How I Use Obsidian as a Grad Student | Note-Taking, Organization & Workflow

[@em.josephine]

I’m preparing for my qualifying exams while also struggling with what I now know is ADHD and I ran across your earlier video on notetaking, which was super helpful. So I was really happy to see this walkthrough because the timing couldn’t be better! It also makes me feel less alone knowing there are others like me struggling through their PhD with adhd. Thank you for sharing your journey!

[@sarahbestPhD]

Thank you for your comment! It also really helps me feel less alone too to hear about others’ experiences doing grad school with ADHD. It’s definitely tough, so I hope you have been able to find good support systems and wish I you all the best with your exams!! 💜 what field are you in?

[@vanilla232]

Not sure how I missed this video of yours until now :) I was just wondering if you could share your "Highlighting Information & Organizing by Theme" - I'm in humanities, so seeing how others view themes I find super helpful to adjust my own :) thank you!!!

[@naokoken]

I immediately noticed a copy of Duerr's "Dreamtime - Concerning the Boundary between Wilderness and Civilization." So awesome!

[@kaylasarchive]

Thank you for this walkthrough! I am about to start my second year in my PhD and have been struggling to find a good notetaking system. Obsidian looks great! I am going to give it a go for this term 😊

[@sarahbestPhD]

I’m glad it was helpful! Best of luck going into your 2nd year, and hopefully Obsidian is useful! I wish I’d started using it when I was in my 2nd year, as I think it would have been really helpful for studying for comprehensive exams

[@kaylasarchive]

@@sarahbestPhD Thank you :) I am excited yet nervous- my next major step is exams at the end of this year. And I think this will be great for exams. I already started setting some things up and can tell this will work nicely for exams.

[@duaa454]

Great video! Very informative and impressive clean note structure!

[@arthurorir8554]

I love the way you use the highlighter plugin! I've never seen someone using it like that, to better manage the topics on the text instead of the type of text. That said, why don't you change the highlights names? I think it would make it easier to know which color to use when highlighting something.

[@camilacoelho1782]

This is amazing! Thank you!

[@sarahbestPhD]

Thank you, I’m glad it’s helpful!

[@ruebennomura9143]

Morning from Hawaii I just watch your video amazing work you are my favorite

[@sarahbestPhD]

Thank you so much! I hope its a beautiful morning in Hawaii :)

[@halimabensaid2235]

This is amazing and so useful!! I love the way you break down your notes with the callouts, and can visualize everything and I think I'll give it a try your way. My notes are such a disaster 🥲🥲 Out of curiosity, do you have an Obsidian subscription? the main criticism (from Redditor's) is that you can't sync it across devices without subscribing and that the linking is a bit excessive (Frankly, kind of like the Zettelkasten method you mentioned). I'm not sure if it's needed. Can you share your opinion?

[@sarahbestPhD]

I’m glad the video was helpful, and I hope you find Obsidian to be really helpful as well!! I actually don’t have a syncing subscription for Obsidian (though I’ve used the publishing subscription in the past to share a vault), but for some reason my Obsidian still syncs between my MacBook and my iPad? I’m actually not sure how it does that without the syncing subscription though. But I mostly only use obsidian on my laptop, so the syncing isn’t a huge deal for me. I think the linking can get a bit excessive for sure, and I’ve definitely used it too much in the past, but this will depend on how you use it, and if you find having lots of links beneficial. I’ve been trying to link things a little bit less than when I first started using it, so the connections remain meaningful and don’t get too crazy.

[@PavanDadlani.MD.]

Just curious… what does the skeptical witch folder contain😅?..

[@sarahbestPhD]

Just notes for my other yt channel, the skeptical witch

[@petrkrnavek2420]

what font do you use? please 🙂

[@InglesDinamico100]

👏👏

[@different-ai]

really solid system you have for organizing your vault. I've also thought a lot about the best approaches to do it. i'm working on an obsidian plugin that helps users stay organized and get the most out of their notes with ai. we have over 1k users and are growing, but the product is still a bit rough around the edges (especially our automatic organization features). you seem to have your vault organization really figured out. so i was wondering if you'd be open to trying it out? would be happy to send a free license.

[@sarahbestPhD]

Hi, thanks for reaching out. One of the things I like about Obsidian is it’s guaranteed privacy and security. I keep my research notes in my vault, some of which must remain completely private. So I just wouldn’t want to bring AI into that. Thank you though and I hope creating the plug-in goes well!

[@different-ai]

@@sarahbestPhD Ahh yeah totally understand that. We're also working on a version that would be local only that would keep all your content 100% private. But we're not there yet. Thanks for taking the time to answer and best of luck with your PhD!