[Obsidian Help Page](https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian/Index) [Obsidian Forums](https://forum.obsidian.md/) [LYT Kit](https://notes.linkingyourthinking.com/LYT+Kit) # Influencers [@FromSergio](https://www.youtube.com/@FromSergio) [@Marco_Milestone](https://www.youtube.com/@Marco_Mindstone) [@BryanJens](https://www.youtube.com/@BryanJenks) [@Nicolevdh](https://www.youtube.com/@nicolevdh) [@Peepnbrick - Chris Pomeroy](https://www.youtube.com/@Peepnbrick) [linkingYourThinking](https://m.youtube.com/@linkingyourthinking/playlists) # Philosophy ## Each vault is a universe Lumping, rather than splitting, vaults will promote serendipity. Use properties to group content, visualize related content in the graph and search for broad content areas. ## Folders Folders are useful for adding context to a note for linking. For example, all programming languages ## Notes are atomic thoughts Each note should represent one, irreducible thought. This will simplify the linking of thoughts. While individual blocks (e.g., headers or paragraphs) can be linked, this should be restricted to specific applications, such as linking passages from articles. Use the community library Note Refactor to help refactor notes. ## Notes link to other notes Note links are specified by a `[[ ]]` notation and allow you to link between two related notes. Try to include the link in context (in-line as text in a sentence) rather than a list of "related notes" at the end of a note. To change the display text of a note, use a `|` within the bracket after the note title. You can create a new note directly when writing a note using the above notation and even come back to it later. You can access both backlinks and outgoing links through the command palette. ## Properties are for file organization Instead of folders, use properties to store relationships between notes that are not wiki-style links. I use a "topic" property to store the broad topic area (akin to a level one folder) and "parent" property to track the most related note one level up (akin to organizing notes into nested subfolders). Properties are stored in YAML front matter, between two `---` as key: value pairs. I prefer to use the properties pane in the right sidebar and hide the properties in preview mode. ## Title notes descriptively Use natural language for the note title to make it easier to recall note contents and include in linked notes. Name a note title like you would a method in an API. You should know what the note is about without having to go into the note itself. Note that internal links are not case-sensitive, however if you change the capitalization of a note title it will change the capitalization of any backlinks. ## Use tags sparingly Tags should be used sparingly and precisely. Avoid creating similar tags for the same idea (e.g., "tag" and "tags"). Tags represent "soft links" between notes, acting like an umbrella for grouping similar content. ## Minimize sub-structure Instead of nested subfolders, use Maps of Content networks for structure. Search is faster and more flexible than taxonomy. The `dataview` plugin can be combined with properties to list related files. ## Minimize maintenance The purpose of Obsidian is to allow you to quickly capture ideas with as little overhead possible. I also don't want to set up a system that requires constant maintenance. Whenever implementing a new pattern, consider the amount of time it will take to maintain. For instance, I use `dataview` (a community plugin) and the "up" property to automate the maintenance of Maps of Content as opposed to require their constant updating. ## Assets You can drag and drop content such as images and downloaded YouTube videos into a note; these are attachments. Store all attachments in a created folder called `assets/`. Specify this folder in Settings >Files & Links. Alternatively, set up cloud storage to host your assets with [[ShareX]]. # Sync Sync Plus is provided by Obsidian for $8 per month to keep your vaults synced across devices and on your phone ($4 per month for only one vault). It's well worth the cost if you've fully adopted Obsidian as your notetaking app; and the only option that fully integrates on mobile. Sync has the added bonus of saving note version history. Alternatively, a community plugin is available to sync notes to a GitHub repo, which can then be pulled down on a new device. This alternative will not provide access to notes on mobile, of course. The benefit to git, as opposed to sync, is that you can more easily support multiple collaborators for a single vault. Because a vault is just a folder, you could use any cloud storage platform to store your vault and open it from any computer that has access to that cloud. This would allow you to share a vault with multiple collaborators, however you will be subject to however the cloud platform handles conflicts (unlike git). # Publish Publish your notes for $10 per month using Obsidian Publish to share your brain with others. Look at you, you smart little thing. # Awesome Features ## Sharing settings All settings, themes, and plugins are stored in the .obsidian folder under your vault. If you copy this folder from one vault to another, all the settings will be transferred as well. ## Graph View The distinct advantage of Obsidian is that it has in-app viewing of a graph of related notes. Use Graph View to discover related content. It's also a powerful tool to keep your vault structured. Open the control palette (`Ctrl + P`) and type "local graph" to turn on a local graph for each note. You can drag this into the sidebar to keep it open. ## Rendering HTML Markdown is intended to work hand-in-hand with HTML. This means you can customize your Obsidian using CSS. You can also use raw HTML to create new elements. You can embed hosted content, including images. You can even embed IFrames. When the page is rendered (Ctrl + E), you will have a live view of the embedded content right in your notes. ## Mermaid You can construct a flow diagram easily using [Mermaid](https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/). Show the code for the below example. Mermaid supports all kinds of diagrams, including flowcharts, Gantt charts, ERDs, and User Journeys. ```mermaid graph TD %% Top Node id1(Incoming Media) %% Media Sources id1.1(Feedly) id1.2(YouTube) id1.3(Pocket Casts) id1.4(Google Play Books) %% Types Of Media id2.1(Web Articles) id2.2(Books) id2.3(Videos) id2.4(Courses) id1 --> id1.1 & id1.2 & id1.3 & id1.4 id1.1 -- To Read --> id2.1 id1.2 -- To Be Reviewed --> id2.2 id1.3 -- To Be Processed --> id2.3 id1.4 --> id2.1 ``` Test ideas with the live editor at https://mermaid-js.github.io/. ## Embedding Notes (Transclusion) You can embed a note (rather than just the link) by prepending `!` to the `[[ ]]` link. This is called "Transclusion", and the options for how this appears in the note can be configured with the Style Settings community plugin. ## Note Preview Hold Ctrl + E to preview a note when not in reading mode. ## Command Palette Get used to using `Ctrl + P` to open the control palette. ## Quick Switcher Use `Ctrl + O` to quickly find an existing note. ## Search Obsidian search is very powerful. You can search by title, content or tags, properties, etc. ## Bookmarks New to Obsidian, bookmarks let you save notes for quick access. You could bookmark the home page, for instance, or the text of a common graph search you use. ## Hot Keys Take the time to set up hotkeys that work for you. This will make your experience all that much better. Use the Hotkeys++ community plug in for additional options. ## Templates Store new templates in the Templates folder (you can change this in settings). A template is just a note, and you can apply it to an existing note to insert content or to a blank note to get a starting point for a common note type. I use templates to apply properties as I'm refactoring notes. ## Footnotes Obsidian supports footnotes, but you need to be in reading mode to render them correctly. [^1] [^1]: [Obsidian Help Footnotes](https://help.obsidian.md/Editing+and+formatting/Basic+formatting+syntax#Footnotes) # Plugins and Themes ## Minimalist [Minimalist](https://minimal.guide/home) is a fully featured and well documented theme developed by the now CEO of Obsidian. It provides access to useful css classes like cards for applying to dataview results. Combine with Minimal Theme Settings and Style Settings community plugins for control over many aspects of the appearance of the vault. I adjusted the - color scheme - transclusion settings. Baseline is what I use now. ## Quick Add Quick add is a community plugin that allows you to quickly add notes, but more importantly, run JavaScript right in your vault to do things as simple as reposition the cursor to as complex as query the IMDB API and populate a movie database whenever you create a note. # Related Tools Use tools that integrate with Obsidian to capture everything in one place. - Check out [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/) (free) for research annotation that can be easily converted to markdown. Here's how to [[Zotero]]. - Memex: use for grabbing any online content, but is especially helpful for grabbing timestamps in YouTube videos. - [[ToDoist]]: task management - [[Readwise Reader]]: online extraction - [[Obsidian web clipper]]: a Chrome extension that allows you to clip content from the web to a "Chrome Clippings" note in Obsidian for future processing. # Workflow Use Obsidian however it works best, but this is what works for me. There are five types of notes in my workflow: 1. **Fleeting notes**: to dos, drafts, thoughts and other content that will get destroyed after some time. I don't use Obsidian for this, I use other apps like ToDoist and Notes on my phone. 2. **Capture notes**: my capture of other people's thoughts (e.g., book highlights). 4. **Review notes**: synthesis of capture notes. These are often referred to as "literature notes" in a Zettelkasten system. 5. **Atomic notes**: the core of Obsidian, these are original ideas in my words, structured as atomic notes 6. **Publish notes**: aggregations of atomic notes that are worthy of publishing, such as how-tos and tutorials. I tend to take notes on a new topic as long-form. For instance, if I'm taking a statistics course, all of the content for that course will likely end up in one note. For work, all of my notes are in one long document. Once I have captured my notes, I use Note Refactor (a community plugin) to "explode" the long-form note to its atomic components. It's important that I use H1 headers for each atomic idea to make this easier (although be warned, Note Refactor seems to not be able to handle code comments which also start with "# "!). Before refactoring, I move all related content together and do my best to reduce redundancy. Once I'm ready to refactor, I update the Base template with the name of the current note as parent and topic area as topic. Then, I use Note Refactor to pull the note into it's own note (moving the header to the note title) with `Ctrl + Shift + N`. I apply the template with `Alt + Shift + T`. Then I close the note with `Ctrl + Shift + W`. If a chunk of content should be pulled into it's own sub-parent, I do that. Then I repeat the process to each atomic thought or content chunk. Next, I return to any content chunks and recursively apply this process until all notes are atomic. What's left in my note is the link to the notes that were refactored. These are helpful for working back through content chunks, but ultimately I want to replace these with dataview queries so I can add new notes without updating this parent note. In the parent note, I add back the H1 for the content area, transclude the definitional note for the content area, and use a dataview to return all notes where the parent is the content area. It looks like this: ```markdown # Combinatorics ![[combinatorics]] dataview // add three backticks around dataview queries TABLE WHERE parent = [[combinatorics]] ``` At the bottom of the page, I use a `dataviewjs` query to list any notes that are tagged to this parent but for which there is no header 1 content area for them. ```javascript // add three backticks around dataview queries dataviewjs const currentFilePath = dv.current().file.path; dv.io.load(currentFilePath).then(content => { const headers = content .split('\n') .filter(line => line.trim().startsWith('# ')) .map(header => header.trim().toLowerCase()); dv.list( dv.pages() .where(page => { const parentStringLower = String(page.parent).toLowerCase(); const currentNoteLinkLower = String(dv.current().file.link).toLowerCase(); const pageTitleLowerText = page.file.name.toLowerCase(); const isTitleInHeaders = headers.some(header => header.includes(pageTitleLowerText)); return parentStringLower === currentNoteLinkLower && !isTitleInHeaders; }) .map(page => page.file.link) ); }); ``` # Homepage I use a [[🌎 home]] as my homepage to help me find content more quickly as well as manage my vault. Content I have in my home page include: - heatmap of notes created per day - list of topics - list of child notes connected directly to the home page