I'm still not sold on Obsidian - I use Google Sites as a digital binder. But the idea of a dataview database sounds awesome so maybe I'll go that way. I just want to tell you that your existence in this space made me smile. I'm a 50-year old Black lady and seeing nerd girls representing is inspirational for the youth, and just awesome for the rest of us.
What an awesome comment. Awww, yay nerd girls! Thank you for the encouragement! If you've found something that works for you, I'm glad for you! :) You have a great day!
This was so me! The first several times I tried using Obsidian I was like "HELLS NO." The app just looked so...bad. But I kept watching RUclips videos and playing around with the app and eventually the power of it just clicked and now I'm hooked and 100% use Obsidian. For me, it was taking the time to learn how to use the app because it's just so different from other note-taking apps. I've really loved how Obsidian has forced me to learn about things like CSS and YAML and other technical programming stuff that I would never have learned about otherwise.
Really happy to know I'm not the only one who had this experience! It seemed so basic at the beginning, but now I can't stop talking about Obsidian! Haha.
@@nicolevdh do you think that if we start using it as basic at the beginning we can grow into it without having to "redo" stuff as we add more options? I hate that every time I start using an app as I learn more and develop in how I use it I have to redo a bunch of stuff to make it all fit
@@nikarose Hi Nika! Yes, you can totally do that! There's no real pressure to change things - you really only have to do it if/when you feel something is missing.
Hey! I'm slowly working my way through the list of all these plugins, so here are videos I've made about each one I mentioned in this video: #1 Calendar: ruclips.net/video/OUrOfIqvGS4/видео.html #2 Dataview: ruclips.net/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/видео.html , ruclips.net/video/JTObSymEvWA/видео.html , ruclips.net/video/ccN5vJzXwvo/видео.html #3 Editor Syntax Highlight #4 Kanban: ruclips.net/video/iU60ItemuDo/видео.html #5 Outliner #6 Periodic Notes: ruclips.net/video/T2Aeaq4sk7M/видео.html #7 Publish #8 Readwise Official (readwise.io/nicole): ruclips.net/video/Rw1L5sxlnuU/видео.html #9 Sync #10 Templater: ruclips.net/video/5j9fAvJCaig/видео.html THEMES: 01:25 is Sanctum, 05:06 is ITS, 08:28 is the default Obsidian theme
i downloaded obsidian over a year ago but it’s not until this week that i have begun to watch tutorials. your video was easy to follow and informative. thanks.
As a fellow software engineer I would also highly recommend the PlantUML plugin! It’s such a joy to be able to create my diagrams in the same place where I’m already describing my thoughts and findings
Hey Niels! Cool, I hadn't heard of PlantUML. I'll check it out! I have just been using a combination of mermaidJS and Excalidraw, though between the two of them, a lot of ground is covered already.
GIRL, now I'm subscribed! I've been using Obsidian for a while now, but I never dug deep because it looked too scary. Now I code, and I tend to use and understand Obsidian more, so I'm rediscovering it. This has been one of the most useful videos I've watched so far. Thank you!
Both this video and your “Obsidian for Beginners” video were immensely helpful to me! I appreciate your clear and concise explanations. If you can, could you please make a video on the Dataview plugin? Thank you so much!
Thank you, I will! The Dataview plugin is so useful for so many things. Need to figure out how best to tackle it, but it's definitely on the list! Glad you are finding my videos helpful. It means a lot!
I know this video is kind of old, but in case of someone haven't found another solution: I use Onedrive to store my md files through all my devices, and Onesync, to automatically update/sync them. I didn't find any issues so far. I hope it's of use. Also, thank you for all the Obsidian videos, they are incredibly helpful!
You're welcome! I'll add your vote to Dataview. Seems like a lot of people want that, so I think I need to start working on it! Thanks for the feedback!
@@leereed1559 Thanks! I actually have already made a few videos on it since I made this one. Databases vs Dataview: ruclips.net/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/видео.html How to use Dataview: ruclips.net/video/JTObSymEvWA/видео.html Task management with Dataview: ruclips.net/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/видео.html
I watched your "Obsidian for Beginners" video and loved your clear explanations. I just finished this video and would like to see how to use all of these plugins. Please make videos on each one with examples of how you use them. Great work.Thanks!
Hey Gary! (También hablo español) Glad you liked it! Happy to hear you want more details on them all. I started to go into it for this video and realised that if I did that, it would be two hours! I'll definitely make separate videos, thanks for the feedback!
This helped greatly been using Obsidian for years without getting a clear picture of what I should use. Finally getting it ready as move into a full stack role. Obsidian actually super dynamic and the best note taking app I've used up to this point.
Oh, this is great to hear! I totally agree with you, and I'm still finding out new things about it that I didn't know about and make me like it even more. :)
I don’t like Obsidian for beginner’s curve reasons. But it seems really good for note taking. I’ve started using it. I love that I can organise recipes there. I also organise my research on philosophy and comparative religion. I was originally making excel spreadsheets for book lists and temples, as well as Microsoft Word for chapter summaries. But I want to transition to moving everything as much as possible to Obsidian, because the linking of ideas. Also, having multiple windows open for notes is so good.
Its funny you said that because I was researching about how to take better notes. I have ADHD and I really struggle with understanding other apps like ONE NOTE or any of the Microsoft systems.. they suck.. but once I heard about OBSIDIAN? I found a good you tube video that easily helped me to understand it and it IS actually easy to jump into. You can get in over your head fast and my head hurt seeing all these users using really hard core scripting language and other stuff I was WOAH no way..but i think it is easy and fun to start using. The fact that you can just so easily mark up things fast and simply instead of having to hunt for things or functionality. UGH. You don't have to do that really to start with Obsidian> I guess it is how different our brains work
Beginner's curve? I may be a weird person, but i never encountered that in obsidian, or to me it was almost non-existent it took me a few moments or minutes, but after that, i was already trying to create complex "wind-rose" diagrams in my notes , just for the fun of it (or maybe it was because i worked with vscode and cherrydb before that)
I just installed Obsidian, and it has a learning curve that i am battling with, looks promising the power of a database, it will take some time from the looks of it before I can say I love it.
I agree!! Funny that you mention migrating from Roam. My video on Wednesday is about switching. What a coincidence! I also resisted switching for a long time. I think Obsidian is especially difficult because it's so plain and, in my opinion, it would have been better to include some of these plugins so that it's more fully-featured from the beginning.
Very informative. I've hesitated on making the leap for awhile now but the more I'm researching it, the better it seems. Thanks for making this. It was extremely helpful!
I did see that, but have not tried it because I already have a cronjob that runs a script that does that locally, and this way I didn't have to trust someone else's code! :)
My #1 plugin for Obsidian is the 3d graph view by Yomaru Hananoshika. It adds absolutely nothing to my workflow and actively detracts from my efficiency, but the ability to view my graph as an interconnected sphere is _so pretty_
Kanban is not just the default todo doing done thing. The heart of Kanban is „kaizen“ meaning basically „constant improvement“. The way you are using it is totally valid in Kanban. And the approach you don’t like is basically just one way of using it. And the reason you don’t like it is because it’s not the right method for you. So whatever board style works for you is totally legit Kanban
Thank you for the videos on obsidian. Very informative and great presentation. I like videos on YT where the presenter is not extremely artificially over exciting on the topics that are been presented. You have a very nice, calming and natural way of speaking that is really enjoyable.
You have such a pleasant way to explain things. I had a hard time to get into Obsidian at first, after watching some of your vids I'm giving it a fresh try...
I just installed Obsidian and was looking for possibly "necessary" additions, so I ran into this video. As I am watching it I am like "Who the hell is this girl!" Like some master coder, magic expert. Then you talk about your blog and as I am seeing screenshots of it, I am more impressed. Just WOW, keep on rocking!!!
Came here looking for Obsidian content, which I mainly use for work. But I had just started to use it for the weekly Mork Borg campaign I'm running... And was delighted to see you using it for that exact same purpose! Oh and this is a great guide to Obsidian plugins - just what I was looking for. (New subscriber!)
How cool that you're running Mörk Borg!! I only ran a one-shot in it and played in an adventure, so I have much less experience. But I thought Obsidian was good for both! :)
thank you so so much! this video definitely broden my understanding of what Obsidian can do and create tremendous value in use cases that I probably have not yet discover or know that I needed. I start to get to know this tool about 2 weeks ago, and have been using Notion / Evernote all my life. I just want to say that bi-directional link is changing on how I write more effectively. This video definitely will increase my productivity in upcoming weeks during my discovery of this amazing tool and community! big thank you
Oh, that's great! Welcome to the Obsidian community! I'm glad to have exposed you to all the awesome things that Obsidian can do, just not out of the box. :) Yay for bi-directional linking!!
It's really interesting that your initial experience with Obsidian was negative because of how basic it is. I never used Roam or Notion or Evernote, but instead came over from OneNote, and personally what I liked about Obsidian was that it was entirely markdown, and it was very portable and lightweight. The first day I found out about it, I fell in love, and abandoned OneNote entirely. Began carrying over all my notes (manually) into Obsidian. I've been using it for about 2 years now. The problem, though, is that over time I discovered that its lightweightedness has pros and cons, and one of the biggest things I realized was that there are many features I could stand to have which just aren't a part of it, and the other thing was that the way I've been using Obsidian is not super efficient. I basically used it to just create and categorize all my notes, plans, and idea (for a lot of different subjects, all in one vault), but I haven't been taking advantage of community plugins or even the built in graphic and tagging features. At work (I'm a developer) I tend to use it to track notes I'm taking about tickets I pick up, though so far it's all been "throw the tickets in the ticket bucket" and "throw discoveries in the Documentation bucket". With a small handful of sporadic and unintegrated notes. Thank you for this video, demonstrating the usefulness of some of the plugins available. I have been overwhelmed by how many there are, and haven't been able to imagine how I would use them.
I can understand that! Obsidian is very flexible, but the flexibility comes with some overwhelm because you have to know what's available before you can finetune it to work the way you want. For me, linking notes and creating "landing pages" for certain topics really helped. For example, you could create a note that tracks all the tickets by manually linking to each ticket. Later on, if you feel like you want to try Dataview, you could use it to query your vault for open notes, for example. But manually updating that Open Tickets page can also force you to be more aware of what's out there, which isn't a bad thing. Since you mentioned being overwhelmed, I definitely recommend starting with the core plugins! They provide the most value for complexity since they're built to be not so intrusive. :) Good luck!
Phenomenal content; this video was suggested to me after I watched a video by Tiago Forte. I have decided on Obsidian, and am setting it up, but wow, these plugins get me really excited to use it. I heard the community around Obsidian was fantastic, and your video is a testament to that.
A free alternative to Obsidian Sync is SyncThing(Android)/SyncTrayzor(Windows)/syncthing-macos(MacOS). For iPad, I suppose you could set up a file server or directly connect to a local host to load and save simply enough, too.
Another option for synchronizing is "Self-hosted LiveSync". You do need some knowledge to set it up and it's historically been a little unstable. Haven't had issues with any of the recent versions though (last few months).
Thank you for that list! I'm only just dipping my toe into Obsidian, and whether it sticks is more a me thing rather than the program itself. It looks pretty nice so far and there are plenty of videos and resources to give me ideas on how to use it well. I have found a workaround for a sync'ed vault across "some" devices using an SMB/NFS shared folder on a home server and I'm using Tailscale to build a small "tailnet" (which is super simple to set up, and then I've mapped the folder on my server to each of my Windows machines, and mounted on a Linux laptop, and the vault opens from whatever computer I'm on. Even if I'm out of my home network. What it doesn't work on is mobile devices, as it appears that you can only using Obsidian Sync, or a local folder on the mobile device, and I've not found any decent solution to access either an NFS or SMB share from an Android device. If I can get that sorted I think I'm set for a cross platform experience. If not, I'm more likely to be working in Obsidian on a computer rather than a phone
Just letting you know, syncthing is an open source way of syncing files between devices. Works on windows, iOS, Linux, android. 100% free, just takes maybe 10min to set up compared to obsidian sync taking one click but once it's set up it's no maintenance
Thanks for all your great Obsidian videos! You've helped me tremendosly with refocusing on note taking basics instead of being paralized from force feeding PARA and zettelkasten. Please make a video on the templater plugin. Another great video would be an advanced walkthrough of your note taking flow.
Hi Alex, I really appreciate this! Templater is definitely on my list already-- I'm thinking about doing it next week maybe! Thanks for adding your vote though. That helps me decide what's next. I'll put the walkthrough of note taking to the list too!
Great video. I have been using Obsidian for almost three years for cyber security and capture the flag and personal training and I still don't know the half of it!! Thank you for introducing me to Kanban, calendar and a few others that will now take pride of place!! One new subscriber added :)
Thanks, Jim! I think Obsidian is really great (and really needed) for tech knowledge workers (I am one too)! Things move quickly and there's always a lot to learn... welcome, and thanks for watching!
You have earned yourself a subscriber, I usually don't interact with creators beyond just watching, but this is composed soo nicely and loved every second of it
Your videos have pushed me back into "excitement mode" when it comes to learn and adopt a technology! Thank you so much - you are a true role model for "working/learning/sharing/thinking out loud" 🙏
Hey thank you to publish the video! Instead of dropbox I'm using synching to maintain my obsidian update and sync on different machines! It's a really nice and free way to do this.
Hey! I know this is a late reply, but I still wanted to comment because I've never used Syncthing but would like to explore it. Have you had any issues with using Syncthing to view your notes within the Obsidian app on different devices, or do you just use it to sync/backup your vault?
I wanted to get into obsidian. all I did was watch one of your videos and I think after that I immediately got it. it's not that hard to use, it's just not super obvious. and since I already talk in markdown due to discord and misskey, I felt pretty much right at home writing in markdown.
Thanks for your insights! I'm just getting started with Obsidian and all of these plugins seem really useful. I agree that one does not see the appeal of Obsidian on a first approach, so this videos certainly help.
Great job on the Contant, organization and production of this video. I consume way more RUclips learning than I probably should and so I’m used to all different levels of quality, however, this was absolutely excellent and I very much appreciate your top 10 list as well. I will definitely be using several of your list as I have recently adopted obsidian. All the best
Thank you for this video! Obsidian was quite overwhelming for me so it is so helpful to hear your insights with different plugins. Def watching the rest of your tutorials :)
I definitely understand that Obsidian can be really overwhelming. It's great, but not the most user-friendly... glad to hear I can help! Hope you continue to enjoy Obsidian. :)
Brilliant video exactly what I needed to get started with Obsidian. One suggestion I have for you is having the plugin name in the chapter as well as the number.
Wonderful series of videos, Nicole. Thank you very much. Can you suggest any plug-in for the following capabilities: i) generate mind-map out of text as a graphic and allows me to go back and forth between the graphic and the ordered text; ii) automatically generate a mind-map (in addition to the graph) among related notes; iii) handle hand written notes as some of us very often scribble on our laptop screens using a stylus. We need to capture these and ideally also convert the written words into text; iv) ability to create and interlink IT diagrams according to the C4 architecture model and also ER diagrams. Ideally generate ER diagrams straight out of a SQL database and able to convert changes into SQL commands back into the database to alter the table designs
Hi! Thanks for reaching out! Glad you enjoyed this video. As for you plugin questions: i and ii: The Mind Map plugin is what you want for sure. iii and iv: Excalidraw is your best bet, though it won't interface with a SQL database. You'll have to manually create what you want it to show. Good luck!
I am new to your channel. I have just watched your video. I really like your clear and consize wording (no exceessive words needed), just to the point information share. Thank you. Will watch more :)
Nicole, you discussed using Readwise to collect clips/highlighted items + your annotations from pdf files, to send to Obsidian for your PKMS. What do you use for doing the same with EPUB files? Usage I read a lot of medical journals (mostly PDFs) & books from a gazillion fields (I'm curious), everything from geopolitics to medicine, science fiction to philosophy. Most of this stuff is EPUB books, 'though some are also PDFs. I'd love one app "to rule them all": do EPUB and PDF both. I fear I'm going to be disappointed. But I'll wager you do access both file formats. What works? Hardware platforms I'm working on a Windows desktop laptop/tablet (hybrid), and an Android tablet. So it'd be nice to be able to use the same software on both platforms. I know you do this too, but suspect a lot of your reading is done on an iPad. I've avoided Apple's ecosystem (got off it 7-8 years ago). I'm more likely to add a Boox eReader instead of an Apple tablet. We'll see. Finally, I like the idea of handwriting with a stylus to take notes. Not sure how realistic this is. For lectures, though, it would be ideal. My Samsung tablet (Fold phone, actually) does a pretty credible job of converting handwriting on the fly to text. It'd be nice if a note-taking app offered that kind of input, but I think that's still bleeding-edge & not too practical. Plus it means palm rejection is crucial, and while my Fold smartphone is pretty good using core apps like Samsung's Notes app, I think palm rejection in many 3rd party apps still sucks. And I don't think handwriting conversion is even offered in Notion & Obsidian on Android tablets. Any thoughts? I'll keep scanning your vids to see if you've already addressed these issues. Thank you for sharing your passions & talents with such enthusiasm!
Great video! I'm confused by your comment that you don't normally like the kanban approach but what you're describing is almost anecdotally the perfect example of what kanban is best used for. My trello board looks almost identical to your use case and is exactly what I need for managing creative projects combined with a little automation wired in. What are you not fond of with kanban boards? Thanks again for the recommendations
so much inspiration in just nine minutes....... and yea, i am going straight to the 'what the heck is obsidian' video, although i heard about it and downloaded it i feel more inspired to listen to your explanation :D i am ready for it!!! thanks!
Yay!! Haha. I'm happy to haer that. :) I think this video is a good place to get started for you, if you haven't found it already: pulse.ly/3j3dg3nc77 I talk about how to install Obsidian and go through the first steps in using it. :)
tnx, I'm completely new to Obsidian and it's great to know all these possibilities. Little bit overwhelming, but I hope using Obsidian on a daily basis will help.
Hi! Hang in there. You don't have to install all these plugins - that would be very daunting. It's totally OK not to use any plugins as well. I think Obsidian is still awesome. Welcome to the Obsidian community, and I hope you find it as useful as I have!
I agree--obsidian gets its real value from the plug-ins and from the functionality they provide. I'm mostly using obsidian as a "life-management" tool, place for dev notes, notes on my hobbies, notes on gift ideas for friends, etc. Does anyone here use Obsidian with your significant other? I'm trying to show my partner the app, but I'm kind of struggling to give him a use case. :)
I can so relate! I have tried to get my husband into it, with mixed success. He now uses it for D&D, but sparingly. I was thinking about showing him how to use it for recipes maybe, since he likes to cook?
OMG random internet person! Thanks so much for bringing this amazing looking tool to my attention! The main website can be installed on Android like an app and works amazingly!
I've tried a bunch of (free) tools for D&D, but once I discovered Obsidian a few months ago, this is the tool I'll be using until I die. I use Syncthing (also free) to sync between all of my devices (Win10, Win7, Samsung, Linux) and highly recommend the combo.
I feel the same way! Well, about Obsidian anyway. With all the TTRPG plugins it has, I doubt I'd ever look elsewhere... I prefer to pay for Obsidian Sync, but I know many use Syncthing.
Good call! I use the Checklist plugin for tasks, but I schedule the most important tasks on Reclaim (I have a video on that). But I'll add it to the list, thank you!
I was wondering where I can get the fantasy calendar? I can't seem to find it in the community plug-ins. If you can help me find it thank you and thank you for this great video!
Hi Nicole, Obsidian Noob here... I was a Notion user for a long, long time and recently switched over to Obsidian. I don't know what happened. I felt like I was in love with Notion and then I got so busy this semester with my 16 hours (chem, bio, math, and philosophy) that I looked at my Notion task list and it was just OVERWHELMING... too many icons, highlights, banner photos, and I feel like I got lost in my original purpose - and that is to have a good study system. I don't remember how I even found Obsidian (or you) but here I am! So I have two questions: Do you have a video, or recommend one from someone else, that has a good system for organizing my schoolwork and tasks? What font are you using? Because it looks awesome! Great video! And I look forward to checking out ALL your videos :)
1. Incredible video. Love the value and knowledge here. 2. Love your excitement and energy. 3. It's an obscure (kinda) topic but you got a lot of views. If you skewed toward "how to organize your life" type titles, I think your channel would explode #freeadviceisworthwhatyoupayforit
Amazing video! I quit some equivalent solutions for lack of e2e security. But Obsidian can look austere at first. Adding plugins is vital and your listing answers all my queries. Much thx! (and sorry for my bad written english; i'm french)
Thanks! Obsidian is a great alternative if you are concerned about security. It can run on a computer you never connet to the internet, even. Plugins definitely decrease security, but improve functionality, IMO.
Hi, very nice video thank you! You can actually do cross device sync with dropbox. Create on every device a vault with the exact same name. Then activate the community plugin for syncronisation with your desiered Platform. They all should sync in the same folder. I use webdav with nextcloud and it works fine👍
Yeah, but you can't use Dropbox with mobile devices with just Dropbox-- you'd need something like Dropsync, and that's only for Android... Otherwise, yes you get access to notes, but not within the Obsidian app, which is a bummer.
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You are an exceptional RUclipsr. To the point, personable, easy to understand, and pleasant to listen to. Thanks for this video, been very helpful.
Thank you so much! I appreciate this comment. Glad to help as well. :)
I'm still not sold on Obsidian - I use Google Sites as a digital binder. But the idea of a dataview database sounds awesome so maybe I'll go that way. I just want to tell you that your existence in this space made me smile. I'm a 50-year old Black lady and seeing nerd girls representing is inspirational for the youth, and just awesome for the rest of us.
What an awesome comment. Awww, yay nerd girls! Thank you for the encouragement! If you've found something that works for you, I'm glad for you! :) You have a great day!
🎉🎉🎉nice way to go lady's In Tech🎉🎉❤
You may also want to check out Capacities.
This was so me! The first several times I tried using Obsidian I was like "HELLS NO." The app just looked so...bad. But I kept watching RUclips videos and playing around with the app and eventually the power of it just clicked and now I'm hooked and 100% use Obsidian. For me, it was taking the time to learn how to use the app because it's just so different from other note-taking apps. I've really loved how Obsidian has forced me to learn about things like CSS and YAML and other technical programming stuff that I would never have learned about otherwise.
Really happy to know I'm not the only one who had this experience! It seemed so basic at the beginning, but now I can't stop talking about Obsidian! Haha.
"The app just looked so...bad" HAHAHAHA SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME
@@nicolevdh do you think that if we start using it as basic at the beginning we can grow into it without having to "redo" stuff as we add more options? I hate that every time I start using an app as I learn more and develop in how I use it I have to redo a bunch of stuff to make it all fit
@@nikarose Hi Nika! Yes, you can totally do that! There's no real pressure to change things - you really only have to do it if/when you feel something is missing.
How do you use CSS and YAML in obsidian. I'm a little new to obsidian, so im not to sure how coding helps note taking
Hey! I'm slowly working my way through the list of all these plugins, so here are videos I've made about each one I mentioned in this video:
#1 Calendar: ruclips.net/video/OUrOfIqvGS4/видео.html
#2 Dataview: ruclips.net/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/видео.html , ruclips.net/video/JTObSymEvWA/видео.html , ruclips.net/video/ccN5vJzXwvo/видео.html
#3 Editor Syntax Highlight
#4 Kanban: ruclips.net/video/iU60ItemuDo/видео.html
#5 Outliner
#6 Periodic Notes: ruclips.net/video/T2Aeaq4sk7M/видео.html
#7 Publish
#8 Readwise Official (readwise.io/nicole): ruclips.net/video/Rw1L5sxlnuU/видео.html
#9 Sync
#10 Templater: ruclips.net/video/5j9fAvJCaig/видео.html
THEMES: 01:25 is Sanctum, 05:06 is ITS, 08:28 is the default Obsidian theme
Thanks so much for these! Maybe maybe a RUclips shirt for the obvious plugins just so that you have a link to them?
@Nicole van der Hoeven - did I understand you correctly - 5:26 can the publish app be used to publish pages to a Hugo site ?
Thank you greatly appreciated
i downloaded obsidian over a year ago but it’s not until this week that i have begun to watch tutorials. your video was easy to follow and informative. thanks.
As a fellow software engineer I would also highly recommend the PlantUML plugin! It’s such a joy to be able to create my diagrams in the same place where I’m already describing my thoughts and findings
Hey Niels! Cool, I hadn't heard of PlantUML. I'll check it out! I have just been using a combination of mermaidJS and Excalidraw, though between the two of them, a lot of ground is covered already.
Can I just say, as a productivity enthusiast and newbie to PKMS and basic coding, you are SO COOL. Thank you for all that you do.
Wow, that's so nice. :) I'm really happy to be able to help! Welcome to this space!
GIRL, now I'm subscribed! I've been using Obsidian for a while now, but I never dug deep because it looked too scary. Now I code, and I tend to use and understand Obsidian more, so I'm rediscovering it. This has been one of the most useful videos I've watched so far. Thank you!
Both this video and your “Obsidian for Beginners” video were immensely helpful to me! I appreciate your clear and concise explanations. If you can, could you please make a video on the Dataview plugin? Thank you so much!
Thank you, I will! The Dataview plugin is so useful for so many things. Need to figure out how best to tackle it, but it's definitely on the list! Glad you are finding my videos helpful. It means a lot!
I know this video is kind of old, but in case of someone haven't found another solution: I use Onedrive to store my md files through all my devices, and Onesync, to automatically update/sync them. I didn't find any issues so far. I hope it's of use. Also, thank you for all the Obsidian videos, they are incredibly helpful!
Thank you for this and for “learning in public”. Please do an extended video on an intro to Dataview!!!
You're welcome! I'll add your vote to Dataview. Seems like a lot of people want that, so I think I need to start working on it! Thanks for the feedback!
@@nicolevdh Please add my name to those interested in a video on Dataview.
@@leereed1559 Thanks! I actually have already made a few videos on it since I made this one.
Databases vs Dataview: ruclips.net/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/видео.html
How to use Dataview: ruclips.net/video/JTObSymEvWA/видео.html
Task management with Dataview: ruclips.net/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/видео.html
I watched your "Obsidian for Beginners" video and loved your clear explanations. I just finished this video and would like to see how to use all of these plugins. Please make videos on each one with examples of how you use them. Great work.Thanks!
Hey Gary! (También hablo español) Glad you liked it! Happy to hear you want more details on them all. I started to go into it for this video and realised that if I did that, it would be two hours! I'll definitely make separate videos, thanks for the feedback!
This helped greatly been using Obsidian for years without getting a clear picture of what I should use. Finally getting it ready as move into a full stack role. Obsidian actually super dynamic and the best note taking app I've used up to this point.
Oh, this is great to hear! I totally agree with you, and I'm still finding out new things about it that I didn't know about and make me like it even more. :)
I don’t like Obsidian for beginner’s curve reasons. But it seems really good for note taking. I’ve started using it. I love that I can organise recipes there. I also organise my research on philosophy and comparative religion.
I was originally making excel spreadsheets for book lists and temples, as well as Microsoft Word for chapter summaries. But I want to transition to moving everything as much as possible to Obsidian, because the linking of ideas. Also, having multiple windows open for notes is so good.
Its funny you said that because I was researching about how to take better notes. I have ADHD and I really struggle with understanding other apps like ONE NOTE or any of the Microsoft systems.. they suck.. but once I heard about OBSIDIAN? I found a good you tube video that easily helped me to understand it and it IS actually easy to jump into. You can get in over your head fast and my head hurt seeing all these users using really hard core scripting language and other stuff I was WOAH no way..but i think it is easy and fun to start using. The fact that you can just so easily mark up things fast and simply instead of having to hunt for things or functionality. UGH. You don't have to do that really to start with Obsidian> I guess it is how different our brains work
Beginner's curve?
I may be a weird person, but i never encountered that in obsidian, or to me it was almost non-existent
it took me a few moments or minutes, but after that, i was already trying to create complex "wind-rose" diagrams in my notes , just for the fun of it
(or maybe it was because i worked with vscode and cherrydb before that)
I just installed Obsidian, and it has a learning curve that i am battling with, looks promising the power of a database, it will take some time from the looks of it before I can say I love it.
Very useful. Thanks. I'm in the process of switching from Roam to Obsidian and found it non-intuitive, so glad to hear that it's not just me.
I agree!! Funny that you mention migrating from Roam. My video on Wednesday is about switching. What a coincidence! I also resisted switching for a long time. I think Obsidian is especially difficult because it's so plain and, in my opinion, it would have been better to include some of these plugins so that it's more fully-featured from the beginning.
Very informative. I've hesitated on making the leap for awhile now but the more I'm researching it, the better it seems. Thanks for making this. It was extremely helpful!
Hey Benjamin, I'm very glad to hear that! :) I hope you decide to take the plunge and join the Obsidian community. :)
Great video! Another must have plugin is Obsidian Git. It makes easy to backup and sync your vault to any git repository.
I did see that, but have not tried it because I already have a cronjob that runs a script that does that locally, and this way I didn't have to trust someone else's code! :)
First video on your channel, very interesting ! Thanks for sharing 🙏
Why are all these Obsidian youtubers so calm and chilled out
My #1 plugin for Obsidian is the 3d graph view by Yomaru Hananoshika. It adds absolutely nothing to my workflow and actively detracts from my efficiency, but the ability to view my graph as an interconnected sphere is _so pretty_
Kanban is not just the default todo doing done thing. The heart of Kanban is „kaizen“ meaning basically „constant improvement“. The way you are using it is totally valid in Kanban. And the approach you don’t like is basically just one way of using it. And the reason you don’t like it is because it’s not the right method for you. So whatever board style works for you is totally legit Kanban
Thank you for the videos on obsidian. Very informative and great presentation. I like videos on YT where the presenter is not extremely artificially over exciting on the topics that are been presented.
You have a very nice, calming and natural way of speaking that is really enjoyable.
Hey! I'm glad you like them! I AM super passionate and excited about Obsidian, but I'm glad it comes across as real-- it is! :)
You have such a pleasant way to explain things.
I had a hard time to get into Obsidian at first, after watching some of your vids I'm giving it a fresh try...
Hey, I'm happy to hear that! (Re) welcome to Obsidian! I hope this time goes better for you! We're a pretty welcoming community. :)
I just installed Obsidian and was looking for possibly "necessary" additions, so I ran into this video. As I am watching it I am like "Who the hell is this girl!" Like some master coder, magic expert. Then you talk about your blog and as I am seeing screenshots of it, I am more impressed. Just WOW, keep on rocking!!!
Awww, thank you, Nika! I'm not a master or expert coder. :) Just someone who doesn't mind learning things. :) Glad you liked this video though!
I had no fucking clue that there was a calendar plugin. Thank you, random RUclips person. You're a lifesaver.
Came here looking for Obsidian content, which I mainly use for work. But I had just started to use it for the weekly Mork Borg campaign I'm running... And was delighted to see you using it for that exact same purpose!
Oh and this is a great guide to Obsidian plugins - just what I was looking for. (New subscriber!)
How cool that you're running Mörk Borg!! I only ran a one-shot in it and played in an adventure, so I have much less experience. But I thought Obsidian was good for both! :)
thank you so so much! this video definitely broden my understanding of what Obsidian can do and create tremendous value in use cases that I probably have not yet discover or know that I needed. I start to get to know this tool about 2 weeks ago, and have been using Notion / Evernote all my life. I just want to say that bi-directional link is changing on how I write more effectively.
This video definitely will increase my productivity in upcoming weeks during my discovery of this amazing tool and community! big thank you
Oh, that's great! Welcome to the Obsidian community! I'm glad to have exposed you to all the awesome things that Obsidian can do, just not out of the box. :) Yay for bi-directional linking!!
It's really interesting that your initial experience with Obsidian was negative because of how basic it is. I never used Roam or Notion or Evernote, but instead came over from OneNote, and personally what I liked about Obsidian was that it was entirely markdown, and it was very portable and lightweight. The first day I found out about it, I fell in love, and abandoned OneNote entirely. Began carrying over all my notes (manually) into Obsidian. I've been using it for about 2 years now.
The problem, though, is that over time I discovered that its lightweightedness has pros and cons, and one of the biggest things I realized was that there are many features I could stand to have which just aren't a part of it, and the other thing was that the way I've been using Obsidian is not super efficient.
I basically used it to just create and categorize all my notes, plans, and idea (for a lot of different subjects, all in one vault), but I haven't been taking advantage of community plugins or even the built in graphic and tagging features.
At work (I'm a developer) I tend to use it to track notes I'm taking about tickets I pick up, though so far it's all been "throw the tickets in the ticket bucket" and "throw discoveries in the Documentation bucket". With a small handful of sporadic and unintegrated notes.
Thank you for this video, demonstrating the usefulness of some of the plugins available. I have been overwhelmed by how many there are, and haven't been able to imagine how I would use them.
I can understand that! Obsidian is very flexible, but the flexibility comes with some overwhelm because you have to know what's available before you can finetune it to work the way you want.
For me, linking notes and creating "landing pages" for certain topics really helped. For example, you could create a note that tracks all the tickets by manually linking to each ticket. Later on, if you feel like you want to try Dataview, you could use it to query your vault for open notes, for example. But manually updating that Open Tickets page can also force you to be more aware of what's out there, which isn't a bad thing.
Since you mentioned being overwhelmed, I definitely recommend starting with the core plugins! They provide the most value for complexity since they're built to be not so intrusive. :) Good luck!
Phenomenal content; this video was suggested to me after I watched a video by Tiago Forte. I have decided on Obsidian, and am setting it up, but wow, these plugins get me really excited to use it. I heard the community around Obsidian was fantastic, and your video is a testament to that.
Yay for you deciding on Obsidian! Welcome (belatedly) to the Obsidian community! :)
A free alternative to Obsidian Sync is SyncThing(Android)/SyncTrayzor(Windows)/syncthing-macos(MacOS). For iPad, I suppose you could set up a file server or directly connect to a local host to load and save simply enough, too.
Excelent video,as a novice I Was looking for some advice over recommended plugins. Thanks!
Another option for synchronizing is "Self-hosted LiveSync". You do need some knowledge to set it up and it's historically been a little unstable. Haven't had issues with any of the recent versions though (last few months).
Thank you for that list! I'm only just dipping my toe into Obsidian, and whether it sticks is more a me thing rather than the program itself. It looks pretty nice so far and there are plenty of videos and resources to give me ideas on how to use it well.
I have found a workaround for a sync'ed vault across "some" devices using an SMB/NFS shared folder on a home server and I'm using Tailscale to build a small "tailnet" (which is super simple to set up, and then I've mapped the folder on my server to each of my Windows machines, and mounted on a Linux laptop, and the vault opens from whatever computer I'm on. Even if I'm out of my home network.
What it doesn't work on is mobile devices, as it appears that you can only using Obsidian Sync, or a local folder on the mobile device, and I've not found any decent solution to access either an NFS or SMB share from an Android device. If I can get that sorted I think I'm set for a cross platform experience. If not, I'm more likely to be working in Obsidian on a computer rather than a phone
Just letting you know, syncthing is an open source way of syncing files between devices. Works on windows, iOS, Linux, android. 100% free, just takes maybe 10min to set up compared to obsidian sync taking one click but once it's set up it's no maintenance
Straight-forward information that helped me get started on Obsidian. Thank you!
Oh, yay! Happy to hear I helped you get up to speed! :)
Great list - a couple I didn't know about thank you for the video Nicole!
Thanks for all your great Obsidian videos! You've helped me tremendosly with refocusing on note taking basics instead of being paralized from force feeding PARA and zettelkasten. Please make a video on the templater plugin. Another great video would be an advanced walkthrough of your note taking flow.
Hi Alex, I really appreciate this! Templater is definitely on my list already-- I'm thinking about doing it next week maybe! Thanks for adding your vote though. That helps me decide what's next. I'll put the walkthrough of note taking to the list too!
07:17 You Can use MEGA for cloud drive & MEGA Sync in mobile & Linux & Mac. Better choice instead of DropBox & Sync
I'm just getting into Obsidian for my tech learning/content needs, so your list is PERFECT!
Subscribed and did the bell thing.
Great video. I have been using Obsidian for almost three years for cyber security and capture the flag and personal training and I still don't know the half of it!! Thank you for introducing me to Kanban, calendar and a few others that will now take pride of place!! One new subscriber added :)
Thanks, Jim! I think Obsidian is really great (and really needed) for tech knowledge workers (I am one too)! Things move quickly and there's always a lot to learn... welcome, and thanks for watching!
Geweldig! DataView is zo belangrijk voor mijn workflow. Bedankt voor deze super tips!
Goed om te horen! :) Bedankt voor het kijken!
You have earned yourself a subscriber, I usually don't interact with creators beyond just watching, but this is composed soo nicely and loved every second of it
Thank you so much, Param! :) Welcome, and it makes me happy to know you enjoyed this one!
Your videos have pushed me back into "excitement mode" when it comes to learn and adopt a technology! Thank you so much - you are a true role model for "working/learning/sharing/thinking out loud" 🙏
Hey thank you to publish the video! Instead of dropbox I'm using synching to maintain my obsidian update and sync on different machines! It's a really nice and free way to do this.
Hey! I know this is a late reply, but I still wanted to comment because I've never used Syncthing but would like to explore it. Have you had any issues with using Syncthing to view your notes within the Obsidian app on different devices, or do you just use it to sync/backup your vault?
You're my fav person on YT right now. Thanks for learning in public!!! I'm inspired to make some changes myself :)
Wow, that's so nice! I'm really happy that me learning in public has helped others like you! Welcome and I hope those changes go well for you! :)
The outliner helped, thanks
I wanted to get into obsidian. all I did was watch one of your videos and I think after that I immediately got it. it's not that hard to use, it's just not super obvious. and since I already talk in markdown due to discord and misskey, I felt pretty much right at home writing in markdown.
Wow!!! What a great overview! Thank you Nicole!
Thanks for the support, Eve! :)
Thanks!
Wow, I don't know how I missed this! I'm sorry for the late reply, but I really do appreciate your support.
Thanks for your insights! I'm just getting started with Obsidian and all of these plugins seem really useful. I agree that one does not see the appeal of Obsidian on a first approach, so this videos certainly help.
Great job on the Contant, organization and production of this video. I consume way more RUclips learning than I probably should and so I’m used to all different levels of quality, however, this was absolutely excellent and I very much appreciate your top 10 list as well. I will definitely be using several of your list as I have recently adopted obsidian. All the best
Thank you! I also spend a lot of time on RUclips, and not always for learning, heh. Happy you liked this!
Zo genoeg te leren. Ben pas begonnen met Obsidian. Dank voor de filmpjes!
Bedankt voor het kijken! Welkom in de wereld van Obsidian! :)
I've just discovered your channel Nicole - Nice! Thanks - super useful stuff. Love the Pokemon blip in the video 😀
Nicole, great vids on Obsidian, thank you. Liked this one and the one, where you explain DataView even more. Keep on!
Hey Max! So nice of you to leave a comment just to encourage me. Thank you!
Thank you for this video! Obsidian was quite overwhelming for me so it is so helpful to hear your insights with different plugins. Def watching the rest of your tutorials :)
I definitely understand that Obsidian can be really overwhelming. It's great, but not the most user-friendly... glad to hear I can help! Hope you continue to enjoy Obsidian. :)
Very informative and helpful tutorial video❤
Brilliant video exactly what I needed to get started with Obsidian. One suggestion I have for you is having the plugin name in the chapter as well as the number.
Thanks, Josh! Glad you found it helpful! Good suggestion. Done!
I'm just starting to use obsidian, thanks for this list :)
Thank you for your explanation. Love from Spain 📚💌
Wonderful series of videos, Nicole. Thank you very much. Can you suggest any plug-in for the following capabilities: i) generate mind-map out of text as a graphic and allows me to go back and forth between the graphic and the ordered text; ii) automatically generate a mind-map (in addition to the graph) among related notes; iii) handle hand written notes as some of us very often scribble on our laptop screens using a stylus. We need to capture these and ideally also convert the written words into text; iv) ability to create and interlink IT diagrams according to the C4 architecture model and also ER diagrams. Ideally generate ER diagrams straight out of a SQL database and able to convert changes into SQL commands back into the database to alter the table designs
Hi! Thanks for reaching out! Glad you enjoyed this video. As for you plugin questions:
i and ii: The Mind Map plugin is what you want for sure.
iii and iv: Excalidraw is your best bet, though it won't interface with a SQL database. You'll have to manually create what you want it to show.
Good luck!
@@nicolevdh Thank you!
Loved your content on Obsidian! I was interested in learning the software and I believe I am in the right place. Thank you!
omg you're so smart, I literally fell in love with this video, Great job!
Haha. Luckily I edit every video and can make myself look smarter than I actually am. ;)
Wish I saw this before. So many useful plugins.
I am new to your channel. I have just watched your video. I really like your clear and consize wording (no exceessive words needed), just to the point information share. Thank you. Will watch more :)
Nicole, you discussed using Readwise to collect clips/highlighted items + your annotations from pdf files, to send to Obsidian for your PKMS.
What do you use for doing the same with EPUB files?
Usage
I read a lot of medical journals (mostly PDFs) & books from a gazillion fields (I'm curious), everything from geopolitics to medicine, science fiction to philosophy. Most of this stuff is EPUB books, 'though some are also PDFs.
I'd love one app "to rule them all": do EPUB and PDF both. I fear I'm going to be disappointed. But I'll wager you do access both file formats. What works?
Hardware platforms
I'm working on a Windows desktop laptop/tablet (hybrid), and an Android tablet. So it'd be nice to be able to use the same software on both platforms. I know you do this too, but suspect a lot of your reading is done on an iPad. I've avoided Apple's ecosystem (got off it 7-8 years ago). I'm more likely to add a Boox eReader instead of an Apple tablet. We'll see.
Finally, I like the idea of handwriting with a stylus to take notes. Not sure how realistic this is. For lectures, though, it would be ideal. My Samsung tablet (Fold phone, actually) does a pretty credible job of converting handwriting on the fly to text. It'd be nice if a note-taking app offered that kind of input, but I think that's still bleeding-edge & not too practical. Plus it means palm rejection is crucial, and while my Fold smartphone is pretty good using core apps like Samsung's Notes app, I think palm rejection in many 3rd party apps still sucks. And I don't think handwriting conversion is even offered in Notion & Obsidian on Android tablets.
Any thoughts? I'll keep scanning your vids to see if you've already addressed these issues.
Thank you for sharing your passions & talents with such enthusiasm!
Great video! I'm confused by your comment that you don't normally like the kanban approach but what you're describing is almost anecdotally the perfect example of what kanban is best used for. My trello board looks almost identical to your use case and is exactly what I need for managing creative projects combined with a little automation wired in. What are you not fond of with kanban boards? Thanks again for the recommendations
Also, love the Mork Borg plug! 😁
Nicole, thanks for this incredibly concise and process-empowering video. Looking forward to more Obsodian content!
Hey Ryan, glad you liked it! Thanks for your encouragement! :)
Great Video! Will keep these in mind!
so much inspiration in just nine minutes....... and yea, i am going straight to the 'what the heck is obsidian' video, although i heard about it and downloaded it i feel more inspired to listen to your explanation :D i am ready for it!!! thanks!
Yay!! Haha. I'm happy to haer that. :) I think this video is a good place to get started for you, if you haven't found it already: pulse.ly/3j3dg3nc77
I talk about how to install Obsidian and go through the first steps in using it. :)
@@nicolevdh thank you so much!!! Yes, watched it :) will get started during the Xmas holidays!
You are Amazing ❤️ maybe the best video for the plug-ins on RUclips. Liked & Subscribed.
tnx, I'm completely new to Obsidian and it's great to know all these possibilities. Little bit overwhelming, but I hope using Obsidian on a daily basis will help.
Hi! Hang in there. You don't have to install all these plugins - that would be very daunting. It's totally OK not to use any plugins as well. I think Obsidian is still awesome. Welcome to the Obsidian community, and I hope you find it as useful as I have!
Wonderful video Nicole. You're very pleasant to listen to. I also use obsidian sync. I'm loving it, the bonus features and it simply works.
Thank you so much! Yeah I love Sync too! It's also a great way to give back to the Obsidian devs since they're making a free tool.
Thank you, best regards!
I agree--obsidian gets its real value from the plug-ins and from the functionality they provide.
I'm mostly using obsidian as a "life-management" tool, place for dev notes, notes on my hobbies, notes on gift ideas for friends, etc.
Does anyone here use Obsidian with your significant other? I'm trying to show my partner the app, but I'm kind of struggling to give him a use case. :)
I can so relate! I have tried to get my husband into it, with mixed success. He now uses it for D&D, but sparingly. I was thinking about showing him how to use it for recipes maybe, since he likes to cook?
Great video, Nicole! 😀
Love your list of plug ins. The only one I would add is Excalidraw which is absolutely amazing in what it can do.
This was on my shortlist!! I've been wanting to make a video about it for a while. I feel like there's always something new I'm discovering about it!
OMG random internet person! Thanks so much for bringing this amazing looking tool to my attention! The main website can be installed on Android like an app and works amazingly!
Whoop whoop! Thanks for sharing this! Great video!
I've tried a bunch of (free) tools for D&D, but once I discovered Obsidian a few months ago, this is the tool I'll be using until I die. I use Syncthing (also free) to sync between all of my devices (Win10, Win7, Samsung, Linux) and highly recommend the combo.
I feel the same way! Well, about Obsidian anyway. With all the TTRPG plugins it has, I doubt I'd ever look elsewhere... I prefer to pay for Obsidian Sync, but I know many use Syncthing.
Nice overview! I would love to see a video on how you manage your tasks especially because I see no tasks plugin?
Good call! I use the Checklist plugin for tasks, but I schedule the most important tasks on Reclaim (I have a video on that). But I'll add it to the list, thank you!
love you videos! I am just getting started with obsidian and your stuff is so great!
So I've now discover your main site and your Obsidan published notes and I like it and will browsed it more deeply :-)
Great! It can be a bit messy in my notes, so good luck! :D
Thank you for the Video. I was looking for something like kanban to organise and get a categories list of Notes.
I was wondering where I can get the fantasy calendar? I can't seem to find it in the community plug-ins. If you can help me find it thank you and thank you for this great video!
Wow. Great video. Very helpful. Thank you!
Thanks for watching! :)
I really love your enthusiasm and video content. It's very engaging! I'm still exploring Obsidian and this video helps me a lot
Hey, thank you so much! I'm glad the enthusiasm comes through. :)
@@nicolevdh At 0:24 how to have a graph view like that ? can you help me out ?
Thank you Nicole! This was very helpful!
You're very welcome! :)
Hi Nicole, Obsidian Noob here... I was a Notion user for a long, long time and recently switched over to Obsidian. I don't know what happened. I felt like I was in love with Notion and then I got so busy this semester with my 16 hours (chem, bio, math, and philosophy) that I looked at my Notion task list and it was just OVERWHELMING... too many icons, highlights, banner photos, and I feel like I got lost in my original purpose - and that is to have a good study system. I don't remember how I even found Obsidian (or you) but here I am! So I have two questions:
Do you have a video, or recommend one from someone else, that has a good system for organizing my schoolwork and tasks?
What font are you using? Because it looks awesome!
Great video! And I look forward to checking out ALL your videos :)
This video is 🔥. Made me want to use obsidian.
Nicely presented. Thanks for the suggestions.
Thank you! Glad to help!
1. Incredible video. Love the value and knowledge here.
2. Love your excitement and energy.
3. It's an obscure (kinda) topic but you got a lot of views. If you skewed toward "how to organize your life" type titles, I think your channel would explode #freeadviceisworthwhatyoupayforit
Thanks you for making this video. I would not have known about the Readwise plug-in otherwise.
Yay! Readwise is so great. I'm happy to throw them some love.
Amazing video! I quit some equivalent solutions for lack of e2e security. But Obsidian can look austere at first. Adding plugins is vital and your listing answers all my queries. Much thx! (and sorry for my bad written english; i'm french)
Thanks! Obsidian is a great alternative if you are concerned about security. It can run on a computer you never connet to the internet, even. Plugins definitely decrease security, but improve functionality, IMO.
This is so nice Nicole. thanks for sharing. I'm definitely adding some of these plugins to my vault.
Hi Gift!! :) Awesome! Hope you like them too! Feel free to ask me any questions as well!
Awesome video, thank you!!
This was super helpful. Thank you!
Glad to hear it, Jeremiah. :) Thanks for watching!
7:52 that's not all. You can use literally any sync app to sync your files. Even out of obsidian. Like Rclone or syncthing
My wife left me
Can confirm, as I am this guy’s wife. Phil says hi too
Congratulations bro
Ouch
Did she leave you 3 years ago?
There’s a plugin for that
You speak my language. Thanks for the great video.
Hi, very nice video thank you! You can actually do cross device sync with dropbox. Create on every device a vault with the exact same name. Then activate the community plugin for syncronisation with your desiered Platform. They all should sync in the same folder. I use webdav with nextcloud and it works fine👍
Yeah, but you can't use Dropbox with mobile devices with just Dropbox-- you'd need something like Dropsync, and that's only for Android... Otherwise, yes you get access to notes, but not within the Obsidian app, which is a bummer.
@@nicolevdh i used an obsidian plugin called remotely sync. Did you try that?☺️