How I Use Obsidian as a Grad Student | Note-Taking, Organization & Workflow

This video is all about how I use the knowledge hub and note-taking software Obsidian as a PhD student working on my dissertation. It covers some basics for setting up your Obsidian, ways to set up and organize your notes, and making connections between notes. I also show you some of my workflow, and touch on using Obsidian for making connections between primary and secondary research.

Thanks for watching, and let me know if you have any questions, or any suggestions for how you take and organize your notes! :)

Time Stamps
00:00 Intro
02:22 Starting out with Obsidian
03:18 Adding & Organizing Folders
04:55 Creating Notes
05:44 Structuring Notes & Using Callouts
08:13 Highlighting Information & Organizing by Theme
08:54 Making Connections Between Notes
11:42 Dissertation Brainstorming & Workflow
15:33 Other Ways of Using Obsidian for Note-Taking
17:15 Outro

Helpful videos from @morganeua :

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#obsidian #notetaking #graduatestudent

[em.josephine]

I’m preparing for my qualifying exams while also struggling with what I now know is ADHD and I ran across your earlier video on notetaking, which was super helpful. So I was really happy to see this walkthrough because the timing couldn’t be better! It also makes me feel less alone knowing there are others like me struggling through their PhD with adhd. Thank you for sharing your journey!

[naokoken]

I immediately noticed a copy of Duerr's "Dreamtime - Concerning the Boundary between Wilderness and Civilization." So awesome!

[duaa]

Great video! Very informative and impressive clean note structure!

[kaylasarchive]

Thank you for this walkthrough! I am about to start my second year in my PhD and have been struggling to find a good notetaking system. Obsidian looks great! I am going to give it a go for this term 😊

[ruebennomura]

Morning from Hawaii I just watch your video amazing work you are my favorite

[vanilla]

Not sure how I missed this video of yours until now :) I was just wondering if you could share your "Highlighting Information & Organizing by Theme" - I'm in humanities, so seeing how others view themes I find super helpful to adjust my own :) thank you!!!

[arthurorir]

I love the way you use the highlighter plugin! I've never seen someone using it like that, to better manage the topics on the text instead of the type of text. That said, why don't you change the highlights names? I think it would make it easier to know which color to use when highlighting something.

[halimabensaid]

This is amazing and so useful!! I love the way you break down your notes with the callouts, and can visualize everything and I think I'll give it a try your way. My notes are such a disaster 🥲🥲 Out of curiosity, do you have an Obsidian subscription? the main criticism (from Redditor's) is that you can't sync it across devices without subscribing and that the linking is a bit excessive (Frankly, kind of like the Zettelkasten method you mentioned). I'm not sure if it's needed. Can you share your opinion?

[PavanDadlani.MD.]

Just curious… what does the skeptical witch folder contain😅?..

[different-ai]

really solid system you have for organizing your vault. I've also thought a lot about the best approaches to do it.

i'm working on an obsidian plugin that helps users stay organized and get the most out of their notes with ai.

we have over 1k users and are growing, but the product is still a bit rough around the edges (especially our automatic organization features).

you seem to have your vault organization really figured out. so i was wondering if you'd be open to trying it out?

would be happy to send a free license.