2 years in Obsidian (favorite extensions and why I'm not switching)

Yo, welcome back to the channel. The

previous video that I have made about

Obsidian, a lot of you guys asked me

about my theme and config and extensions

that I use. And since then, it's been

about 2 years since I've been using

Obsidian. So, I thought I would make a

2-year update sharing the things I've

learned, my current setup, and some tips

if you're considering using Obsidian or

any note-taking app. Along with my

config, I'll also share with you my

favorite extensions and what I find

Obsidian to be the most useful for. So

I'll be giving you an inside look into

my Obsidian vault. I've made some pretty

cool upgrades to it. For example, it's

now possible to have this really

beautiful book view that looks like this

that you can click into any of your

notes. And I've set it up so I can add

any book with just one click. So, I'll

show you how I do that later in the

video. I'm also completely unaffiliated

and unsponsored with Obsidian. I just

genuinely think it's a super powerful

note-taking app if you're a student or

if you just have a lot of notes and

documents that you want to organize. But

first, let me talk about why use

Obsidian. If maybe you currently use a

different note-taking app, I used to use

notion and Apple notes which are really

powerful note-taking software. But the

problem with that is that they have

subscription fees and also locks you

into an ecosystem. For most note-taking

software, as you reach certain limits

you'll have to upgrade and pay a

subscription fee to access and continue

using the software, which is kind of a

sneaky thing that they do because you'll

be locked into the note takingaking

software to begin with. like that's

happened to me before. But with

Obsidian, as long as you have enough

storage space on your computer, you

don't have to pay anything. And they do

have a subscription service, and that is

just if you want them to sync your notes

across your different devices. But they

also make it pretty easy for you to do

yourself. Unlike basically all popular

note-taking software, all of your notes

are just in a folder on your computer

which seems pretty intuitive and seems

pretty basic, but most note-taking

software, your notes are actually stored

on their servers, which means that if

the internet goes down, you might not be

able to access your notes, and if they

get hacked, your notes might get leaked

which these things have happened to

these companies before. I've seen some

pretty concerning things on Reddit where

people's Notion databases got deleted.

or even recently there was an outage

with AWS and people weren't able to

access their notes in that time. So when

you use a note-taking app where you

don't actually own your notes, you

always have the risk of your notes being

deleted, being leaked, or not being able

to access them. Also, with longevity

Obsidian is designed to outlast any

note-taking software, including itself.

All the notes are based on this file

format called Markdown, which has been

around pretty much since personal

computers have been around, like at

least over 20 years. So, it's very

likely that even if you decide to not

use Obsidian one day, it's very easy for

you to import your notes into a

different software. But because they are

markdown, it's also very unlikely that

you'll have to switch note-taking apps

ever again because it's basically just a

glorified text editor. Searching for

notes is also super fast and instant.

Obsidian does not require an account to

start using. You can just download it

and create a note instantly. And there's

no pop-ups. There's no major overhauls

which completely change or break your

notes. And I think that's actually a

good thing because especially now you

see a lot of companies add AI onto their

existing products and there's no way for

you to opt out of them. But with

Obsidian, even the core features you can

just turn off in the settings pretty

easily. But overall, I would say that

the number one thing that makes Obsidian

stand out over other note-taking apps is

this unique feature called backlinks. So

backlinks are a way for you to connect a

note to another note. And that's how you

end up with a graph that looks like

this. The beauty with this is that over

time you can see how all your notes

connect with each other. So it helps you

understand and remember your notes

better. But it also makes it so no

matter how many notes you have in your

vault, you can still see all your notes

connected to each other so they don't

just get lost or buried somewhere. Later

when I get into my notes, I'll show you

more of how this actually works. But

personally, I really wish that I

discovered this and started using this

when I was a student because it would be

amazing to see how all the different

topics in my classes connected to each

other. And also it would still be really

useful today being out of college for

over 5 years now that I can go back and

look at the notes that's still relevant

to my life today. I think the only thing

missing with Obsidian is an easy way for

you to review and remember the things

that you've taken notes on. So for that

I use another app called Theia Study who

is kindly sponsoring this video. So Thea

Study is a new innovative study app

powered with AI. If you're in school and

you're studying for something, you can

basically upload your textbook notes or

slides and it will create a study guide

for you that optimizes your retention

and reduces your study time. Even if

you're just learning stuff from YouTube

you can paste in a YouTube link and

it'll create a study guide to quiz you

to make sure that you understand the

concepts in the video pretty

effectively. So, one workflow that works

really well with this is that you can

upload your Obsidian note into the study

and you can generate quizzes or study

guides. I've been using in my free time

to study some technical topics that I'm

interested in, like with investing, and

it's been super efficient. I just take a

PDF or my notes, drag it in, and I can

study straight from that. I also had my

intern Matt, who helps me out with some

of the videos on this channel, try it

out, and he also said that this app is

super useful for studying for his

finals. Unlike most AI powered study

tools, this isn't a cheating tool at

all. It actually helps you learn the

material rather than just giving you all

the answers. You can choose from

flashcards, study guides, multiple

choice quizzes, and more. I got on a

call, with, one, of the, team, members, of

Thea, and they have a pretty amazing

story. The app was created by this kid

in high school, and they recently

crossed over 2 million users. But what

really stood out to me about this app

and why I wanted to share this app in

this video is that it's completely free

to use. So, there's literally only

upside if you decide to try it out. You

can use the link in the description or

the link right here so that they know

that I sent you. I think if I had

Obsidian and Thea Study when I was in

college, this would have been insane

especially since I did a double major in

computer science and business

definitely would have been able to save

hundreds of hours. But yeah, check out

Thea Study. Let me know what you think

of it in the comments below. And let's

get back into the video. Now, let's get

into my Obsidian vault. This is what

Obsidian looks like when I open it. It

just opens the daily page, which if

you're not familiar with, every time you

open Obsidian, it makes a page with

today's date. So, you can add anything

you want. So the theme that I use is

called minimal and the font that I use

is called SF mono or source code pro. I

just kind of like this sort of um IDE

type look to my Obsidian. But you can

also make it inter if you want something

more similar to notion or Apple notes.

You can make it look pretty similar. On

the left sidebar there's this extension

I use that emulates what Apple notes

looks like. So Notebook Navigator is the

extension that makes it have this Apple

Notes look to it. I think Apple Notes

has one of the more intuitive

note-taking UIs and this really brings

that same UI to Obsidian and I find it

to be a lot easier to find notes rather

than having them sorted in different

folders. So now I don't really use any

folders. I just have all my notes on the

left sidebar that is in chronological

order and I open up notes directly just

by searching for them. The second

gamechanging extension I've started to

use is this one called Obsidian Web

Clipper. It's just a browser extension

that I installed and when you come

across an article or video you want to

save or take notes on, you just click on

it or use the keyboard shortcut and

it'll be added to your Obsidian Vault.

And this is actually super powerful

because you can create a custom

template. So, for example, with YouTube

videos, because I take a lot of notes

with YouTube videos, I've set it up so

that when I click on it, it'll create a

new note with the video's title and the

creator, and I can just take notes on it

right below it. I use an extension

called thumbnails for the YouTube

thumbnail. And there's also a way for

you to add an LLM API if you want a

summary of the video. In mine, when I

click it, it writes a 250 character

summary of what the video is about so

that in the future when I look at the

note, I can quickly understand a brief

overview. So, I'll share my config and

template for this in the description if

you want to do the same thing. But with

Obsidian Web Clipper, I also use this

for taking book notes. So if I come

across a book that I'm reading or a book

on the internet, I can quickly just

search it in good readads and then use a

shortcut to add it to my Obsidian and

then later I can just add notes to it

directly. Obsidian recently added a

pretty useful feature which are Obsidian

databases. So you can organize and see

all your booknotes in one place. I've

customized it to look like this, which

is actually a style created by the CEO

of Obsidian. So I also link this in my

website if you want to use this. Another

one that is really helpful is called

double shift. Double shift just makes it

so when you hit double shift you can

look for or find an note and so it makes

it really easy to search for notes. The

next extension is called auto template

trigger. So what this extension does is

that when you make a new note you can

select from a few templates that you

created and it will fill all those

things out for you. I use this extension

pretty much anytime I'm making a new

note. So I can take notes about the

meeting here. I can write down who I

talk to and for how long. And with

Obsidian Basis it makes it easy for me

to see all my meetings in one place. So

because I take meeting notes, another

natural thing to have are person notes.

So I also use Obsidian like a rolodex.

So I have a person template where I can

create a person note where I can see

meetings I've had with this person or

maybe it's an author, entrepreneur I'm

learning from and I can see notes that

I've taken from their books or their

videos and it's just easy for me to

reference in one place. The next plugin

that I have found to be really helpful

is called various compliments. All it

does is when you're typing it

automatically will suggest different

notes that you can link it to. So for

example, if I'm in this de note and I

typed reread this book build, it

automatically suggests a note that I

have with that name and I can just click

enter to link it. So that just makes it

helpful to have back links in all of

your notes on Obsidian. The last

extension I'll show in this video is a

pretty unique one called map view. So, I

started using this for restaurants where

I would write down the things I ordered

and what I thought of the restaurant and

give it a sort of a rating. And it kind

of became super helpful because there

were restaurants that I would have a

super long gap between going there and I

could go back and see the things I

ordered and avoid ordering the things

that I didn't like or reorder the stuff

that I liked. And also, when I'm

traveling somewhere, like when I went to

New York or Japan, I can also capture

the places and restaurants that I went

to and take notes on those locations.

One more thing that I find to be really

useful with Obsidian, which is not

really an extension, is I use it to keep

track of different documents. It makes

it really easy to just search for them

using that double shift. For example, if

I needed to find my driver's license, I

can just type driver's license and I can

see it right there. And so other things

that I keep track of are like invoices

stuff related to lease documents or

housing or uh records of payments. And

it makes it really easy to search stuff

up. Before I use Obsidian, I would just

have this somewhere in my photos or

somewhere in my Apple Notes, and it

would be kind of hard to pull stuff up

really quickly. But if you're just

starting out using Obsidian or any

note-taking app, one tip I would have is

that just try to keep it simple and to

reduce complexity. The setup that I have

is not something that I started out and

spend a lot of time to figure out the

best system. It was kind of just trial

and error and I just added stuff as I

needed to make it more organized. I

never sat down and watched like an

hourong video or course on how to use

Obsidian and I don't think you should

either. So, just take this as some sort

of food for thought or inspiration if

this could be useful for you. If you

have any questions, definitely let me

know in the comments below. I'll try to

respond to every single comment. And if

you enjoy this or you found this

interesting, then uh consider

subscribing for more videos. I'm trying

to, post, at least, once, every, two, weeks

until the end of the year because I am

moving and so it is a little bit hard to

keep to a weekly upload schedule. But

yeah, that's it for this one. I'll see

you in the next video. Let's get it.