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Get Started with Obsidian as a Developer

Metadata

  • Author: samjulien.com
  • Title: Get Started with Obsidian as a Developer
  • Reference: https://www.samjulien.com/get-started-with-obsidian-as-a-developer
  • Category: #Type/Highlight/Article

Highlights

  • Although we call it a personal knowledge base or your ‘second brain’, we also like to think of it as an IDE for your notes. You can think of an IDE as a powerful frontend that tries to understand your code, such as where are functions and variables stored, what are their types, and by doing so make it super easy to navigate code and get suggestions as you type. In this sense, with most of the current note-taking apps, working with notes feels like writing code without syntax highlighting, code autocomplete or Git integration. All the things that programmers have been taken for granted for decades. That’s pretty sad, don’t you think? Today’s knowledge workers are facing new challenges all the time, and they deserve better tools. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:14:25 — Group: #PKM

  • Mapping out ideas in my brain (this newsletter and my book Guide to Tiny Experiments are direct results of that process)Making notes on what I’m learning and readingCentralizing research, resources, and links on a topic or project (this is amazingly useful beyond day job work too ‐ I keep track of house and self-care projects, too)Documenting my systems and processes — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:15:21 — Group: #PKM

  • The first mistake I made initially was dumping too much information into Obsidian – attempting to archive every note, article, highlight, or link I could find. I was like The Collector from Guardians of the Galaxy. This added way too much junk and noise to my Vault. My advice would be: don’t treat Obsidian like you’d treat Pocket or Instapaper. Obsidian is most useful when it’s a reflection of what’s important to you and your own original thoughts, feelings, and notes on what your learning and reading. Think of your Obsidian vault as self-documentation, building a conversation partner that you can think through problems with and that helps you remember things. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:15:46 — Group: #PKM

  • The second mistake I made was adding too much structure too quickly. I migrated a bunch of information from Notion and other places and quickly added a bunch of folders and structure. This was a mistake. In learning from others and gaining experience, I reverted to a simpler approach: letting the backlinks and graph cause the structure to emerge organically. This means being okay for a while with a bunch of notes in a list. The point of this process isn’t to categorize a bunch of files, it’s to use backlinks and the quick launcher (cmd-O) to organically navigate the way your brain connects ideas. Eventually some structure did emerge, but it was specific to the way I use Obsidian. Allow yourself to build your own system over time. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:15:52 — Group: #PKM

  • Obsidian Resources — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:15:59 — Group: #PKM

  • The Obsidian Community consists of the forum and Discord server. Join to get to know the community and get answers to questions! — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:03 — Group: #PKM

  • Ben Hong has this nice Obsidian boilerplate kit to provide people some inspiration and ideas for their own workflows. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:08 — Group: #PKM

  • Linking Your Thinking is Nick Milo’s incredible YouTube channel with tutorials on Obsidian. He also has an amazing cohort-based paid workshop he runs periodically. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:11 — Group: #PKM

  • Bryan Jenks also has an awesome YouTube channel with some helpful Obsidian content. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:14 — Group: #PKM

  • David Sparks’ mentions of Obsidian are helpful for seeing how Obsidian compares to other PKM apps. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:19 — Group: #PKM

  • The Obsidian 2020 Story of the Year nomination thread contains lots of helpful examples of how Obsidian is helping people do better work. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:24 — Group: #PKM

  • Obsidian Roundup is a weekly roundup of Obsidian.md tips, news and resources via Eleanor Konik. — Updated on 2022-02-27 15:16:27 — Group: #PKM