7 Days Trying Obsidian Note Taking (Building A Second Brain)

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

What did you think my 7 day Obsidian journey? Do you want to start Obsidian with me? Here's my Beginner's Guide to Obsidian: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faG5ZWqoir6ebqs ⚡More Obsidian & Note Taking videos⚡ » Beginner's Guide to Zettelkasten: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faG5ZWqoir6ebqs » Digitizing Your Notes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/haXNZKuVbs1liK8 » Mind Maps 101: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZSclJ-EqNdqh7c

[@EmperorFool]

Pro tip: In Excalidraw, hit with a shape selected (box, circle, arrow, etc), and type. It will center the text within and maintain them as a single element.

[@CharityCatherine]

Vicki at the end of last year I created a vault and worked on obsidian for a while and then lost all my data twice. It took me until now to decide that I was totally motivated to join in with obsidian after hearing what you had to say about it. I got some really good tech-support and found out how to back up my data and now I’m completely on board. Yes obsidian is life-changing. Thank you so much.

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

First of all what is this amazing tech support!? I’m so glad you’re on board and enjoying the benefits of Obsidian!! What do you take notes on?

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

And THANK YOU for being a patron to the channel 🫶

[@MichaelKline]

I'm new to Obsidian and I'm thrilled to collect thoughts and develop/connect ideas.Your presentation is so encouraging!

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

I'm so glad you said that Michael! That's exactly what I wanted to get across. It's really easy to get started without the bells and whistles :D Please keep me posted on how you go!

[@maxvanbalgooy]

This is a good introduction to Obsidian and how atomic notes can be linked. I’d like to see how you create permanent notes from the atomic notes-that’s the biggest struggle I have with Obsidian. I’m unable to find an easy way to construct a permanent note from all of my atomic notes-it’s now a scattering of links and not pulling together into cohesive synthetic ideas.

[@freddyk67888]

Just beginning and your tutorials are incredibly helpful. Thank you Vicky!

[@MarcoCarag]

Thank you for this video; some very resonant connections for me here. Specifically, that I really need to let go of settling on structure (a la folders and top level taxonomy), and just take some damn notes already! And also that folder structure may be a generational thing... I too am a millennial, and am used to folders as an organizational method. I have just started with Obsidian myself, and the main attractor was its bottoms up approach to note taking and the prospect that I could save myself the stress of figuring out categories and folders and make connections later. I was attracted first to zettelkasten; though I haven't yet truly tried it. Seeing your journey here is actually helpful in inspiring me to just dive on in, and get past my old overthinking brain. Thank you for doing so!

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

That’s so great to hear Marco!! And happy to see you in this video’s comment section too 🫶 using obsidian and ZK was a mindset shift for me, for the better i think! It opened up so much space to just explore and play. Hope you feel aspects of that too! Please keep me posted on how you go with your Obsidian experiments!! If you get stuck on anything, let me know and maybe I can make another video!

[@creativecat7278]

This is so cool! I you make this look less intimidating and more useful 👍 thank you for this great video Vicky

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Thank you creative cat! Really appreciate the support!

[@creativecat7278]

@@VickyZhaoBEEAMP thanks for always making great content

[@djlensing]

That was really great, thank you! I would be very interested to know how you will ultimately work with folders and tags once you have been in the Obsidian workflow for a while. And herewith I also express my interest in your further thoughts on plugins! 🤗

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Thank you for watching dajolens! Okay will keep you posted :D Got it re plugins! There's so much there I'm definitely geeking out right now haha 🤓

[@davidjlensing]

​@@VickyZhaoBEEAMP Looking forward to it! Regards from Germany!

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

@@davidjlensing Wow is it silly of me to feel amazed that you found this in Germany?! I wish I could understand German to check out your philosophy videos! Haha my one German class in uni taught me that your language is too sophisticated 🙈

[@Sub0x-x40]

after a while your graph will be a rich tapestry of notes similar in scale to a local star cluster of the milky way without u having to think or even try to all u have to do is link and tag, use local graph and u will see everything merge together its magnificent

[@MrTonyradford]

This was really helpful. Thanks!

[@ChrisLonsberry]

This is incredibly helpful for a new user! I'm struggling to move conceptually from a page of notes per book/article/video to one note per concept. One area where I could use more detail: if I'm creating a note for each concept, how do I quickly/efficiently link in the source on every note? 🙏

[@dovos8572]

the only reason why i even have some folders is to sort attachments. like pictures and screenshots from one book or class get their own folder so i can better keep track of where the attachment comes from without using sentence long names. everything else i want to be sorted in some way get a }Theme(the name of the book/ subject) and MOC get a !MOC as prefix for their name. for example all math formulas have a }Equations prefix amd the only thing in the note is a table with all variants of the equation and if needed a link to a sub equation when a variable has it's own equations. the good thing of this naming system is that you can then use dataview to get automatically a table with only certain prefixes to create MOC without having to add every new note manually the moment you create it and it doesn't spam the graph view with unnecessary lines and keep the connections to actual importand links.

[@Triavanicus]

You can also use syncthing to distribute the notes automatically

[@jmhill54]

Definitely interested in how you use shortcuts and hot keys!

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Noted!! I’ve got an ongoing list so let me figure out what’s the most useful way to share them! Thank you for watching 🤓

[@barryfinnen8913]

More on shortcuts you use would be great. The shared screen would ideally be large enough to see what is being entered.

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Thank you Barry!! And good point, will zoom more in next time 😁

[@j.b.5836]

I'm just starting into taking smart notes, and I'm just learning how to use Notion bc friends recommendation, so why no use Notion? are these apps different worlds?

[@101RealTalker]

Curious, is there a simple way to upload the content of 1400 .rtf files, spread across about 50 folders, on windows 10 without back and forth copy pasting, to have it all in Obsidian??

[@dovos8572]

there are rtf to md (markdown) converters out there and once you have converted it you can just open the main folder with obsidian and you will have everything imported. but I'm not sure how good and safe the converter are and how many you can convert at once. it might even be that obsidian can do the convertion itself but I'm not sure about that. there is a programm named filestar that can convert the files folder by folder to markdown without uploading them but make sure to convert to .md and not .markdown and as a warning you will have some formatting errors, like almost all empty lines disapear, that you have to go over and correct, but well you have to go over your notes to begin with to create links and all that stuff so it shouldn't matter that much. i would test it on a big file and look how similar the outcome looks before you convert everything.

[@101RealTalker]

@@dovos8572 grazie 🙏

[@dovos8572]

@@101RealTalker ah just figured out that filestar costs 9$/month if you want to do it and i figured out that it can convert pdf into docx files, but I can't test if i can convert it to md because i used the 10 free trial uses testing other things

[@dovos8572]

oh wow. filestar can convert pdfs into md if the pdf isn't too big or the layout is too complex. it takes ages but it gives out a usable text with even tables converted into ascii tables. i tried to convert a science book with 1000 pages and pictures and complex leyout but gave up after 3000 seconds. but smaller sub 100 page pdf work just fine in a short time.

[@pablobarbero6529]

Hey Vicky, really enjoying your content. Why obsidian over notion ? Have your tried both ?

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Thank you Pablo, really glad your enjoying the content!! 🙏Great question! I found Notion too structured for how my mind works (and maybe for what I'm using my PKM for). Obsidian's simplicity makes it easier for me to come back to it without feeling like I didn't set things up properly haha so it's easier to sustain the PKM habit personally. Which one do you use right now?

[@benpessoa4013]

How do you you the file name headings in that smaller size and flush at the top of the window?

[@TheSimulatedCompany]

Is it bad to tag categories ALONG WITH how I'd use the inputs? In other words, more tags = better?

[@AK-ox3mv]

In this video, after 1 week usage, there's about 100 notes. This video is for 5 month ago. Currently managing 2000 notes isnt messy in Obsidian? Are they as accessible and usable as first days? Did you find some patters on how it could be better to start organizing at the beginning, that end up better access to those ideas at months or yesrs ahead?

[@sprezzaturarrd]

how did you actually sync your folder to your icloud? did you first copy your folder to icloud then open it as another vault? how does it sync to your phone 'cause mine certainly isn't working.

[@staybalancedn]

It appears you use obsidian to track tasks, do you still do that? Thanks

[@TheInternetFan]

hey Vicky, Would like to know what is your take on Dendron, it is similar to Obsidian but works on top of VS Code. maybe you could do a video in the near future?

[@jtmusic830]

Thanks for another great video. It would be great to see a video on how to link Zotero to Obsidian - I’ve tried a few times but there is always some kind of error and the link does not work.

[@EdwinBrito]

Can you mention the cons or limitations of using Obsidian ?

[@ksoonsoon]

Great video, much appreciated from a new user. Can you provide the plug-in name and link for the hand drawn mind mapping functionality you presented? Thank you.

[@mindtheyoutubegap]

I'd be interested how you would compare this to DevonThink.

[@sanaolengineer6959]

If using fleeting, literature, and permanent notes as folders, how do you transfer notes from one folder to the other?

[@colineckert]

Great video! Journey plugin seems like a gem. Let me know if you have any feedback on the Things theme :)

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Thank you Colin! Yes I'll definitely do

[@abbyr.2602]

Great content!! You mentioned "structure" as one of the things that you wish you knew on Day 1. Can you elaborate on that? How would you structure it differently if you started over? I was going to try to structure mine with just 3 folder that follow the 3 types of Zettlekasten notes but not sure if that's a good idea (I'm a millennial too!)

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Thanks Abby! Re structure, I’m actually filming another video on structure because the more I use Obsidian, the more I realize the folder system is not as functional as some other ways of structuring notes. The main question to ask is how do you retrieve information? Do you search for keywords, look up tags, search through folders, etc. I realized I rarely look into folders and always rely on search, so I’m doing away with most folders and using more tags I’ll get into the rabbit hole in the video, but the good news is, you can start with what is easy for you now and reorganize later! Better to get started and optimize than not starting at all - because Obsidian has so many updates anyway, things are always changing haha

[@vmkirin]

I'm using GitHub to sync because the space is free. I didn't want to run into iCloud limitations and pay "the man" for my notes. ;)

[@kelseyb8426]

You talk about "permanent notes" a lot. What do you mean by that? do you have a video where you explain this more?

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Good point! You can check out the Zettelkasten video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faG5ZWqoir6ebqs

[@janszymanski2287]

Solutions like Notion or Obsidian are a great thing, but I can see that because of the initial investment required to organize these tools MOST PEOPLE WILL NEVER USE THEM ANYWAY Besides, how many people actually actively create something (for which these tools are absolutely great), and not just consume existing content

[@royst9n]

are you sponsored by obsidian?

[@VickyZhaoBEEAMP]

Haha no! Just love it

[@AndyParka]

"Look up crypto stocks" oof this didn't age, huh