My simple note-taking setup | Zettelkasten in Obsidian | Step-by-step guide

In this video I show you my simple yet powerful setup in Obsidian for taking Zettelkasten notes (which plugins I recommend using, my tagging system, etc)
I also show a step-by-step guide how to set it up yourself

OUTLINE:
00:00 Introduction
2:14 How Obsidian works and main definitions
4:00 My 4-folder organisation
5:13 How to set everything up from scratch
7:55 Sliding Panes & Admonition plugins
8:28 Templates
10:08 Creating notes
12:25 Tagging & classifying notes
13:16 - Maps of content (MOCs)
14:40 - Final words
16:07 - Outro

Socials:

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[DezziexLollygag]

Just to save future people some time, this is by far the SIMPLEST and easiest video to follow to get started with Obsidian and building your own Zettlekasten. I started with this video, and nothing else I've watched all day really compares. A very practical place to start! I also deeply recommend Nick Milo (Linking Your Thinking) and his videos for amazing videos that get you onboarded fast. The only reason I rate this video above Milo's is that his vids are more instructional guides to using Obsidian efficiently, not about crafting an ideal workflow.

Don't waste your day like me watching other videos, Artem and Nick's videos are all you need!

[thgeremilrivera-thorsen]

I have seen a lot of Zettelkasten how-to videos at this point. This is one of the best. I like how it is made by a guy that has actually used it for more than a couple weeks, and how it emphasizes keeping it simple and friction-free rather than showcasing a bunch of super refined, predefined "workflows" which I always found defied the purpose of the Zettelkasten.

Great work!

[andrewiglinski]

Bud I haven’t watched the video yet… but before I even got here your thumbnail just screamed ‘I have a mysterious European accent’

[oskarpalma]

After watching like 20 videos on youtube about zettelkasten in Obsidian, I can confirm this is by far the best one. You covered most of the topics to start with Obsidian in very simple terms. Congrats!

[SoHawful]

I just started with obsidian and I started in a very traditional way of creating a bunch of useless folders, tags, structure that I didn't need. This is such a great video and I'm glad I caught it early.

[JanChec]

Update 2023-05: templates and tags are on by default, the sliding tabs are built-in now. You also need to disable the extra title to use the template from the video, otherwise you get basically 3 titles - one small on the tab, one extra and one from the template. Disable by: Menu (left bottom corner) > [Appearance] tab > toggle [Show inline title]. The safe mode toggle looks different now, there's more explanation there.

Looks like they've heard you Artem with these changes :) Thanks for the video! Just what I needed to start - couldn't wait to finish reading the
whole "How to Take Smart Notes", had to start using it! This video helped. A lot :) The "do not complicate things" force should be strong with us - almost everywhere I look the examples of, say, templates for Zettelkasten are so overcomplicated, bringing friction to the system. However, I still need to get those sweet gradient titles :) Then it'll be a direct upgrade from Nuclino that I've been using while gravitating towards something like Zettelkasten before even knowing it exists (where have you been all these years?).

There's one thing in this video that I can't handle as a programmer though: "Status:". That's a "Type:"! :) I've also added a type "question" as an experiment because keeping track of questions is essential for me (here "status: question" → "status: idea" would make sense though). So far I've been keeping them in my GTD system, but they belong here. Putting questions in titles requires to work around the limitation that "?" can't be a part of a title, but I wrote an AutoHotkey that inserts an almost identical, allowed character:

#IfWinActive ahk_exe Obsidian.exe
^+?::Send {U+FF1F} ; [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[?] → "？" (FULLWIDTH QUESTION MARK)
^!/::Send {U+3033} ; [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[/] → "〳" (VERTICAL KANA REPEAT MARK UPPER HALF)
^+;::Send {U+A789} ; [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[;] → "꞉" (MODIFIER LETTER COLON)
#IfWinActive

I've seen glimpses of extremely interesting insight in your notes. Any hope you'll publish some of it via Obsidian Publish? That would be helpful to others (the drawback is probably that it'll bring some friction to your writing unless you're comfortable with adding to/changing something that's public).

[luvinfunvan]

That is a pretty clever way of using Obsidian and a Zettlekasten. In particular the "ghost notes" concept and the iterative growth of an idea one keeps thinking about as well as using the Command Palette to create new notes. I had to watch this a couple of times to understand the power of your workflow. To anyone finding this video that may be as equally dismissive as I was, I encourage you to re-watch and possibly write your ideas about it down :) Thanks for sharing, peace.

[dylanbretzjr.]

This is by far the best video on setting up a Zettelkasten in Obsidian. Over a year ago, this was one of the first videos I watched. Since then, I must have watched every video on the topic. I still find this video to be the most useful—very practical setup and actionable advice.

I've gone through several (very different) "Second Brain" configurations, and the one I've settled on is essentially the same as this.

Don't waste time with other videos or setups. This is all you need.

[cocdcy]

Because I just went looking for it: The sliding panes plugin is now integrated into Obsidian by default. It's in the arrow menu in the top right, "stack tabs"
To open a new note while in the view, you can either right click and "open in new tab" or command + click

[MajorBatGuano]

Sincere Thanks to Artem Kirsanov for his exceptionally clear introduction to setting up Obsidian !

[aLarryHamilton]

You must turn on Templates under Core Plugins before you can specify Hotkeys for Templates. Took me a bit to figure out why I didn't have that option following the order it is presented in the video.

[greggggg]

Just amazing. I'm starting a university master and I wanted a solid yet simple method to organize my notes, summarize bibliography and link everything. Thank you so much for the clear explanation, I'll start using this system and I'm curious to know how it will look like in a few months.

[mbfun]

Wow this video helped me so much!

1. It helped me kick off the obsidian+zettel as I had a decision fatigue and didn't really know how to start. Your folder structure + simple template and plugin was awesome.
2. Before I would use #tags as Tags rather than the empty notes as you are using. This part really helped allot as tags in zettel and tags in obsidian carry different meanings, it just clicked.


After hearing about MOC here I look around for other videos on it, and I have to say that I like your approach where your MOCs are organic and happen as a consequence of your interests and ideas rather than other way around.

Thanks man, subbed.

[alexsausl]

Big thumbs up - concise and to the point. Just what I expected from a fellow bassist. ;-) Thank you so much - instead of watching a 4 hour course you gave me a great starting point to act now.

[sbonventure]

Really well done! I’ve watched many Obsidian Zettelkasten videos now. (Also an art of procrastination). The thing I really loved about how you structured your notes isn’t just the simplicity but the manner in which your structure implements the exact philosophy of the Zettelkasten system.

I just finished reading “How to Take Smart Notes” —- what you describe is exactly that system and it operates in a kind of automatic user proof system. What you’ve accomplished here is really quite something. I guess the only thing I would add to the presentation to make this structure work is the regular habit of reviewing the notes on a frequent basis to review ideas and look for links between ideas as mentioned in the book.

Speaking of reviewing notes, is that something that is part of your regular routine? If so, do have a method of reviewing notes and looking for links?

Your tip about using command O to create a note . . . Also genius. :)

Thanks a lot. Very Sincerely.

[MeriaDuck]

0:50 as a noob, I totally agree with how that comes across. I'll watch the rest of this 15 minute tutorial, instead of or at least before the 4 hour introductions I've seen in my YouTube search results.

[soulninjadev]

I think this is the best video to send someone who's starting out with obsidian and note taking

you go through everything and give enough fundamentals to start from!

incredible!

[injeolmi]

Artem, this is incredible. As soon as you mentioned the MOC it all made sense to me. I thought making individual folders would make my workflow easier, but in reality it made it more convoluted. Thank you lots. Cheers!

[gingeas]

What makes MOCs so powerful in Obsidian is you can also use the `aliases` feature to give your MOC multiple names so when you [[Link]] to it, you won't have to worry about accidentally creating duplicate tags (e.g., "Canines", "Dogs", "Canids")

[LawrenceCarriere]

Excellent! I'm the "completely lost, don't know where to start" guy who has spent a week bouncing between Obsidian and Logseq putzing around with plugins and themes instead of getting my system started. This video just popped up on my YouTube home page this morning and you may have just saved me! Doing this, I can just get started.