Obsidian Note Taking Tutorial for Beginners - Start HERE (w/ example)
TLDRThis video is a beginner's guide to using Obsidian, a powerful note-taking app. Vicki walks through the core functions of the app, explaining how to create a new vault, take notes, and organize them into folders. She demonstrates how Obsidian allows users to link notes, creating a network of interconnected ideas. Vicki highlights the app's strengths in making connections between thoughts, boosting creativity, and managing knowledge. She also covers important features like templates, backlinks, tags, and the visual graph view to showcase how notes relate to each other.
Takeaways
- 📝 Obsidian is a powerful note-taking app designed to help you organize and connect your ideas.
- 🔒 A vault in Obsidian functions like a user profile, where all your notes are stored.
- 📑 Notes in Obsidian can be easily connected through internal links, creating a web of related ideas.
- 📖 Example of connecting notes: a study from 'Thinking Fast and Slow' linked with 'Russell's Conjugation' on framing effects.
- 💡 Obsidian's backlinking system helps you see relationships between your notes and ideas, enabling new insights.
- 🖼️ You can embed images into your notes for a more visual experience, and switch between edit and preview modes to view them.
- 🔗 You can create both internal and external links, easily organizing related content and external references.
- 💬 Tags can be added to notes, but they are best used as a way to track the purpose of a note rather than categorizing.
- 📊 Obsidian provides a graph view to visualize connections between notes, helping you see how ideas are linked.
- 🔧 Plugins such as templates, random notes, and daily notes help automate note-taking and enhance productivity.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of this video?
-The video aims to provide a tutorial for beginners on how to use the note-taking app Obsidian, showcasing its core functions and features.
What is a 'vault' in Obsidian?
-A vault in Obsidian is like a workspace where all your notes and files are stored. It acts as your primary working area, similar to a user profile on a computer.
How can you connect notes in Obsidian?
-You can connect notes in Obsidian by using internal links. This is done by placing double brackets around the note title. Obsidian will automatically link the notes together.
What are backlinks, and how are they useful?
-Backlinks in Obsidian show you which other notes link to a specific note. They help visualize the connections between ideas, making it easier to discover patterns and new insights.
What is the graph view in Obsidian, and why is it important?
-The graph view in Obsidian is a visual representation of how your notes are interconnected. It helps you see the relationships between different ideas, facilitating the creation of new ideas based on existing knowledge.
What is the difference between 'edit' mode and 'preview' mode?
-In edit mode, you can modify the content of a note, whereas in preview mode, you can view the formatted note, including clickable links and images.
How can you use tags in Obsidian, and what is their purpose?
-Tags in Obsidian are added using hashtags and serve to categorize or remind you of the purpose of a note. However, they aren't necessary for searching, as Obsidian allows keyword searches.
What are templates, and how do they work in Obsidian?
-Templates in Obsidian allow you to predefine the format of your notes. Once created, you can insert them into new notes, saving time and ensuring consistency.
How does the 'random notes' plugin work?
-The random notes plugin opens a random note from your vault, which can be useful for revisiting past notes or sparking new ideas.
What is the framing effect, and how is it illustrated in the video?
-The framing effect is a cognitive bias where people react differently to the same information depending on how it's presented. The video gives an example of a study from UCL where people react differently to 'keeping $20' versus 'losing $30,' even though both outcomes are the same.
Outlines
💡 Introduction to Obsidian Note-Taking
The host introduces themselves and discusses the importance of mental models and frameworks for clear thinking and communication. They introduce Obsidian, a note-taking app, and explain how it helps organize ideas, retrieve information, and connect thoughts. The focus is on helping beginners get started with Obsidian and use it as a second brain for note-taking.
🛠️ Setting Up and Creating Your First Vault in Obsidian
The video transitions into a step-by-step guide to setting up Obsidian. The speaker explains the concept of a 'vault,' which acts as a workspace that contains all user data. They walk through creating a new vault and emphasize that vaults should be thought of as user profiles rather than folders, as they encompass an entire workspace. A new vault is created for demonstration, named 'demo.'
📝 Organizing Notes in Obsidian with an Example
Obsidian's primary function as a note-taking app is explained, where users can create notes and organize them into folders. Using an example from the book 'Thinking Fast and Slow,' the host demonstrates how to digitize and categorize notes. They introduce the concept of linking notes together to create connections between ideas, showcasing Obsidian's ability to relate different concepts and build a web of knowledge.
🔗 Linking Notes and Building Connections in Obsidian
The power of linking notes in Obsidian is highlighted. The speaker explains how users can create new notes, connect them to existing ones, and even generate ideas for future projects, such as YouTube scripts. They demonstrate how to link examples, such as 'Russell’s Conjugation' to other ideas, creating a network of interconnected knowledge. The video also shows how backlinks allow users to trace connections between different notes.
🖼️ Visualizing Connections and the Power of the Graph View
The speaker introduces the graph view feature in Obsidian, which provides a visual representation of all the ideas and their connections. They emphasize the benefit of seeing the relationships between notes, which can lead to new insights and ideas. The example of Russell’s Conjugation and the UCL study is used to show how ideas interlink, forming a mental latticework of concepts and models.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Obsidian
💡Vault
💡Note
💡Linking Notes
💡Backlinks
💡Templates
💡Core Plugins
💡Graph View
💡Framing Effect
💡Zettelkasten
Highlights
Introduction to Obsidian and its benefits for organizing and retrieving knowledge.
Creating a vault in Obsidian is like setting up a user profile on your computer.
Notes and folders are the core components of Obsidian; everything starts with creating a note.
Example from the book 'Thinking Fast and Slow' to demonstrate note-taking in Obsidian.
The power of Obsidian lies in linking notes and creating connections between ideas.
Backlinks feature helps track connections and see patterns in your notes.
Creating a new note or folder in Obsidian is quick and intuitive, using either shortcuts or menu options.
Using internal and external links in notes with simple keyboard commands.
Two modes in Obsidian: edit mode and preview mode, and how to switch between them.
Utilizing tags in Obsidian to organize notes, with a comparison to social media tagging.
Different list types in Obsidian, including checkboxes, bullet points, and numbered lists.
Using the split-screen pane feature to view multiple notes side by side.
Graph view in Obsidian: Visualizing connections between notes to find new ideas.
Templates in Obsidian to standardize note formatting and streamline workflows.
Random notes feature for inspiration and daily notes for regular journaling.