Obsidian for Students (early, longer)
Added 2025-09-15 17:44:21 +0000 UTCThis video is WAY too long! I'll cut about a third out before publicly releasing it, but it's all good stuff, so please enjoy!
The full zip of the vault is available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/138962694
What do you think, folks?
(Next video coming in less than a month, right after EuroRust, and will be my version of my talk, Misusing Const for Fn and Profit!)
Thank you so much for your support <3
Tris
Footnotes
1 https://youtu.be/XUZ9VATeF_4
2 https://www.youtube.com/@MikeSchmitz
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0cKq2-PMxA - Also, do buy the track here: https://johncallaghan.bandcamp.com/track/let-the-path-grow-over
4 https://youtu.be/sqm4-B07LsE
5 https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-shortcuts-for-starred-files
6 https://github.com/jsmorabito/obsidian-workspaces-plus
7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I
8 https://medium.com/@bre/the-cult-of-done-manifesto-724ca1c2ff13
9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH84CsBViOs
10 https://gist.github.com/0atman/29daa5676a39388006e6c2e73e60f479
Comments
Any update on when we will get to see part 2?
Christoph Hock
2025-11-19 22:33:43 +0000 UTCGreat question! You can find a lot of discussion on youtube and elsewhere on this topic under "zettelkasten for fiction", but for me, it's exactly the same workflow: I read fiction books (I'm going through all of Diskworld at the moment) in the same way I read non-fiction - by highlighting passages that grab my attention. These go into my highlights (I use and recommend Readwise to do this), and get processed into atomic notes just the same. Atomic notes built from fiction contain WHY I was impressed by the sentence, such as "The cognitive dissonance between what the reader knows and what the narrator knows must be used with care, to avoid putting to much of a wedge between both". I imagine this digesting of art into ideas could work for any discipline!
No Boilerplate
2025-11-13 09:26:41 +0000 UTCI understand how you use this very cool system to work on projects research etc but how do you use it for your creative work?
Times
2025-11-10 21:37:23 +0000 UTCThank you so much! Other vim plulgins I love in obsidian: Improved VimCursor Vim Yank Highlight Vimium Vimrc Support Lecture notes, I'd treat them as a kind of Literature note: 1. Fleeting notes are information from your own brain that might be processed into Atomic notes 2. Literature notes are information from other people's brains that might be processed into Atomic Notes. Clearly they're in group (2). I use and love Day Planner for my calendar and today's tasks, it's very, very cool. If you read through your uni library website, you might be able to use the Readwise browser extension? If not, the guilt you should have about pirating books you already have legal access to should be zero. Upload the pdfs to readwise reader! If you read on your boox (as I do), you can install Readwise Reader! Readwise is SO much better than any other method I tried, I recommend trying everything to move your life around it
No Boilerplate
2025-11-05 14:48:31 +0000 UTCApologies that I didn't make it clear. Let me try to fix that: Fleeting notes are information from your own brain that might be processed into Atomic notes Literature notes are information from other people's brains that might be processed into Atomic Notes. I would tag both lecture notes and literature notes (highlights from books) as #literature, because their function in the system is the same: information from other people's brains that might be processed into Atomic Notes. (you may decide to tag them as #literature/lecture, if you choose, that seems good, as you can still search for all your un-filed #literature notes, no matter what form they are in. You still have a big list of information to process)
No Boilerplate
2025-11-05 14:43:02 +0000 UTCThe video discusses three types of input notes, but the system diagram and name (Fleeting, Literature, Atomic, Projects) imply just two (fleeting and literature). Are the examples of lecture notes and literature notes both to be filed under literature or should they have their own tags? If they have their own tags, what should I do about sources like youtube tutorials? Do they get their own tag as well or do i file them under a combination of lecture and literature? I assume it's all the same you pick and choose from external sources into a note of that source but the explicit examples are throwing me off.
Elias
2025-11-04 08:10:46 +0000 UTCThis might be the most helpful productivity content I've seen for years! I have the big ADHD and I've been consuming self help stuff for a while knowing that most of it doesn't help - but what can I do? I need to find a way to manage myself somehow. A couple of big insights for me from your channel: Writing = thinking, and obsidian = good. Having a frictionless setup to just sit down and write for the last couple of weeks has been way better for organising my thoughts than the complicated automated to do list I have been using, which I think mostly just made me feel bad. Markdown is incredibly simple and tidy, and I am tired of losing all my notes every couple years when I switch apps. And all the functionality of linking searching is exciting - this is what convinced me to give up on my commitment to handwritten notes being better. I've also realised that typing is faster, so thinking is easier. I even have started using vim motions - and I have nothing to do with coding (though I'm starting to tinker with my tech more). But I do a bit of writing and a lot of thinking in my work and my study - and vim should be helpful for that when I get good. Plus speed is fun, and mice are annoying interruptions. I wonder if there would be a better vim setup or alternative purely for writing not coding? Eg. I've already bound j to gj for screen lines in obsidian etc. Do you have other suggestions for vim and other setup things for writers and thinkers as opposed to coders? Maybe in your next couple obsidian vids... Anyway all this is a fun hyperfixation for me right now, and I've spent more time lately setting up my obsidian and making it pretty than actually using the tool on the work I want to get done. This is often the way for me with productivity advice - it's the best way to feel productive without being productive. But I have also already found it helpful for my work and study. When is the next obsidian video? I'm really keen to work out the best way to do my lecture notes. I'm also curious how you manage your to do lists and calendar and inboxes, because I'm currently frustrated with my setup for those things. Also Readwise doesn't seem like it'll quite work for me, I read a lot of books through my uni library website and Perlego (which is like a subscription library for academic texts) so can't import into readwise. Also I read on my boox e-ink. Is there another lightweight way you know to capture highlights into obsidian? Eg. By scanning with phone camera and text recognition? Love your work man
Tobytobytoby
2025-10-29 22:28:51 +0000 UTCThree things here. 1. Apologies, 'Vimrc Plugins' should be called "Vimrc Support'. All the other plugins are ones I use every day. 2. Indeed, Vimium is imperfect, but it does work if you are in insert mode, or if the focus is not on the editor. I have a fix that I didn't mention this in the video: the Jump To Link plugin, which I bound fo F with exmap jumplink obcommand mrj-jump-to-link:activate-jump-to-link nmap f :jumplink in my obsidian vimrc! 3. This video explains 1/3rd of the vault, the capture process and ethos. I'd be delighted to explain more, and the next video explains the Process part, then the last video explains the Write part :-D
No Boilerplate
2025-09-22 17:06:04 +0000 UTCVimium seems to be broken when using together with the built in vim mode (i set a hotkey for the marks but they don't work https://github.com/karstenpedersen/obsidian-vimium/issues/13), some of the other plugins mentioned here regarding vim seem to either be archived or none existent. I was hoping for a more in depth explanation on how to use the vault template as its a bit overwhelming for someone who never used obsidian before.
squishy
2025-09-21 15:52:54 +0000 UTCThank so much! Oh, the bookmarks hack is easy - open ./obsidian/bookmarks.json in a text file and hand-edit it! I first bookmarked a web site using the obsidian browser, then sniffed around in that file and changed the URL to an obsidian:// one! I indeed tried Harper out when it first came out, and it seems off to a good start, but it's not comprehensive enough for me. I don't just use tools because they're written in my favourite language or seem faster. Of COURSE harper is faster, it's much worse: Here's an important quote from the readme: "Not only does it take milliseconds to lint a document, take less than 1/50th of LanguageTool's memory footprint, but it is also completely private." Firstly, when you run your own language server instance, it's private too, LT is open source. But importantly: Harper has, counting the rules on the docs site, ~400 rules. LT has > 6000 in English, the same number in French, 8000 in Catalan, and thousands in each of the languages it supports. It's SO MANY that they built a tool to search for them: https://community.languagetool.org/rule/list?lang=en I don't say this to be down on Harper, it looks like a great little tool. But LT is one of the best tools I use every day, it's nothing short of miraculous! One of the things that made LT stand out for me is that it's not just spelling and grammar, but clever stuff like if you type "Monday January, 1st 2025" LT says "sorry bro, that was a Wednesday". Do you know how USEFUL that is? I'm only scratching the surface here! Harper's readme is right, Languagetool is slower.is Harper 50x faster? Sure, it better be, it's (by rule count) 50x worse, and written in a much better language. Java's no slouch, though. 4x slower than C and Rust isn't terrible. Especially as most languages' regex engines are written in C anyway. Despite the nonsense on their website, the core open source version of LT doesn't use AI, when I write, I run an LT server in docker, which sits at 200MB ram and sips CPU. For something I use all the time, using less ram than a few browser tabs is fine! And when I'm on battery and on wifi, I often use the LT API. PHEW! Sorry for the wall of text. You've ask a professional writer their opinion about a writing tool :-P In closing, I highly recommend the languageserver https://valentjn.github.io/ltex/
No Boilerplate
2025-09-20 13:45:15 +0000 UTCGreat video, can't wait till part two. One of the things I never knew you could do is have web links (or the URI command) in the bookmark tab. I was wondering if you could share how you make that bookmark with the link. I can't seem to replicate it (even when I have a URI link). Also something to look at: https://writewithharper.com/docs/integrations/obsidian It may not be Grammarly but I prefer it over LanguageTool (much faster too) + it is written in rust and is open sourced!
Kieran Beals
2025-09-20 06:30:41 +0000 UTCThis is a great video! I noticed that both this and the public video are 17:47 long (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8h4eTcxF9E) . Did you decide not to cut anything out, or is there a longer version available somewhere else?
SuperDuperSnep
2025-09-19 23:03:25 +0000 UTCFootnotes now updated!
No Boilerplate
2025-09-19 17:02:42 +0000 UTCOh, I'm so pleased you're at uni - PERFECT! Am I missing anything I should add for the final video? Answers in order: 5:45 annotation - well spotted! Will fix. Zettelkasten is absolutely the best system for productive knowledge organisation, and my answer is to read A System For Writing, Bob Doto is perhaps the only published author who really gets ZK - you can tell because of how short the book is - no fat, no digressions. I bullied Bob into making the book available as DRM-free epub (so I could highlight it in Readwise Reader!), buy it here https://traditionkeeper8.gumroad.com/l/asystemforwriting (though the physical book is GORGEOUS) (That video by Artem is great, I feel so called out by his "all you need is 20 plugins and python scripts" bit at the start! that's me!) The way I organise my zettelkasten is to have all my zettels littered in the root of my vault (as you know, I don't like folders), but they're organised into a tree using an `up` link to the 'card' you would put this new one 'behind'. This then can be visualised and traversed with the amazing Breadcrumbs plugin (grab the v4 beta using BRAT). Here's my template for this https://gist.github.com/0atman/63b78ae9bea1e4b0a2e5b41eac965713 This will be the subject of video 2: Processing. My fleeting capture cli script looks like this: https://gist.github.com/0atman/c5b059979bb2c5af1324166f51bad720 install https://www.nushell.sh/ to use it (or rewrite it in whatever language, it does basically nothing other than string interpolation) the Advanced URI plugin lets you interact with obsidian commands from outside of the app, for example, I have bound `super+o` to the "editor focus" command by opening this uri: `obsidian://adv-uri?vault=Chamber&commandid=editor%3Afocus` This means this hotkey either focusses the obsidian window, or opens obsidian if it's not open already. There are FOSS readwise alternatives, and good ones too. I used to use the Read It Later obsidian plugin, for instance. But the FEATURES of Readwise Reader are unmatched in any single piece software, you'd have to put lots of tools together. (perhaps, kindle/kobo for book highlights, inoreader/feedly for RSS highlights, and using something like Omnivore to sync them? Nah.) I also love eink tablets, I've tried 10 different ones over the last 5 years, settingling on the Remarkable 2. Handwritten notes are essential when face-to-face and for brainstorming visual stuff. But I've not found a clever way to sync to obsidian. I kindof don't want a picture added to my notes, that's then opaque to my text-based systems. I rewrite notes from paper into obsidian when I'm done. Though this adds friction, it feels like good friction. TTS is nearly at the point I can stand listening to it, and could be a good way to "read" when my eyes are busy but brain is idle (chores, biking), I already love audiobooks for this. Hope this helps! It sounds like you'd benefit from mentoring - you've seen the new discounted Scholarship tier, right? 😁
No Boilerplate
2025-09-16 06:57:41 +0000 UTCI'm using Typst in this very video! The slide that is in Computer Modern font with the song lyrics is a typst block, rendered in my obsidian using the typst extension, and in Presenterm natively. Good point! I'll add Typst as an alternative to LaTeX in the final video - thanks! :-)
No Boilerplate
2025-09-16 06:14:02 +0000 UTCNo, one vault for everything. The value of a system like this is the product of the number of links in it!
No Boilerplate
2025-09-16 06:12:20 +0000 UTCRight! I'm thinking of naming the final public video "Obsidian for Learning", which perhaps is more inclusive for life-long learners!
No Boilerplate
2025-09-16 06:11:50 +0000 UTCThis is incredible; I'm glad that you continually revisit Obsidian. I feel that my largest problem is being a good note taker and not good note maker. I'm not a student, although I think emulating that behavior would improve the projects I'm working on.
Companion Technology
2025-09-16 02:54:43 +0000 UTCWould you create another vault if it's a specific domain, such as work and personal? or by project?
Companion Technology
2025-09-16 02:47:07 +0000 UTCFantastic! Long but great information. I'm in my last year of my undergrad, a lot of overlap with things I've discovered, and a lot of great new ideas. @ 5:45 the annotation superscript is not rendering because its within a codeblock(?) I'm not sure how to organize things. I tried a zettlekasten system inspired by a video by Artem Kirsanov, but just have an unorganized pool and reliying on graph view / search kinda brings me into a place of plaintext insecurity. I'm trying to reorganize a bit, using the Adam savage "Put it where I think I'd look" mentality. What do you think? I'll definately adapt a lot of these ideas like linking and search a lot more. Curius what your rest API / cli setup looks like. Dreaming of a readwise FOSS alternative, but sometimes shelling out is worth it. Your first obsidian video convinced me to shell out for obsidian sync and I'm glad I did. I'll give it a try this time around. Also curious what you think about the line between handwritten and typed notes. I'm finding lit/history/gen eds, cs, psych, neuro stuff is best typed. Other more symbolic or abstract things always need to be handwritten: Logic, math, neuroscience. I can't latex, mermaid, or ascii art that fast lol. I use an e-ink tablet for that. It is digitized which is great, but not really sure how to integrate them into my vault. They can be rendered as PDFs, which I could probably dump in with a bash script, maybe run through an LLM for transcription (but being dyslexic = bad handwriting). Eink tablets are GREAT: basically paper notes but with less weight, better organization and a longer life, worth looking into if you haven't. Speaking of which, any thoughts on TTS? Does the new Readwise reader have any TTS built in? Using speechify. It has great voices, but is expensive and clunky. Been following you for a few years now. Still haven't gotten into rust (I mostly use GO becuase of a comp-neuro framework I'm working with, hopefully taking rust on when I'm done with school or can figure out how to cope with my dyslexia well enough) but you've informed a lot of my principles as a student/programmer/person. They've treated me well, helped me cope with my constelation of disabilies (ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, depression, PTSD lol). People around me are impressed by my sense of organization which has been informed by you. Feeling like I've got some success ahead of me, a piece of that is because of you. Thanks Tris!
qujmtum
2025-09-15 23:53:39 +0000 UTCI think an important additional thing for students is using something like Typst as well. As an active student, its nice to to be able to draft and ensure explicit formatting of a document. That way you're able to stay in obsidian's markdown as much as possible, but also keep it all linked together. Your published/ document work stays in notes too.
Hacksaw Kristy
2025-09-15 18:37:33 +0000 UTC
