Obsidian Quick Start Guide (2024)

Summary

This tutorial introduces users to Obsidian, a powerful knowledge management tool. It covers the essentials of capturing, linking, and refactoring notes within the app. The video offers a free 5-day email course on personal knowledge management (PKM) to help beginners. The host guides viewers through creating a new vault, switching themes, and navigating the interface. Emphasis is placed on the importance of note-taking for idea processing and memory retention. The tutorial also demonstrates linking concepts within Obsidian and refactoring notes for better organization. A personal vault example illustrates how interconnected ideas can be visualized, encouraging a simple start and gradual system development tailored to individual needs.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Get started with Obsidian by mastering three key skills: capture, linking, and refactoring.
• 🎁 Receive a free 5-day email course on personal knowledge management (PKM) by signing up through the provided link.
• 💻 Obsidian's interface initially presents a Vault management screen, where you can create a new Vault for organizing your notes.
• 📁 Understand that Obsidian stores data as plain text files, which can be accessed and managed through your computer's file system.
• 🖊️ Capture notes by writing down your thoughts and ideas, which helps in processing and retaining information more effectively.
• 🔗 Linking in Obsidian is done by creating Wiki links within notes, which helps in connecting related concepts and ideas.
• 🔄 Refactoring in Obsidian involves reorganizing and rewriting notes to improve their structure and clarity.
• 📓 Use the command palette (Control/Command + P) to access commands quickly and to discover keyboard shortcuts within the app.
• 📚 As your Vault grows, start thinking about organizing your notes, perhaps by introducing folders, tags, or other systems that suit your workflow.
• 🌐 Explore the graph view in Obsidian to visualize the connections between your notes, which can help in understanding the relationships between different ideas.
• 📈 Join the free PKM Kickstart email course for deeper insights into taking high-quality notes and managing your personal knowledge effectively.

Q & A

What are the three key concepts introduced for getting started with Obsidian?

The three key concepts introduced for getting started with Obsidian are capture, linking, and refactor.

What is a Vault in Obsidian and how is it created?

A Vault in Obsidian is a collection of notes and folders that are stored locally on your computer. It is created by clicking 'create' in the Vault management screen, naming the Vault, browsing to select a location on your computer, and then selecting 'create'.

How can you change the theme from dark mode to light mode in Obsidian?

You can change the theme from dark mode to light mode in Obsidian by using the command pallet (Control P or Command P on Mac), typing 'light mode', and hitting enter.

What is the purpose of the command pallet in Obsidian?

The command pallet in Obsidian is a quick way to access any command within the app and also serves as a keyboard shortcut reference guide.

How are notes created in Obsidian?

Notes in Obsidian are created by going to the upper left-hand corner, using the command pallet, or pressing Control N or Command N to create a new note titled 'Untitled'.

What is the significance of the graph view in Obsidian?

The graph view in Obsidian shows the connections between different notes, helping users visualize the relationships and navigate through their knowledge base.

How do you create a link to another note in Obsidian?

In Obsidian, you create a link to another note by highlighting the text, pressing the left bracket key twice to create a Wiki link, and then typing the name of the note you want to link to.

What does refactoring mean in the context of Obsidian?

Refactoring in Obsidian refers to the process of rewriting and restructuring notes to better organize and connect related ideas and information.

How can you extract a section of a note to create a new note in Obsidian?

You can extract a section of a note to create a new note in Obsidian by highlighting the text, right-clicking, and selecting 'extract current selection', then choosing to merge it into an existing note or creating a new note.

What advice does the presenter give for organizing notes in Obsidian as a beginner?

The presenter advises beginners to start simple, not to over-engineer the organization, and to begin with capturing and linking notes. Once there are a significant number of notes, then consider how to organize them with folders, tags, or other systems.

Outlines

00:00

📘 Getting Started with Obsidian

The speaker introduces three fundamental concepts for using Obsidian: capture, linking, and refactor. They offer a free 5-day email course to help users understand personal knowledge management (PKM) and how to take effective notes. The tutorial begins by guiding users through creating a new vault in Obsidian, choosing a location for the vault on their computer, and transforming the interface from dark mode to light mode using the command palette. The command palette is highlighted as a quick access tool for commands and a reference guide for keyboard shortcuts. The video then demonstrates how Obsidian uses plain text files, with a live preview editor that interprets markdown syntax for formatting and linking.

05:01

🔗 Linking and Refactoring in Obsidian

The speaker explains the process of capturing thoughts in Obsidian by creating a new note called 'scratchPad' and journaling personal thoughts and learnings. They emphasize the importance of writing in one's own words to aid in processing and retaining information. The tutorial then moves on to linking, where the speaker shows how to create wiki links within the text by highlighting phrases and using the left bracket shortcut. They also discuss the difference between created and uncreated links in the graph view. Refactoring is introduced as the next step, which involves restructuring notes to better organize information. The speaker demonstrates how to use the 'extract current selection' feature to create new notes from existing content, thus refining the organization and structure of the notes within Obsidian.

10:05

🌐 Exploring a Developed Obsidian Vault

The speaker shares insights into their personal Obsidian vault, showcasing the graph view with numerous interconnected notes. They discuss the use of the local graph view to explore direct and indirect connections between notes, which aids in the process of refactoring and understanding the context of ideas. The video concludes with advice on starting simple with Obsidian, capturing and linking notes initially, and then refactoring as the number of notes grows. The speaker encourages viewers to join the free PKM email course for further guidance on taking high-quality notes and effectively using Obsidian. The tutorial ends with a call to action to stay effective and a thank you note to the viewers.

Keywords

💡Obsidian

Obsidian is a note-taking and knowledge management software that allows users to create, link, and organize notes in a non-linear, visual manner. In the video, it is the central tool being discussed for personal knowledge management, with features like live preview, graph view, and the ability to work with plain text files directly in the file system.

💡Capture

Capture refers to the process of jotting down thoughts, ideas, or information as they come to mind or as they are encountered during reading or other activities. In the context of the video, capture is the first step in using Obsidian effectively, where the presenter demonstrates how to create a new note and brain dump thoughts into it.

💡Linking

Linking is the act of creating connections between different notes within Obsidian, which helps in establishing relationships and context among ideas. The video emphasizes linking as a crucial skill, showing how to create Wiki links within notes to connect concepts and build a knowledge network.

💡Refactoring

Refactoring, borrowed from programming, means to restructure and rewrite content for better organization and clarity. In the video, refactoring is the third step in the Obsidian workflow, where the presenter shows how to extract and reorganize information from a note into new, more focused notes to maintain clarity as the knowledge base grows.

💡Vault

A Vault in Obsidian is a collection of notes organized into a single folder. It serves as the primary workspace where users can create and manage their notes. The video script describes creating a new Vault, naming it, and how it initially contains a welcome note and appears in dark mode.

💡Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language used to format plain text. In the video, Markdown is used to format notes within Obsidian, with examples given for creating italicized text, links, and external hyperlinks, showcasing how Obsidian's live preview editor makes it easy to work with Markdown.

💡Graph View

Graph View in Obsidian is a visual representation of the connections between notes, showing the network of ideas and relationships. The video discusses how the graph view evolves as notes are created and linked, providing a powerful way to visualize the structure of one's knowledge base.

💡Command Palette

The Command Palette in Obsidian is a quick access tool that allows users to execute commands, create new notes, and search for existing ones. The video mentions using the Command Palette to switch the app's theme from dark mode to light mode, highlighting its utility for both new users and those looking to master keyboard shortcuts.

💡Live Preview Editor

Obsidian's Live Preview Editor is a feature that allows users to see the rendered version of their Markdown notes in real-time. The script describes how this editor hides the Markdown syntax when viewing notes, providing a clean, distraction-free reading experience, while still allowing for easy editing.

💡PKM (Personal Knowledge Management)

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) refers to the practices of organizing and maintaining information relevant to one's personal interests or work. The video offers a free email course on PKM, positioning Obsidian as a tool for effective PKM by helping users take high-quality notes and build a structured knowledge base.

💡Scratch Pad

In the video, a Scratch Pad note is used as a temporary space for brainstorming and capturing various thoughts and ideas. It illustrates the concept of free-form note-taking in Obsidian, where users can dump their thoughts before organizing and refactoring them into a more structured format.

Highlights

Introduction to the three key concepts in Obsidian: capture, linking, and refactor.

Offer of a free 5-day email course on personal knowledge management (PKM).

Explanation of creating a new Vault in Obsidian and its initial setup.

Demonstration of changing the theme from dark mode to light mode using the command palette.

Overview of Obsidian's file system and the live preview editor for markdown files.

Guidance on creating a new note and the importance of capturing thoughts and ideas.

Discussion on the effectiveness of personal thought processing versus quotational notes.

Tutorial on creating links within Obsidian to connect related notes.

Explanation of the difference between created and uncreated links in the graph view.

Introduction to the concept of refactoring in Obsidian, borrowed from programming.

Walkthrough of the 'extracting a note' feature for easy refactoring of notes.

Illustration of how linking and refactoring help in understanding the connections between ideas.

Tour of a personal Obsidian Vault showcasing advanced note organization and graph views.

Description of the local graph view and its utility for contextualizing notes within a Vault.

Advice on starting simple with Obsidian and gradually organizing notes as the Vault grows.

Encouragement to join the PKM Kickstart email course for deeper insights into high-quality note-taking.

Transcripts

if you're looking to get started with

obsidian today there are three things

you need to know capture linking and

refactor we're going to dive into

obsidian to teach you just how to do

that now before we dive in I want to

offer you a free gift it can be really

difficult to get started and understand

what PKM or personal Knowledge

Management is how to take high quality

notes I've created a free resource for

you to get you started on that through a

5day email course all you have to do is

sign up for the link down below it is

completely free and I would love to have

you join us so this is what you

typically see when you open obsidian for

the first time you get this Vault

management screen I'm going to click

create to create a new Vault I'm going

to name mine effective and then I'm

going to hit browse browse is going to

tell obsidian where to create your Vault

on your computer file system I typically

create a vaults folder under the

documents folder on my computer just

because I use a obsidian sync to sync my

folders but if you want to use dropbox

or iCloud then go to those folders on

your computer to create that Vault there

I'm just going to hit select folder and

then hit create so this is what happens

when you first create a vault you get a

vault typically in dark mode you get a

welcome note and that's really about it

the first thing we're going to do just

for the purpose of this video is

transform this from dark mode to light

mode using the command pallet I'm going

to hit control P or command P if you're

on Mac and I'm I'm going to type light

mode and hit enter the command pallet is

a quick way that you can access just

about any command inside of obsidian and

it also serves as a keyboard shortcut

reference guide if you're looking to

learn keyboard shortcuts within the app

as well too it's really quite handy so

this is your Vault that you get you get

a welcome note and a graph view when you

first open this up the nice part about

obsidian is that it's all plain text

files in the file system so if I open up

my files here and I go to documents and

Vault my effective Vault you can see the

welcome note here is a MD file that's

markdown you don't see the markdown here

because obsidian has what's called a

live preview editor so if I click on

vault right at the beginning here you

can see that there's two asterisks

surrounding this word and that makes it

italicized you can see that there's

links over here and now if I move my

cursor in where that link is is you can

see that it's surrounded by two brackets

or what we would call a Wiki link uh you

can also add external links here like

this one is just a markdown link you can

look that up online or go to the

tutorial that we have on the channel up

here in the corner about uh how to use

markdown inside of obsidian as a quick

primer but we need to get started before

we can really take advantage of the

powerful tools inside of obsidian we

need to get started actually capturing

notes so to do that you've got to create

a new note note to create a new note you

can go up here in the upper left hand

corner you can use the command pallet or

you can just hit control or command n

which gives you a note automatically

titled Untitled I'm just going to call

this scratch

Pad because I'm just going to brain dump

a bunch of things that I've been

thinking about and learning about lately

and then we'll try to figure out where

it goes from there

okay so I've journaled some thoughts in

here about things that I've been

thinking about things that I've been

learning about this is really the

essence of capture in obsidian just

write down what you're thinking about if

you're reading something write down what

you're thinking about what you're

reading pop a link in here so you can go

back to the article online same thing if

you're watching a YouTube video

listening to a podcast or reading a book

frankly I'm not a big fan of taking

quotational notes inside of obsidian

though I do use readwise reader to get

those in here uh solely for the reason

that I find when I take notes on

something and I'm thinking about it in

my own thoughts it helps me process

through that idea so it sticks better

and frankly it just allows me to

remember the context of why that thing

mattered to me in the first place

whereas if I just clip a highlight or

clip a quote from a book or write down

an idea that was shared sh in a in an

video for

example it doesn't resonate with me as

well later on it might not be as helpful

to me so the next skill after capture is

linking how do we start linking inside

of obsidian you can see that we've got a

couple of links over here in our graph

view but they're not really all that

connected I'm going to highlight a

couple of phrases in here that I know

I'm going to want to come back to so I'm

going to highlight personal operations

and I'm going to hit the left bracket

twice and that creates a wik link I'm

going to do the same thing for

productivity personal Knowledge

Management and time

management there's the bullet Journal

method which is another topic area um

obsidian is something as

well and

notion there's also this idea here of an

unstructured knowledge management tool

so maybe that's a topic that I want to

revisit and expand into in the future

now you can see over here in the graph

view that all of these links have been

created even though there are not notes

there one thing to remember when you

create links is that it doesn't

automatically create the note for you

you have to click on that so I'm going

to click on the bullet Journal method to

create that note you can see that it's

blank it automatically creates it with

the title and if I come back to the

scratchpad note uh you can see that the

link is now uh more bold and color it's

a darker purple uh instead of a light

purple the light colored links are ones

that are not created the dark ones are

the ones that

exist so in the bullet Journal method uh

you know I've got this information here

um I'm wondering if I need a refresher

on it I'm actually what we're moving

into now is step three which is

refactoring refactoring is a word that t

is taken from programming which means

basically to rewrite and

restructure and so we start off with a

note where we don't really know where

everything

belongs um we have a lot of different

ideas here we're talking about personal

operations uh bullet Journal method

different types of tools that I'm

considering in my workflow this also is

the buold journal method up here is one

that I'm considering for my workflow as

well and so we have to start thinking

through how do we refactor these notes

there's a feature inside of obsidian

that makes this really easy and it's

called extracting a note so I'm going to

highlight all this about personal

operations and I am going to ex right

click and hit extract current selection

this is going to allow me to pick a note

to merge it into or I can start typing a

new note name and add it to a new note

so I'm just going to put this as

personal operations so I have that one

now you can

see creates a link it's created a file

over here it's created a link to that

file I'm going to control click on that

to open it in a new tab and now you can

see that I have personal operations here

I'm going to just refactor this and say

definition it's related to productivity

personal Knowledge Management and time

management if I can spell that would be

really helpful uh and so I'm going to go

back to the scratch pad and I'm going to

do the same thing here for these

noes and I'm going to use the command

pet to get to it this time extract

current selection I'm going to U look at

this saying uh current productivity

workflow

system

thinking enter to create that one and

now you can see that I have links

here and then all that content is now in

this note now you can see the graph has

changed over here um you can see that

personal operations is connected to the

scratch pad and those other uncreated

notes the scratch Pad is connected to

those two notes and same thing with

current productivity systems thinking

this is the beauty of obsidian is that

you can start to put content in here and

as you start linking it and refactoring

it you get the capability to start

seeing how these different ideas are

connected together what I would love to

do next is show you my personal Vault so

you can get a sense of what a more

developed Vault can look like in terms

of how ideas are connected all right so

this is my personal Vault over here I'm

not going to do too deep of a walkr but

I want to show you the graph

view this is how insane the graph view

can get inside of obsidian now you can

see that I have a lot of notes over here

because some of them are from an old

import I don't want orphans on here at

all so I'm going to just turn that off

there's lots of little connections out

here but this in the center is mostly my

main graph you can see there's a course

that I took that's deeply connected

there is a couple of books like um time

off which was one productivity is a big

topic that I have linked um I've got a

couple journaling items in here I've got

training for my scrum Master

certification Community now one thing to

note here is that I don't spend a lot of

time in the graph view usually what I do

is I will spend time in notes but I'll

use What's called the local graph view

to start seeing some of those

connections and I'll show you that real

quick so in order to get into a note you

can hit command o and just open a note

that way I'm going to look for my the

marketing seminar

note and then this was a course that I

took on marketing a couple of years ago

in order to open the local graph view

I'm going to open open up the side Pane

and then I'm going to uh click on these

three dots and then I'm going to say

open linked view which is the local

graph this opens in in a tab over here

what I like to do to make this open all

the time is just drag it over here into

this side paint and now I have access to

it I'm going to pull it back just for

visibility purposes but you can see that

on this graph it's connected to every

single note now it's only a dep of one

so it's the direct links here but what I

like to do is just to put it up to depth

of two so I can start to see where is

this actually contextualized within my

Vault and what this allows me to do in

process is when I'm coming through and

refactoring notes or I'm working on an

idea I can come back in and see oh

there's actually a lot of connection

here with the word empathy marketing is

very heavily related to that or maybe I

want to just kind of do a journaling

review and I can see that this was a

heavy Focus for me in my 2022 annual

review now all this to say is that once

you get started in obsidian the the

biggest thing to remember is just to

start simple don't try to over engineer

it don't try to organize it too heavily

start with just the notes that you have

and then once you get 50 or 100 notes in

there uh outside of the root in the root

of your Vault then start to figure out

how do I I organize this do I add in

some folders do I need to put in some

tags do I do some other stuff with it to

make it make more sense for me there's a

hundred different organization systems

out there that you can use but more

likely than not you're going to find

something that is uh either a mishmash

of those or something you've discovered

all on your own that's relevant to you

to make the system work for you so

that's my best advice is just to start

small like we are today start capturing

start linking and then refactoring once

there's too much stuff in a note for it

to make sense anymore I hope this was

helpful for a walkthrough for you and if

you want to go a little bit deeper in

how to get started in taking high

quality notes join the free PKM

Kickstart email course in the link below

my name is Justin with effective thank

you so much for watching and until next

time stay effective