customizability and durability creating and connecting new notes is as simple as creating a wiki link from an already existing note importing a template with a press of a hotkey and then typing whatever comes to mind if you like to creatively organize your notes obsidian will be a treat to use having to learn the different typing and formatting conventions might be a bit daunting at first but if you're planning on using this in the long run it's definitely worth the effort to learn them there's also still plenty of other features that i probably haven't mentioned not to mention the different community plugins you can add to your vault some plugins enhance already existing features like tables and templates while some add new things like calendars and mind maps if your vault has a good structure obsidian could easily be the last note-taking tool you use for the rest of your life in the off chance that you do want to switch all the notes are taken in markdown format in your computer storage so it won't be hard to transfer them onto a new program i personally like to store them on the cloud for safety purposes but i'm planning on saving a backup every week on my computer just in case i enjoy using obsidian as it promotes creative organization and idea connectivity but your note-taking preferences may be completely different on top of hearing my personal opinion it's probably best if you just download it and try it yourself you don't have to fully commit and move all your notes like how i did within my second day of using the app but i would recommend you spend a day or two taking notes on a certain topic to see if the user interface and features help complement your personal preferences you may not see it as your all-in-one storage like i do but you can still use it as a tool to help plan out projects or connect ideas anyways that pretty much wraps up my one week experience with using obsidian if you have any questions i'd recommend you go to the forums page or watch other youtubers like brian jenks and linking your thinking as that's where i copied my organization and structured ideas from if you found my advice helpful be sure to share and like this video and subscribe for more content like this stay mindful [Music] you

Channel: John Mavrick

Views: 192,705

Keywords: Obsidian App, How to Get Started with Obsidian App, how to use obsidian app, how to use obsidian note taking app, obsidian for beginners, obsidian.md, Nick Milo, Obsidian Linking Your Thinking, https://obsidian.md/index.html, Obsidian free course, obsidian app for students, Obsidian app features, imf framework obsidian, how to organize notes in obsidian, Obsidian app notes, Obsidian app notes tutorial, note-taking app obsidian, obsidian notes, obsidian app

Id: TDhTpPIjsDg

Length: 11min 47sec (707 seconds)

Published: Sat May 08 2021