My 2023 Obsidian Workflow for Note-Taking and Templated Thinking

[@SystematicMastery]

👉 To skip the full introduction, go to 09:02!

[@davidh8419]

I'd LOVE to see more about how you use Obsidian for documenting software architecture. That's the primary reason I'm exploring the use of Obsidian

[@romankubiv1801]

Some ideas for your meeting note problem: Templater now has a setting that allows you to automatically apply a templates to a notes created in specific folders. This can be used with the "advanced new file" plugin which uses a popup that lets you create files in any folder and give them a name. Another plugin called "quick capture" allows you to create your own popups that let you do anything with text fields. Simple ones can be set up using no code but also allows for "macro" popups which can combine multiple simple popups as well as execute user scripts. (macros allow shared variables to be created between code and simple popups) Hope this helps

[@seekerdroid]

Looking forward to more templates from your workflow. Keep posting videos. 👍

[@SystematicMastery]

Thanks Shadowslayer!

[@davelewis7534]

Thank you for making this and sharing. Lots of learning. I'm inspired by how you use Workbench.

[@guyhannan4401]

Would love your mesocycle template, and to be honest most of your tempaltes haha. Great content!

[@shanebarringer]

This was a fantastic overview. It helped me discover a few missing puzzle pieces for my own Second Brain configuration within Obsidian. IMO - this is one of the more helpful videos on the topic of PKM, especially with a good P.A.R.A. setup. Thank you for taking the time to share! Also, I'd love to see videos highlighting additional tools you're finding useful. btw if you're looking for suggestions ... I'm currently trying to integrate Memex & Readwise into a process with less friction 🙃

[@SystematicMastery]

Thanks for the positive feedback Shane! Stoked to hear it was valuable. I'll set up a video to go through my second brain system outside of Obsidian! The combination of Memex/Readwise/Instapaper is working quite well lately. Stay tuned!

[@shanebarringer]

@@SystematicMastery Definitely finding lots of value in these videos as well as the podcast. Thanks for putting such great content out into the world. Also, it's exciting to hear you've established a proper Memex/Readwise/Instapaper workflow. As indicated in my previous comment, this step has been a bit elusive, so I can't wait to see what you guys have put together!

[@SystematicMastery]

​@@shanebarringer Thanks! We really appreciate the affirming words! We're going to keep trying to improve along the way. Planning to release another walkthrough soon!

[@Diogenesthegreat01]

I would love if you can share this for us to download. It will be very beneficial for those that want to implement your system but are new to obsidian. Thanks

[@sourabhuwusingh]

Thanks for listening to the feedback !

Please, share more of your wisdom

[@theblack8out]

Very nice!

[@deepouterspace]

Thanks for the video! Very handy and interesting to learn your experience with Obsidian.

[@iphoneman22]

Great video! I've tried accomplishing something like this before. The closest I've gotten to an optimal system is with Notion. But I have been less inclined to use it lately because I feel that it is getting bloated like you mentioned. It seems like you have gone through a lot of the same trial and error that I have gone through. Looking forward to seeing more. Also I would love to know what other tools that you use.

[@SystematicMastery]

Thanks Evan! Yeah it seems like Notion has some UX issues to deal with. Not to say I don't think they can, but the friction is too high at the moment for me too. Thanks for that nudge, there are a few tools and workflow tricks that I'll put in a new video soon.

[@iphoneman22]

@@SystematicMastery I will say, I really like how easy it is to create backlinks and input markdown elements without having to remember the syntax. I wish obsidian did something like this but I suppose if the templates are all set up correctly then there would be less of a need to repeat things like this.

[@SystematicMastery]

@@iphoneman22 yeah, if you’re not used to markdown it can also cause friction 😅 there is a plugin that seems to solve your problem though! github.com/Reocin/obsidian-markdown-formatting-assistant-plugin You can look it up in the plugin list inside of Obsidian.

[@dagwould]

Would be great to have demos of the ideas being discussed in the first 10 minutes.

[@de-is]

Hey Zowie. Thanks for your videos on how to bring structure to your life. I did not quite get if how are you creating a new note and inserting a template from TemplateR? I have spent days trying to setup Obsidian to create a note and insert template the most effortless way. But Obsidian still kinda inserts template using Core-Templates and Templater is not intercepting and not rendering contents of such template? (I have "Trigger Templater on new file creation" enabled) So are you for example using Templater while creating Meeting Note or not? What were the shortcuts?

[@betagroobox]

Hello, great video! Is there a place place where you have stored your sample structure of notes and templates that we might be able to duplicate?

[@IdleFete]

Hello, would you be willing to share some of your templates? I am particularly interested in the weekly reflections template. Thank you for your time.

[@KuriakinZeng]

ditto! I had been looking for them

[@SystematicMastery]

Sorry for the wait! - Weekly reflection: raw.githubusercontent.com/Zowie/obsidian-templates/main/weekly%20reflection%20template.md - Main note template that I use for all my notes: raw.githubusercontent.com/Zowie/obsidian-templates/main/main%20note%20template.md - Postmortem: raw.githubusercontent.com/Zowie/obsidian-templates/main/postmortem%20template.md If there are others, let me know!

[@HammyHavoc]

So yesterday I adopted the PARA/"second brain" folder structure. How should I store/organize website URLs? E.g. I have several hundred tabs open currently from researching several complex topics, how would these appear within PARA? I'm guessing under Resources, but how? A note per link? Any tips?

[@SystematicMastery]

If you use something like Memex/Diigo integrated with Readwise, you can make highlights and notes directly from the website. You can use the Readwise sync plugin to sync them to Obsidian. We cover some of this in our plugin video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJ28qK1jpLCSj68 In resources I would keep them under 'reading' of sorts, where you can keep articles and book notes.

[@HammyHavoc]

Second question: how are you setting your folder order?

[@SystematicMastery]

Hi Hammy! My folder order comes from the filenames. There are plugins out there that can help. Here is a community discussion on the topic: forum.obsidian.md/t/change-note-order-manually/2943/3

[@LucasMaffazioli]

Hello, man, great video! Thanks to your last one I successfully started writing my notes, and it's been very rewarding! My question is how is your graph view when you link your weekly and daily notes with every other Zettelkasten/Evergreen notes of the day? It doesn't become too overcrowded to find stuff to connect your thoughts, since most of the time you'll have a hard connection to a specific day? I could describe what I think would look like, but I think you can explain way better how it actually is, or show a picture of 2 or 3 layers to see how this system scales. Thanks!

[@LucasMaffazioli]

I'm also wanted to say that I really like you guys channel, I think people are VERY tired of internet gurus and snake oil salesmen out there. You guys want to LEARN, not to SELL your stuff, with your channel I can relate way more

[@SystematicMastery]

Thanks for the kind words Lucas! Really appreciated! Yeah, my graph view is quite crowded, to be honest. I tend to not use my full graph view that much (and I guess that's why). I prefer to use a local graph, because it gives me a more isolated context, to then scale up the overview I set the 'Depth' higher so I can see more links removed from my current one. I use my graph view mostly to help me remember things I wrote about, and link new topics to organize information as I create it. For example, I'm now experimenting with 'Domain roots'. They are notes that I link most notes in a specific domain to (I'm happy with 80% accuracy). That way I can navigate a domain like 'Crypto' or 'Economics' easily and get a big overview of what I have on the topic. Of course, my second brain is not structured at all so I'll quickly end up at new places navigating that way. Flipping 'Outgoing links' to OFF in the graph view in that case removes the daily notes, because they are linked to and not from. Hope that makes sense, and that it helps! I'll go over the graph view in more depth in a follow up walkthrough. Anything else you'd like to see?

[@SystematicMastery]

@@LucasMaffazioli happy to hear you're with us on the mission to learn!

[@LucasMaffazioli]

@@SystematicMastery Thank you for the answer! It makes sense, my graph view is also beginning to be crowded already, I guess the thing is the graph view really. Your domain roots looks a lot like the LYT framework, I'm using a bit now too. About the second brain that's it for me for now, but certainly your other videos will bring me some more knowledge. Cheers!

[@jamiehatzis6176]

Thanks for the video. I am very interested in the daily note template. I am new to Obsidian and have little to no markdown knowledge. Do you make your templates available somewhere? Also, regarding the Workbench - I assume that is a note that you add and remove items as you complete or begin?

[@SystematicMastery]

Hi Jaimie! Here it is: raw.githubusercontent.com/Zowie/obsidian-templates/main/daily%20note%20template.md Yeah, the workbench I try to add notes that I want to return to, and remove notes from when I'm done with editing them (or when a project is finished).

[@jamiehatzis6176]

@@SystematicMastery thank you so much. What does the yesterday, next week, quarterly link do?

[@SystematicMastery]

@@jamiehatzis6176 In my own setup, 'yesterday' links to the previous daily note, 'week' links to the current week (which is a note of my weekly reflection template), 'quarterly plan' links to a note where I have my plan for the quarter written down. This way you get situational awareness: you can see your current day, the state of your current week through a reflection and the plan for your quarter. It helps me stay on track, but it's up to you to decide if you like that structure of course!

[@trickstur5994]

Can I make the recommendation of going through the Obsidian help vault, specifically the markdown tutorial? Markdown is SUPER easy and just takes a little practice to get down. Then you can make templates customized to yourself.

[@jamiehatzis6176]

@@SystematicMastery Got it. Useful. Thanks. Definitely subscribing now. Appreciate the reply.

[@apsodric]

I also realy dig the daily notes, did that the last half year with weekly, monthly, quarterly reviews of topics that happend in that time. To get a quick view of what happened. One question I have, how did you get the width to the full window width? Working with a wide monitor, that fixed width annoyse the hell ot of me :D

[@SystematicMastery]

Cool to hear! And good one on the reviews. I'm still to find my groove with monthly reviews. Weekly and Quarterly certainly have found their place. In Obsidian Options pane, under the 'Editor' tab, you have the 'Readable line length' option. Flip that off, and you'll get full width notes!

[@apsodric]

@@SystematicMastery oh man to easy to oversee 🙈 Thanks!

[@claudioaguilera4001]

Hi, great video!, do you have a single note for each meeting?

[@SystematicMastery]

Hi Claudio, yes, every meeting is one note. The idea of linked note taking is to have short notes that are interlinked, rather than long notes you might have to scroll through.

[@BryanKDang]

Hi! Thanks for your tutorial! At 33:33, what keyboard shortcut do you use to add your meeting note to your workbench notes?

[@SystematicMastery]

Hey Bryan! My personal hotkey for this is ctrl + L. I try to not use cmd as much for custom shortcuts as they might conflict with application shortcuts already.

[@trickstur5994]

I had another question, how do you deal with folder differentiation when it comes to where you out things.fkr example, if something is ambiguous or if it's like a project specifically for an area. What do you do then? I'm thinking about switching to something more like this, but up until now I've been mostly folderless in my Obsidian system.

[@SystematicMastery]

Great question! I definitely fall into the 'ambiguity trap' too. With the current setup it's actually almost never, so things are dialed in pretty well so far. When in doubt but the note is still about a project, I try to put notes in Projects because that's where work gets done, and my attention should go mostly. If it's a cross-project topic but still mostly relevant to only one project, I link it to a 'Domain Root' note (similar to MOCs: forum.obsidian.md/t/a-case-for-mocs/2418) or an Area, which allows me to find it back later once projects have been finished. If it's a cross-project topic that really spans multiple projects about a certain subject or area and can't be easily categorized into one particular project, I'll put it in resources and link them with the project and the 'Domain Root'. If it's also related to a project that is for an area, I'll link the area and project together so I can find it easily later. I also never delete Projects, I just move them to 'Archive/Projects' when they're done. That way I can still link to them. Hope that helps!

[@woepie58]

Nice video. How do you add the icons in front of your folder name?

[@SystematicMastery]

Thanks! On Mac it's Command-Control-Space to open the Emoji/icon picker.

[@jackmiles5374]

Can we have a tutorial on how to set this up, as I'm a bit overwhelmed

[@SystematicMastery]

Absolutely. I'll create a walkthrough where we'll go through setting up your vault from start to finish.

[@jackmiles5374]

@@SystematicMastery Would be great to see this ASAP!

[@SystematicMastery]

@@jackmiles5374 This will be released in the coming week! We're working on it right now.

[@jackmiles5374]

@@SystematicMastery YAY! Cant wait love the channel

[@jackmiles5374]

@@SystematicMastery any update on this?

[@mble]

16:00 what is the difference between flow rate and engagement rate in this case?

[@SystematicMastery]

I kind of use the following differentiation: Flow rate: How immersed are you? Is sense of time and self reduced? Engagement rate: How much does the activity trigger you? Are you motivated and/or excited? For example, while reading complicated non-fiction I can have a lot of engagement but quite low flow because I have to look things while reading, which is disrupting my flowstate (as opposed to reading fiction which can get you completely immersed). Or while coding, I can be quite excited but not fully immersed in the activity since I have to switch between actively coding and thinking/drawing/writing/googling.

[@rexao]

hey, thanks for the video. theme avaiable? =)

[@SystematicMastery]

I use the 'Minimal' theme :)

[@rexao]

@@SystematicMastery thanks!

[@a.h.m1365]

man! Those 35 min, just things are subjective. Show us things are not subjective like: Project management, project workflow, new Project template, projects tasks management ... etc . If your projects are private at least make dummy project!

[@SystematicMastery]

Hi Abbas! Makes sense. Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to show my personal subjective approach, because I don't know if there is an objectively good approach. For projects I don't use a very strict structure, I organize tasks in Todoist and keep notes in Obsidian. The difficult thing about project management is more collaboration rather than information management, in my experience. I think for project management in general, Kanban (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban) and Getting Things Done (gettingthingsdone.com/what-is-gtd/) are a great start. We might do a project management video in the future though!

[@LessonsinHistory]

9 minutes into the video before you start moving around your vault... zzz

[@SystematicMastery]

Thanks for the feedback. Will keep it in mind for the next ones! I thought it'd be worthwhile explaining some of the thinking behind it, but also here; actions do speak louder than words.