Hack your brain with Obsidian.md

I have used many note-taking tools over the years, simple-note, notion, and extensively emacs org-mode, none have improved my thinking in the way that Obsidian has.
Today is a deep-dive into my second brain, and if you take my advice, YOUR second brain.

🖊️ Corrections are in the pinned ERRATA comment.

🙏🏻 CREDITS & PROMO
My name is Tris Oaten and I produce fast, technical videos.

👏🏻 Special thanks to my patreon sponsors:
- JC Andrever-Wright
- Miah Beach
And to all my patrons!

[NoBoilerplate]

ERRATA
- 7:32 I say "Notion" but I meant "Obsidian" - woops!
- YES I am aware of Logseq - it's not up to my requirements yet, but I have been very impressed by the pace of development. The reason I'm so happy about using Obsidian, despite it being closed-source software, is that my data is in plain text, and I can move to another tool (perhaps Logseq) when they become mature enough for my needs!
- [[double square brackets]] are not in the original markdown spec, but have been adopted by nearly everyone (including github)
- The bold example is also italic, the nesting required to get this working from *within markdown* bamboozled me!

[Galaxzier]

As a person with ADHD, I installed Obsidian 6 months ago but still haven't used it

[McDonaldsCalifornia]

For real this is how all content on the web that isn't social media or straight up entertainment should work

[jacobpetersen]

Watching your videos feels like scraping layers of plaque off of my brain. Such a refreshing change from the needlessly padded and empty videos I’m used to

[viiririiv]

Everyone using Obsidian should also know that is has native support for Mermaid graphs. Just write a code block starting with ```mermaid and it will render as a graph. Very handy!

[jordanfry]

The way you talk about things you like is addictive.

[blazingblast]

I'm busy developing note-taking software myself, this comes just in time to procrastinate doing that

[AlistairKarim]

I absolutely love Obsidian! I've been using it for a year now. It's absurd how long it took the industry to finally deliver a good note-taking app to us.

[jayyan]

can we just appreciate how pretty the Obsidian UI is.... it's the sleakies i've seen of all the note softwares/platforms

[augustday]

Just wanted to drop in and say, THANK YOU for this video! I watched it a few months ago and decided to try out Obsidian. I can confidently say this software has made a huge positive impact on my productivity and effectiveness at work. It sounds corny, but having a personal wiki of information on topics relevant to my job (such as procedure lists, meeting notes, How-Tos, daily note files) has saved me a lot of time and made it much easier to get things done.

[FlorianLinscheid]

I tried Obsidian because everyone loves it, but here is the problem I encountered with it and pretty much every other note taking app: I basically never look at any of the notes I have written ever again. I created quite a few notes and felt good in that moment about it, but now they just lay there and are completely irrelevant to me. And then it very quickly feels like a huge waste of time to take the time and write the notes if they won't be relevant later. Sure, you can never predict what will be relevant in the future and by writing everything down you are prepared, but the time investment feels too big.
How do you handle that? How do you know what to write down? How are you keeping your brain alive?

[mbunds]

Thanks for another excellent production!

Employed in the industrial/critical infrastructure sectors, I'm one of those who, after finding a solution either by scouring everything currently available to evaluate the "best", or after finding none by developing my own, will stay with the "tried-and-true" tools that I found to be vital or useful, often for decades.

When I pull my head out of the sand to review solutions for replacement, either due to compatibility or security issues, or to support new tech, I usually discover that things have (duh) changed radically, usually improving on my old, comfortable tools significantly, similar to how cell phones improved on the telegraph.

One of my favorite note taking tools has been Microsoft OneNote, an application that I believe to be underappreciated by most users, and to me the sole application keeping Microsoft relevant, since Windows is required to run it, which is also one of its shortcomings. Yes, there are "cloud" versions of OneNote which will run on non-Windows platforms, but these are poorly-mirrored parodies of the full "desktop" version, lacking many features in their current versions.

Based on your recommendations, it sounds like Obsidian is more than a worthy replacement?

[vinz]

I just recently stumbled upon obsidian after my OneNote just became way too cluttered and a mess to navigate. It takes a bit of work to get everything converted so it shows properly with the graph view, but it is so worth it. If you prefer a folder structure and want that structure to be reflected in the graph view, I can highly recommend the "Zoottelkeeper" Plugin. Great Video!

[RR-hlzi]

I am in love with Obsidian. Your videos have informed quite a bit of my daily life (37 yo, ADHD flaring up like mad). Note taking tools have been the bane of my existence. But being able to organize my (plain text!) notes and sync them to all my devices is just amazing. It truly has become a second brain for me. I am scared to explore the plugins, though, as it feels like a bit of a rabbit hole waiting to pull me in.

Thank you for your videos. They have changed my life in a very positive way.

[fotnite_]

I've been using Obsidian for quite a bit now, nice to see it getting more attention.

Also, as far as the git plugin, they have pretty easy to follow instructions on how to set it up for mobile. I've heard that some phones can have issues with it, but I personally haven't, and besides, I mix my notebooks with stuff like Rnote files that means relying on Obsidian sync would be a bit weird in my case.

[Nathan-shre]

If only all video guides/tutorials were presented like this. Concise, directed, dynamic pacing, plus energy in the voice!

[joshuapatterson]

Just tried Obsidian because of this video. I'm almost at the end of day one and I already love it! I have never been able to stick to a note-taking habit for various reasons, primarily friction and searchability. This addresses both of these and much more. Thankyou.

[thomasmitchell]

This is the best video I’ve seen on Obsidian so far, concise and informative.

I’ve been using Obsidian for years now and love it, it’s grown a lot. And I learned a few things in this very short video, I’d be very keen to see more from you on the breakdowns of certain plugins and workflows.
Now it’s time for me to go update my todo structure, your method is superior to my own! #todo

Thanks!

[JoLeaf]

Obsidian is excellent, and the community plugins are fantastic. You can build your own Obsidian platform with those plugins that fit best for your personal requirements!

[Terzom]

Very good video, did not know about DataView. I've used Obsidian now for about 4 month and really love it. I only use it for work as of now since the calendar plugin is amazing that let you make notes connected to a date. Perfect for me as a developer with daily standup in the morning and I can make notes in the end of the day to know what i will do the next day or even weeks in advance.

And as you say, perfect that it's only text files and you can store it in a cloud-provider so you'll always have a backup incase something happens to the computer.


The mindmap I never really understood what the purpose was, but I don't work with connecting documents. I like the tags for that if I encounter the same subject several times and want to group them.