Obsidian & Zettelkasten: How to Take Smart Notes Effectively

in this video I will show you how I use obsidian with the zal Casten method and how I take smart notes whether you

already know how to use obsidian and you're familiar with the zle Casten method or you're a complete newbie this

video will show you how to get started I also have an introductory video about zal Casten that you can watch on my

channel it explains why zetel Casten is the best note-taking method ever in this video however I'm going to give you

practical tips to get started with your zad Al castan and obsidian Journey as fast as possible hopefully this video

will serve as an inspiration and you will finally get started so quick disclaimer before we start this video

explains how I understand zle castan I watched a lot of YouTube videos and I even read one of the most popular books

about the method but I still had to change and tweak some things to suit my needs so if you have any questions you

can ask them in the comment section and I will respond as fast as possible what I've noticed is that YouTube is filled

with zedcast and content but every person explains it differently if you watch 10 YouTubers 10 people will tell

you different things people use different names for the same thing some people say reference notes others call

it literature notes some people say permanent notes others call it Evergreen notes so if you feel confused that's

totally normal I think if you understand the gist of zle Casten and you can create your own Vault and create a

system that will work for you that's what matters you don't have to follow rigid rules read a lot of books or watch

a lot of content as long as you understand it and it works for you that's totally okay so my advice to

anyone who wants to start their zle Casten and obsidian journey is to avoid watching hundreds of YouTube videos and

just get started as soon as possible and that way you will understand which areas need Improvement and which parts of the

zle Casten are clear so start by doing and not by passively consuming content so now I'm going to show you how you can

set up your obsidian Vault how you can download the app and where to get it so the first step that you need to take is

you need to download the app and to do this just go to Google and type obsidian as you can see the first website that

appears is obsidian's official website click on it then go to get obsidian for Mac if you're using Windows you can

click to more platforms I use Mac so I'm going to download Mac so I already have obsidian

on my computer so I'm not going to install it again but the process is very simple install it just like you would

install any other app when you're first opening the app you will see that you need to create a vault to do this um

click on create here you can also choose the language if you don't want to use English you can choose something

else so let's say you named your Vault now the most important part is to choose a location for me I keep keep my

obsidian Vault on my iCloud and I also have backups on my Google Drive and on one drive if you're not planning to use

obsidian sync which is a paid option for obsidian users I suggest you keep all of your information on a cloud service you

can also keep it on your computer but then you will have to manually create backups because unfortunately there's

always a possibility of losing your data so create backups as often as possible and if you're too lazy to create backups

and keep it in separate folders just pay for obsidian sync as far as I'm concerned it's like $5 or something you

might say well other apps just sync across platforms easily why would I pay for a feature like that that's a valid

concern but the cool thing about obsidian is that it's local and your data is not being stored somewhere else

so this is the whole point of having an obsidian Vault this is why it's called a vault because it's supposed to be safe

so the choice is yours you can keep it on your iCloud you can keep it on your Google drive or you can just pay for

obsidian sync and now let's create your Vault let's choose a location and click create this is how

your Vault will look if you're a complete beginner in obsidian so let's delete this welcome document we don't

really need it the first thing that every obsidian and zle casting user needs is to create folders and now let's

talk about them in detail if you want to start your zal casting journey in obsidian or in any other app you need

three folders let me give you a brief introduction to the app to create a new folder you need to click here and the

first folder that we're going to create is fleeting notes the second folder is literature

notes the third and last folder is permanent notes to create a new note in obsidian

you have to click here just like any other note taking up obsidian has shortcuts and it would be

beneficial for you to learn them as soon as possible if there are certain shortcuts that you would like to use you

can go to settings hotkeys and create the shortcut that you like you don't have to stick to default shortcuts so

besides its linking features obsidian also has tags as you can see creating tags is pretty straightforward you just

have to press Dash and then write whenever you like creating Connections in obsidian is

extremely simple just press to the brackets key press twice write whatever you want and your

notes will be connected and when you click to this text you will see that a new note is

created and if you look at the graph view they are connected to each other every note that you create an obsidian

is automatically placed in this panel but if you don't like clutter go to settings choose files and

links and change the default location for new notes let's say in the folder specified

below and then choose fleeting notes this way every note that you create will automatically go to the

fleeting notes folder if you do that your obsidian Vault will not be cluttered with a lot

of notes if you want to search for a spefic specific note you can click to this magnifier icon and start searching

there's also a bookmarks feature where you can keep your favorite documents you can create daily notes which is one of

the best features that obsidian has to offer and it's great if you like morning Pages or you like journaling every day

you can even plan your days in Daily notes besides creating notes you can create canvases it's good for mind maps

or mood boards if you want to see your graph view you can see it here it's also on the right side so I generally use

this tab you can expand this panel which has backlinks outgoing links tags and outline if you don't want to create the

same notes over and over again you can create templates and here you can open a command palette which is very useful but

as a beginner I don't think you will use it that much you will understand the app better with time as a complete newbie I

would suggest to stick to the most basic feature features and not overwhelm yourself with complicated but

unnecessary features okay so now let's talk about the types of folders that you will need in order to start your zle

casting journey I talked about this topic in my previous video but I will talk about it one more time for you to

understand better the first type is fleeting notes for me fleeting notes folder is where I put everything that

comes into my mind it serves as an inbox folder fleeing note folder is for notes that are not that important to you

fleeting note is the type of note that you will process in the future and then you will delete it you can use fleeting

notes as the capture stage in your note taking in the fleeting notes folder you can keep your thoughts your opinions

something that you've heard from a friend something that you found online knowing that you will process them later

most of the notes that I put in that folder are either will be deleted or they will be processed and transferred

to permanent notes folder in fleeting notes I don't have a specific structure I just create a note and then I write

everything that comes to my mind if there's a specific resource that I want to refer to I don't create links I just

mention it because I know that I will process it in the future you will not find any connections in my fleeing notes

my fleeing notes is just a stream of Consciousness it's like a brain dump to me the second type is literature notes

literature notes are about the content that you consume online or offline my literature notes are divided into

separate categories I know that zadel Casen is not about rigid folder structures but but I like to keep it

that way if you look at my folders in the literature notes tab you will see that I have articles books courses

lectures podcasts and so on basically I divide all the content that I consume into separate folders you don't have to

separate everything like I do you can either use tags or you can just put everything into literature notes folder

I prefer to keep it that way because otherwise it feels too cluttered literature notes is your reference

folder you can put anything that you read that you watch or you listen to if you find an interesting quote in a book

put it in that folder if you have notes from YouTube videos or podcasts you can keep it in this folder I think you

understand the point in literature notes I have a specific structure so in my literature notes I generally have the

name of the note if it's a book I will write the title of the book and the author's name then I have tags I believe

that using two to three Tex is enough for my database generally I use broad words like psychology philosophy reading

Focus I use something that I know I can easily find for me using text is like putting my note into a specific category

I don't rely on it for search I just categorize them in that way I know that if I want to search for something very

specific I will rely on links for that I know it might be unimportant to some people but I like to see dates and I

like to see when I was learning something or when I was studying something it's really useful for me to

look back and to see that that let's say in March last year I learned that concept and 2 months ago I was

interested in this information then I would create an outline if it's a book I would outline every single chapter of

that book because I don't like to get distracted later when I'm reading the book I already want to have an existing

structure when I'm learning the material so generally when I read I would take notes of everything that I find

interesting but if there is a specific concept that I'm really interested in that I see potential in that I know that

I will be using in the future or maybe I can create content about it then I'm going to transfer that idea to permanent

notes and when I create permanent notes I try to make them Atomic just like I mentioned before so as you can see I

have plain text and beneath that text I have my Atomic notes this is just a text that I find interesting and I'm not

really sure if I'm going to use it in the future and these link notes are notes that are important to me and I

will link them to my other permanent notes at the very bottom I have reference SL sources section this is a

place where I store every possible resource that I can refer to so if a book that I'm reading mentions another

book that I want to read I would put it in that category if books are somehow connected I would add it here if there's

an article or YouTube video about this book I will keep it here now permanent notes permanent notes is the most

confusing note type for most people that's why I'm going to talk about it in detail this is my favorite category

because this is where the magic happens new ideas and connections are born in this category one of the most important

things that you can do while taking permanent notes is to keep your notes short meaning Atomic so what are Atomic

notes just like the name suggests Atomic notes are short notes ideally they have to be so short that you don't have to

scroll another crucial tip is to not use copy paste in your permanent notes when you just copy something from a book or

you just highlight the sentence there's always a chance that you don't understand the concept f I've researched

this topic in the past and it is proven that if you highlight something in the book it's basically useless that's why

you should explain everything that you consume with your own words that way you will actually understand the concepts

better and remember them see writing something in your own words is almost like testing yourself you're trying to

see the gaps of knowledge that you have actually in the book how to take smart notes the author gives a great example

about this he talks about a famous scientist Richard faman he used to say that if you can't give an introductory

lecture about something then you don't understand it it illustrates the importance of being able to talk about

Concepts in your own words and being able to explain them to other people if somebody randomly reads your permanent

notes that person has to be able to understand what you meant this is how clear and precise you should be in your

permanent notes additionally to my previous advice when creating new notes consider your previous ones you should

consider how your new note is related to other ideas can you link this idea to your other ideas how are you going to

use it in the future is it even useful to have this note in your Vault be selective about your notes and don't

collect information for the sake of collecting it add sources and references and write in full sentences try to be as

precise as possible write as if you're writing for someone else now let's look at the structure of my permanent notes

my permanent notes are not that different from my literature notes but there's a couple of differences that you

need to understand again again I have tags and date created this is something that I always use then comes the note

the format of the note is short I'm not going to write 2,000w essay to explain a concept I'm going to keep it simple and

ideally I keep it so simple and so short that you don't have to scroll under my brief explanation of the concept I have

connected ideas this is the section where different connections and new ideas are born you can either link your

permanent notes to similar ideas or you can link them to opposing ideas why opposing ideas first of all I heard it

from another YouTuber I'm going to leave her handle here I also read about something similar in the book how to

take smart notes if you have different ideas and opinions the quality of your notes will increase you will not be a

victim of confirmation bias and just like in my literature notes I have references SL sources section I'm not

going to explain it again I just keep all my sources there and this is the difference between these three types of

notes once you understand the difference between them and create your own structure saddle casting will be easy

for you so now I'm going to show you how I actually take notes in real time using this particular book this is

hyperfocused by Chris Bailey and when reading it I always take notes in my obsidian so the first thing that I do

when I take notes about books is that I create a new note I add the title of the book and I add the author's name then

comes the tags section and the author section the reason why I have a separate link for the author is because sometimes

I read books by the same author and I want to see the connections between those books so the first thing that I

did is I wrote down the outline of the book in my obsidian note I just went through all the chapters and I wrote

everything down so as you can see the structure of this note is pretty simple as I told you before the first thing

that I do is I have the chapter name and then I have a note if I find something particularly interesting then I create a

separate permanent note about this concept so for instance in the first chapter I have a note called four types

of tasks and when I click on it you can see that I have an image from a book and I write about those four types of tasks

I also added TX reference which means that it came from this book and similar Concepts because this concept is very

similar to Eisenhower Matrix I wanted to connect them so if you look at the second chapter I have a lot of Concepts

from psychology and I took permanent notes about them because I can use them in the future I also have ideas that I

might use for instance we can multitask with habits or when we switch between tasks our work takes 50% longer I know

that this idea is useful and I can use it in my content so I took a separate note about it so basically if I was to

summarize my process it's quite simple you just find specific information that you want to turn into permanent note and

that you find very useful and you create a separate note under the chapter name so you might say then what's the

difference between these notes and these Concepts these notes are not that important I want to keep them here I

might return to them later but I don't think that they will be lifechanging but these things the ones that I've linked I

can actually connect to other notes and I will use them for my content or for something else you can also add stuff

that you already know for instance you might come across an idea that sounds too familiar and you don't want to

create a separate note you can just add it here but you don't have to connect it I also have my Kindle highlights at the

very bottom of the page when you're using Kindle or other ebook readers it's quite nice to add every quote that you

have in here I also have a section with permanent notes and references so the Dilemma that I personally have is I

either can put all the concepts under the chapter names or I can just collect everything at the bottom right here

where the permanent notes are I'm still trying to see what works best but I think I will stick to this structure

because it just sounds better and let's say that in the future I want to find where the idea of the rule of three

comes right and it's very easy for me to find it in the book If I see that it's under the third chap chapter so in that

sense I feel like this structure works the best in the references part you can put everything that relates to this book

if you think that there's a similar book and it is somehow connected to this one you can add the name here for instance

Chris Bailey has another book that I've read and some ideas overlap so it would be nice to add it here and to see them

connecting together by the way if you feel like you will return to the book later and you want to find Concepts

easily you can add the page number right where your Note is for instance this is page 60 I could do something like page

60 and then it will be easier for me to find this note later so let's go to this link as you can see what I did was I

read this part then I made a note and I wrote everything in my own words okay then I added a connection section which

is just a connection to a similar idea and then at the very bottom we have the name of the book and of course I have

tags here and so this whole note taking system is super simple the best thing that you can

do right now is to start taking notes on your own and see what works best for you because to find this structure I had to

try a lot of things I want this tutorial to serve as an inspiration and you can use this information as a foundation but

you will create your own system with time and it probably will be very different from mine and that's fine so I

also want to mention the way I organize my zal Casten because I don't have three folders I actually have five besides

having fleeting literature and permanent notes I have content creation and I have ins sorted folder content creation is

for my YouTube videos I have video scripts and I have all my videos ideas and this is actually the script for the

video that I'm filming right now and I also have a folder called unsorted this folder is quite important because most

of the folders that I don't want to see on a daily basis are in this folder as you can see I have attachments so in the

attachments folder I have all my images and PDFs obsidian is not similar to notion and Apple notes in that way if

you have an image and if you paste it into the app it has to be stored somewhere and the best way to do it is

to have a separate folder I also have a clippings folder and this clippings folder actually relates to obsidian's

new Chrome plugin it basically saves content from the internet directly to your Vault I have my daily notes I have

monthly review weekly review and I will probably add a yearly review I also have a separate folder for planning and a

separate folder for templates when it comes to templates you can create as many templates as you like I don't have

many I just have a template for Atomic notes for monthly review or weekly review and I have my rating folder where

I keep my mini essays with time you will find the best ways to organize information in your Vault some people

like to keep their information very unstructured and they don't have a lot of folders I I am somewhere in the

middle while I don't like to have a lot of folders I still need to have some kind of structure so it's all up to you

if you find my folder structure useful feel free to copy it I want to give you additional obsidian tips that you can

use in order to avoid common mistakes that all beginners generally make the first thing that I would like to say is

that obsidian is not that hard I know some people think that obsidian is very complicated they think that obsidian has

a very steep learning curve and you need to watch a lot of tutorials and content to understand it I do not agree with

this I think that if you use something like notion you can definitely use obsidian in fact obsidian is not that

different from Apple notes it's just a text editor with markdown and the interface is not that complicated the

only thing that you have to understand as a beginner is that obsidian uses markdown when I started out I didn't

know anything about markdown and I kind of hated it I hated markdown so much that I wanted to quit the program but

then I decided to learn it anyway to understand how to use markdown you can just go to Google and write something

like markdown cheat sheet and you will get everything you need to get started if you don't know anything about

markdown it can be quite hard at the beginning but trust me with time you will get used to it now let's talk about

plugins I feel like people who use obsidian pay too much attention to plugins and waste a lot of time trying

to constantly customize their vault and adding new plugins all the time don't overcrowd your Vault with lots of

plugins trust me you don't need half of them your goal with obsidian is to just take notes and you don't need plugins to

do that you don't need to watch hours and hours of content about plugins you don't need to watch tutorials what you

need to do is to get started I'm not saying that you should avoid plugins altogether what I'm saying is that you

should probably stick to the bare minimum don't try to turn obsidian into a Content calendar into a habit tracker

into a to-do list obsidian is for no taking so my advice would be to use it for not taking only I personally have a

clear separation between my apps I'm not trying to keep my to-do list in obsidian because I have to do us for that if I

want a calendar I will use Google Calendar and if I want to track my habits I will probably use pen and paper

if I try to constantly customize my obsidian I will have the same problem that I had with notion it would distract

me and in the end I would just hate the app because I waste so much time in it my advice is to be as minimalistic as

possible and to not focus too much on plugins if you look at the list of my plugins I actually don't have a lot of

them I have a calendar checklist I use this plugin to clear unused images I have this custom font loader because I

wanted to change my font from s siif to serif I have this plugin because I want to see how many notes I have in

here natural language dates is a great plugin if you want to add dates without typing them manually outliner plugin

helps me to see the outline of my documents like this periodic notes is to create daily

weekly and monthly notes reading time shows you how many minutes it takes to read your note it's quite useful if you

create content and write YouTube Scripts and I have a recent files plugin which shows me my recent files on this panel

in total I have 10 plugins which by the standards of obsidian is not that much now let's talk about the main reason why

I use obsidian and it is the graph view a lot of people find graph view useless and they say that they have no idea how

to use it I personally like using graph view a lot the reason why I like it so much is because I can see clusters of

information the graph view in obsidian is a powerful visual tool that shows you the connections between your notes it

helps you to visualize how your ideas are connected together providing a bird ey view of your knowledge base you can

see unrelated Concepts and ideas connecting to each other in pretty unpredictable ways the graph view also

helps you to identify orphan notes which means that you connect them to your knowledge base and create new links if

you're working on a specific topic the local graph view helps you to focus on specific subjects it's perfect if you

want to dive deeper into certain subjects and learn them deeply to me graph you gamifies the whole process of

note taking because I can see how my second brain is constantly evolving and growing so I really hope that this video

was helpful and you will finally start your obsidian and zle casting Journey if you have any questions you can ask them

in the comment section and I will respond as soon as possible thank you so much for watching this video and I will

see you in the next one