Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation  ## Metadata - Author: [[Brandon Boswell]] - Full Title: Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#Obsidian, #ContentCreation, #Zettelkasten, #PKM, #Productivity, #TaskManagement] - #Obsidian - #ContentCreation - #PKM Author: Brandon Toner (conversation with Josh Medeski) Source: YouTube Video Reference: [Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w) date created: 2025-08-22 21:50 --- # Title: Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: The video explores how Obsidian can be optimized for content creation, particularly when paired with Zettelkasten workflows. Brandon Toner shares his transition from Craft to Obsidian, emphasizing a keyboard-driven workflow, version control, and Git integration. The discussion centers on balancing idea generation with execution, using Obsidian’s plugins (like B Folder and QuickAdd) to manage projects, and supplementing with specialized tools like Akiflow for task management. Key insights include accountability structures (timers, deadlines), balancing deep vs. newsworthy content, and structuring notes around both temporal and topical contexts. --- ## 📖 Main Content: The conversation dives into the **creative cycle in Obsidian**, identifying the tension between divergent exploration (idea capture, journaling, connecting thoughts) and convergent execution (picking one idea, producing content, publishing). Toner stresses that Zettelkasten alone isn’t enough; it needs accountability mechanisms to drive output. Obsidian’s strength lies in linking notes temporally and topically, making it easier to revisit, refine, and expand ideas over time. Akiflow is introduced as a complement, managing tasks outside of Obsidian for clarity and efficiency. Tools like QuickAdd and custom templates streamline note creation, while B Folder plugin mirrors Notion-style databases inside Obsidian. The dialogue also covers emotional realities of content creation: negative feedback, decision fatigue, and the tradeoff between making “lead gen” content for exposure versus deep, long-form work that fulfills personal creative goals. ### 🗒️ Notes - [00:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=1) Switching from Craft to Obsidian for hotkeys, Git, and workflow efficiency. - [02:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=127) Obsidian evolved from journaling into a second brain system for understanding personal principles. - [06:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=392) Two-week timer used for accountability in publishing videos. - [08:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=519) Zygarnik effect: unfinished ideas weigh on the mind until expressed. - [12:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=776) Balancing deep content with exposure-oriented videos. - [14:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=897) Importance of creating content that feels good personally, not just algorithmically. - [18:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=1138) Using B Folder plugin to manage projects like Montessori lesson tracking. - [20:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=1253) Obsidian reduces decision fatigue by structuring projects and tasks. - [24:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=1484) Deadlines and interactions drive meaningful output beyond digital gardening. - [26:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=1598) Keyboard shortcuts enable fast navigation, local graphs for divergent/convergent exploration. - [30:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=1835) QuickAdd plugin structures content by type (person, project, topic). - [36:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=2181) "Seedling" notes act as placeholders for future fleshing-out. - [38:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=2304) Balancing family with deep work; task management separated into Akiflow. - [42:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=2540) Akiflow integrates Slack/Gmail for task capture and supports time blocking. - [48:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&t=2904) Duplication of daily notes vs. task management is inevitable but manageable. --- ## 📖 References: - Tiago Forte – *Building a Second Brain* (concept of CODE: Capture, Organize, Distill, Express). - Zeigarnik Effect research on memory and unfinished tasks. - Obsidian Plugins: QuickAdd, B Folder, Templater. - Akiflow (task + calendar integration). --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. Original: “Zettelkasten is divergent by nature; you must eventually converge to produce.” **Paraphrase**: Zettelkasten helps generate and explore ideas, but creators must intentionally shift into convergence to turn notes into output. 2. Original: “Your brain works both temporally and topically; linking both in Obsidian replicates how memory functions.” **Paraphrase**: Obsidian mirrors human cognition by letting users connect notes across both time and theme, reinforcing long-term knowledge cycles. --- ## 📰 Newsletter: 📝 Struggling to balance note-taking with actual content creation? Brandon Toner and Josh Medeski break it down in *Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation*. From QuickAdd templates to Akiflow task management, the duo explores how to stay productive without drowning in ideas. 💡 Takeaway: Don’t just *capture*—*express*. Use Zettelkasten to generate insights, then set deadlines to publish. Even “newsier” content can feed the funnel while deeper videos sustain loyal followers. Watch the full conversation here: [Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w). --- ## ✅ Action Items: - Position Zettelkasten workflows as **WordPress contributor training tools** (capture insights, distill, publish). - Frame Obsidian’s flexibility as an **OSPO knowledge infrastructure model** (temporal + topical links). - Use Akiflow-style accountability (two-week timers) to support **open-source contributor consistency**. - Educate WordPress devs on plugin-like workflow automation in Obsidian → analogies for plugin development in Core. - Incorporate Zeigarnik effect in training → unfinished contributions weigh heavily unless contributors express them. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: 1. Temporal + topical linking increases long-term contributor retention in open-source. 2. Accountability structures (e.g., two-week publishing cycles) improve contribution output. 3. Separation of tasks and knowledge (Akiflow + Obsidian) reduces burnout. ### 📊 Methodology: - Mixed-method surveys of WordPress contributors using PKM workflows. - Productivity measurement pre/post Zettelkasten adoption. - A/B testing of structured vs. unstructured contributor onboarding. ### ❓ Questions: - How can PKM workflows scale in large contributor ecosystems? - What balance of “deep” vs. “lead gen” content sustains OSS communities? - Can deadlines be automated into contributor workflows without rigidity? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Obsidian/Akiflow integration experiments for distributed OSS teams. - Comparative analysis of “personal Zettelkasten” vs. “community Zettelkasten.” ### 💡 Implications: - Could reshape contributor knowledge-sharing in WordPress. - May influence OSPO strategy for sustainable contributor engagement. - Supports neurodiverse contributors with structured workflows. --- ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: - **Visual**: Graphs, backlinks help → improve with flowcha - Summary: I recently sat down again with fellow YouTube buddy, Josh Medeski, who is in the process of adopting Obsidian. We cover what I've learned over the last 2 years of using Obsidian and some tips I've found for finishing the creative process to actually deliver more content. We also cover a bunch of tips and best practices for getting the most out of Obsidian. 📖 Mentioned in this video: • Obsidian — https://obsidian.md/ • DB Folder Plugin — https://github.com/RafaelGB/obsidian-db-folder • QuickAdd Plugin — https://github.com/chhoumann/quickadd • Obsidian Git Plugin — https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git • Weekly Review Plugin — https://github.com/brandonkboswell/weekly-review • Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte — https://amzn.to/406y6EK • Akiflow — https://akiflow.com/?ref=brandonboswell I started a new Discord Server for Knowledge Workers (Anyone who thinks for a living). We've got a bunch of people from all areas of knowledge work, but we don't have you... 🎉 You should join and come hang out: https://... - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm_BDdEPR8w&ab_channel=BrandonBoswell I recently sat down with my friend andfellow YouTube buddy Josh medeski who'scurrently in the process of adoptingobsidian in the conversation we cover abunch of what I've learned with obsidianover the last two years and the tips andtricks I've found for completing thecreative process and actually deliveringmore content we also cover a bunch ofGeneral tips and tricks for getting themost out of obsidian I've also added abunch of chapter markers so feel free tojump around to whatever piques yourinterest with out of the way let's talkabout how to optimize obsidian forContent creation last time we talked wetalked about I used craft and you were using obsidian since thenI have continued to make videos onneovim and terminal based stuff and soright now what makes sense for me is tomake the plunge make the switch andstart using obsidian so that I can getcustom hotkeys and keyboard drivenworkflow that craft really can't give meand I really like Version Control So theplan is I'm going to use git to commitand track my you know zettel casting systembut the main reason that we wanted totalk today is I want to know more aboutzebocasts and sort of how it ties intoyou beinga productive human so actually takingthose connected ideasbut then executing them and makingcontent making videos you know whateverit is tied to work that you do like Ijust kind of want to start picking yourbrain about how do I better leverage anuptaking systembut also allow myself to track and prioritize projects to get them donewith this different system yes and thatis a big questionpretending to be a small question soI'll do my best to try and to explainthat because I think that's sort of thetale as old as time I guess probablymakes sense to start with a disclaimerwhich is I am not a purist when it comesto zetel costin like when we had ourchat last time I wasn't really a puristwhen it came to para either there are a few things that I'm a purist about butultimately at the end of the day I'm afunctional person in most regards soanyone who is a subtle costume puristI'm probably going to upset you and Iapologize that's just not who I am andI'm not saying my way is right it's justwhat has worked for me but I guesszooming out to why I wantedor second brain or to use obsidianwhat I found myself doing is I'd havethese ideas where I'd have these idealsthese principles that I believed to be true and if you were to ask me aquestion about them I could probablycome to some conclusion about how I feelabout it but I was largely unpacking myown personal psyche instead of reallyknowing what my opinion is on somethingat any given time and so that was kindof how I got started with the secondbrain is like I wanted to betterunderstand why I felt the way I feltabout certain things and reallyunderstand my principlesand so that's that's kind of how I use it it evolved out of my journalingpractice that I also stumbled into butlike that's where this all started andthen it's largely a lot of jumping offpoints about the things I'm thinkingabout the problems I'm trying to tosolve and then going from thereso you're talking about trying to getmore out of your your subtle costs andhow to make it functionalI think zettel costume is really greatin that you're exploring ideas but it'sa Divergent process the whole idea here is exploration getting ideas out on acanvas and that's actually probablycounterproductive from like gettingthings done perspective and so at acertain point you have to figure outwhen the Divergent aspect of the processis over for a given taskstop diverging and say okay I've gotenough here there's enough meat on thisbone that I'm going to switch intoconvergent thinking and actuallyproducing some output from it and Ithink that's the tricky piece is knowing whenand also putting some guard rails onyour process so that you are actuallyproducing output instead of continuingtime to diverge because we can unpackour psyches for forever especially ifyou're consuming a lot of externalcontent and constantly feeding thisEvolution I think you'll learn a lotabout yourself and in that regard I geta lot of value out of it and that's partof why I do it but I have to supplementthat with other things because that'llcost them on its own I don't think produces more qualityoutput it definitely produces input foryour output process but then you have toguard rail it to actually get thingsdoneso I guess I'll pause there it's a supergood point to bring upand the maker of the second brain systemthiagra Forte talks a lot aboutconverging and divergingandit's definitely my Habit to always beexploring new ideas and then I often find bursts of energyand bursts of time where I can bring itall together and create somethingsubstantial from it and share it withthe worldand so I enjoy those momentsbut I I think often enough right now I Ihave a hard time pickingthe topic and I realize now the more andmore I do second brain and the more andmore I'm kind of putting myself outthere on YouTube and the blog that I'vebeen creating for for many years now I don't think it often matters what topicyou pick I think all that matters isthat that you pick it whatever it is itdoesn't really matter what the topic isjust pick one and and come up with yourown Reflections and the reasons in whichyour perspective is unique and andpresent information to others in inwhether through education orentertainment or you know we're we'regenerally more educational in our focuson the content we create I've even realized today that like maybe I justwant to make informative content whereI'm literally justyou know sharing what's coming up in myfieldand you know making it consumable toothersand so it doesn't really have to be thatcomplicated I just have to find time tobalance those ideasbecause you hit on a ton of things thereso I guess first of all like I think I'ma little bit further along in thisprocess mostly just because I've been doing obsidian for a while but let me bevery clear that I still languish onwhich topic to choose like I'll show youmy project list here in a minute andthere's like 30 things in there andthey're all pretty good and they couldall be great videos and yeah there'sdefinitely attention all right I justhave to pick one and so like before wewent on airyou're talking about how like I've beencreating a bunch of stuff it's likeI set sort of a two-week timer and so myinternal timers I need to produce avideo every two weeks it's just something I set for myself and so likethat is the thing that I think keeps meproducing is like all right I've onlygot three days until that two week timeris up I should probably get this thisvideo rock and roll and I have to I haveto stop exploring and just pick a topicand get it doneand so yeah I still haven't figured itout but that timer to produce becauselike you were saying like any of thosevideos can be successfuland so like getting the perfect video topic although helpful is not gonnachange the world like the biggest thingis actually continue to produce and putyourself out there becauseif you're not putting yourself out therepeople are forgetting about you that'sjust kind of the world we live in evenif they like you like it there's so muchelse going on in their lives that theythey don't care or at least it's not topof mind they're not thinking about ityeah I agree with that and I guess themain topic we're bringing up here islike personal accountabilityand I think what we want for ourselves is the ability to complete the creativeprocess so Thiago talks about the codeso you capture you organize you distilland then you express and the express myaha moment in doing this work has beenexpression is an important step to thecreative process if you just take in newinformation even organize it evendistill it down into you know littlebits that are like wisdom and andsomething that's informative and helpful to you if you don't express it it almostit's like it lives in this open loop andwhen you finally you know hit publish orsend that tweet out or whatever it isyou end up doing to share that withother people even if it's just aconversation which is often enough forme sitting down and talking about atopicit kind of like closes this Loop andallows you tocontinue that Creative Cycle withoutkind of feeling blocked up which issomething I've dealt with in the past I just like have so much swimming in myhead that I don't feel like I can letanything goeven if it becomes digital right likethese note-taking apps okay great it'sin a note-taking app but for me the thething I'm holding myself moreaccountable to isputting that information back out in theworld and letting itcreate that feedback loop that lets me Iguess understand what works and whatdoesn'tand evolve as a person so let's unpack that sorry I feel alittle bit like a therapist butso it sounds like there's a little bitof a zignarics effect going on herewhere you have a topic in mind you putit in your note-taking app but you'renot confident that you'll revisit it andso it's still occupying spacein in your conscious mind where youcan't quite let go of it because you'renot sure if you're gonnaget it to some form of completion it's like this little thing right zydaricseffect the whole idea here is it'llcontinue to stay on your brain untilyou're confident that you'll revisit itand then at that point your brain canlet it go and and yeah you can move on Ithink often enough I can see the endresult pretty clearlybut like what this interesting piece ofinformation or interesting newconnection I've made personally tosomething saying oh wow this came out orthis you know ideas been presented to meI know how that connects to my life and the other creative things that Iunderstand or my knowledge of the worldand I'm like great this can definitelyturn into something else but I haveI don't have enough time in the dayso it almost just becomes I'm going tohold on to as many good ideas as I havebut I also am a human that needs timeoff and has a full-time job and so Ireally don't ever I would say FamilyMatters yeah I mean right now it feelslike maybe every one in tengood ideas where I really put effort into thinking about and start shapingand forming these thoughtsonly about like 10 maybe less end uppublished end up becoming content I'mproud of and put out in the world and soI have these nine other ideas that aregood but they and maybe they're good forthe future but they just sort of floataroundwhile they're in my house when tocompound it the further you were talkingabout the informative content the thingI've found isthe really difficult videos that I spend a lot of time digging into the meat of atopic do okay and the News informativevideos do 10x better and it's sort oflike I take pride in what I do and Iwant to likego the scientific route and really talkabout something that maybe no one'stalked about or maybe it's not beenwidely consumed yet right and YouTubedoes not reward thatthere are exceptions but in in generalnewsworthy content seems to have a lot more play than this deep scientificthing that you really spend a lot oftime and effort into and there will be aselect few that get really excited aboutit and think it's you know this amazingthing but it doesn't have that wideaudience that the the news oh absolutelyI think my best videotook the least amount of effortand was the most shallow in in its formfactor this is like hey this is just howthings are and it's like okay greatthirty thousand views I was like whoa okay that's cool like lots of peoplewant to know about this and then my mostunderrated video is when I like the mostand has probably the least amount ofviews so it's it's funny that you saythat because that's absolutely I thinkthe case that wetreasure certain thingsthat often othersaren't looking for it's not that it'snot valuable to them I think for theones that have seen those videos and getit it's like man that's an aha momentthat's something that I want to click for you and I want you to shift your wayof thinking about the way things work bylooking at that videoand then the other one is just sort ofheyhere's a cool thing that everybody'sexcited about and here's you know myinterpretation of it and it's like okaygreat you know just adding to the thenoise butI don't think it's a bad thing to add tothe noise I think often enoughyeah I think it's just the way peoplewant to knowI mean I like I like TV shows and stuff as well so I mean it's like there arethings that don't matter that much thatI'm excited about as wellso everyone needs a mental break findthat balance ofcontentand creation that feeds you and feedsthe people out there that are interestedin the 10 topics as you I guesswell you can speak to because you youhave a really specific topic of thee-ink tablets world right yeah yeah it'sone of those things I I work through it through rationalizing that some videosare for exposure and then I create mydeep content for those that do anchor onto like the key idea here and I'llsubscribe to the channel and go down therabbit hole of the playlists and so Ican still do the Deep videos that I wantto do because those who are reallyexcited about it and who will stickaround will refer back to them and thenthe lead gen videos you know bring newpeople to the channel and and getexposure to what we're doing and who would really like what I'm doing but mayotherwise never know that I exist and soI do a balance of those right that'sgood I I think this conversation ishelping a lot with my energysomeI think there's some videos already thatI'm like oh I could make these videosthey're not going to change my lifethey're not going to be the deepestthinking things but guess what I'llprobably get a lot of viewsand that yeah you don't want to lean toofar that direction but unless I'mfiguring out the mix that works well foryou is is the thing again so if you don't love the channel at a certainpoint you're just gonna give up on itand so you got to do what's right foryoubecause you know I did a video recentlyon Arc andI think it got is by far the like mostpopular video I've ever done it got likea quarter million views because MarcusBrownlee talked about Arc and theneveryone followed that video down butsorry I'm going off on a tangent butfor every thousand people that view a video you don't hear anything back likeyou may hear from like the one percentwho comment andhalf of that one percent will be peoplewho are supportive and excited and halfof that one percent will be people whoare uninformed or just are having a badday and like we'll leave you a commentsoif you're not happy with what you'reproducing it's gonna wear on you becauseyou'll have these detractors that willcome out and so just just make sureyou're doing what what feels good foryou or otherwise why are you doing ityou know yeah that's that's fair and helpful advice for sure allright so I guess back to being pragmaticabout what to work on I guess let meshowmy obsidian and maybe we can unpack thata little bit how do I share sharecontinue to share all right let me knowif that's coming through for you yepokayso this is Obsidian I think we touchedon this briefly in the previous videoand I think I've actually changed it a little bit since then but like a keything for me is just focus in general sothere's not a lot going on here I wouldargue half the time I don't even havethe files open which seems unintuitivebut I think it's a real Testament to howgood obsidian is at letting you work andjump around even though you don'tactually have to look at the files somore often than not I'll hit command sand I'll just be in Focus mode and thisis how I work and so I use the command palette for everything most things startwith a daily note so I'll hit commandshift d and again that starts with threethings I'm grateful for a dailyhighlight and then I keep any notesrelevant to today and then I can seewhat I wrote this time last yearfrom there I'll write about whatever'stopical for me on this given day andthat will usually lead to me writingabout some topic that will ultimatelyend up in the graphand I'll jump off and have those thingsand I think it's really important to have both the temporal link and thetopical link between your ideasso that you can see how you revisitthings and how they recirculateI think the biggest thing that obsidianhas done for me is to realize howcyclical life is and how much you comeback to topics yeah but it brings upthis principle of don't start fromscratch every time which I think for thelast like 10 years until I found secondbrain I was every time I came across atopic I was basically reformulating how I felt about it from scratch instead ofbuilding upon what I had thought aboutin the past and I think that's the thekey thing here with obsidian sothat that is the the basics of it againall the calendar is here and thengetting into actually focusing thateffort is I think where it gets reallyinteresting so by default you've gotyour graph I hit command G but like thisis a bit tough to try and like navigateon its own and and doing the files is a similar thing it'd be really tough tonavigate it that way and so what I do isin general I will get rid of that rightsidebar if I'm trying to focus and I'vegot a handful of favorites that arearound more convergent thinking so ifI'm trying to get something done I don'twant to see the files I really don'teven want to see this graph and I don'twant to see the calendar I want to befocusing on something in particular and so in this case I use this thing Ibuilt called my project list and thisuses the B folder pluginjust name because this thing is awesomeRaphael GB uh it's basically like hownotion databases work but instead ofwriting to some proprietary store itactually writes all of the data elementsfor your notion database into the yamlin the top of the file so let's say I go intofive things that remarkable should tweakall of these attributes that are in thatdatabase are actually in this yaml fileand they work back and forth so I wasworking with my wife on thisabout a week ago she's a Montessorischool teacher and one of the things shewants to do is track when she giveslessons to the children and how they'reprogressing and keep all that in acentralized file for the child and soshe was able to use this to do a verysimilar thing where she's got all of her children here and then shehas all the activities that she doeswith them across the top and she knowsexactly when she gave a lessonand then she can see all that stuff inone centralized place for the topicso but trying to get things done it allcomes down to setting some idea of a duedate I guess there's sort of thisprioritization process where you have anidea it may or may not be good I wouldargue when you're in the ideation phasetry not to qualify like whether it'sgood or not just throw it there and hopefully you have a process whereyou'll revisit it laterand so then I pick a handful of videosthat I think are the most promising andI again that whole two-week thingI will be very clear I am not religiouswith this hence why there aren't duedates on all of these and I've startedto kind of use my to-do list to managethis more just because a lot like whatyou were mentioning you start to havetoo many ideas and there's a decisionfatigue around which one to go to but this is sort of what I've been doing totryto keep me focused and I still need todo this video about why I was wrongabout you buy but I still haven't doneitwell it's going to be a really goodvideo for the 25 people who watch it andagain like you said it'll make me reallyhappy because I did a video maybe a yearago about window management and I triedyou by then and for whatever reason onthe Intel Mac it ran terribly for me and so I quickly like was like nope notusing it well I don't want to sayquickly I languished for about a day anda half where I tried to make it work andI couldn't write it to work and then canwe explore one of these projects becauseyou're gonna have if a true zettelcasting system will mean there areprobably a half a dozen or morethings pointing to it right yeah solet's look at this video that the lastvideo you and I did yeah sure I don'tthink there's anything too scary in herelet's pull it open what just happened you you just clicked this and it createda its own sort of so cool so these alllink to real notes so like so think ofthis as right it's a no so I have I havethis drafts I have it projects so thisprojects folder which is separate frommy peers Auto constant so my zettelconstant is topicalso think of those as being your de factosettles and then I have a projectsfolder which is me trying to create some deliverable around that so it's anartifact that's going to leverage thoseand then I may if I come up with someprimary content while working on thatarticle I might feed those back into mysettles but I treat them separategot itso this was and let me get back to whereI was so this was an artifact that justbecause you got the calendar and thegraph and I just screenshotted thisapparently that's a screenshot yeah I don't remember the contacts yeah so thisis just a screenshot if I hover over itI'm trying to think of why I thoughtthis was important and I know this isbacklinks as well rightyep yeah so and I think I have thebacklinks at the bottom you can also putthem on the side if you actually yeah ifyou put them over here yeah these areall the things I mentioned in in thisyeah just kind of wild to think about Ididn't realize I mentioned that manythings when I was writing this but yeah so yeah these are all the things thatbacklinked and thenI mentioned in my daily notes a coupleof times in the working up to thatsession that we had that I worked on itthat I started on it and we talked aboutit so this has all the content that'sfeeding into it and because I also do myjournaling in obsidian all the days thatI worked on it and then I I mentioned itin my daily notein this case a daily note and two weeklynotes I've been doing this as well incraft where it's like every day daily notes drive my everything and I can evensense of how much I've worked on whatbut I was just looking at Daily notescross reference to the projectso that makes senseyeah because again I feel very stronglythat your brain works in a temporalManner and also in a topical linkedbanner and so when you bring the twotogether you can see the context of whatwas I thinking about before that whatwas I thinking about after that and thenwhat does this relate to and I feel like in a fairly low-fi way replicates whatyour brain also is doing when you tryand revisit these things got it the theother thing that I don't think we'vetouched on yet is having some sort ofdeadline orsome interaction that's planned oftendrives to more content creation of likeI could go Garden again sorry this is aterm that I haven't used in this callyet yeah sometimes when I work in mysubtle cost that I think of it as digital gardening get a lot out of itbut I don't necessarilyproduce a ton of external content but itfeels good and I explore and I feel likeI learn a lot about myself but I don'tnecessarily have a plan or Directionfind that having some sort of deadlineor some sort of personal engagement likeour conversation often leads to a lot ofcontent generation that will oftenfilter back into additional zettels solike like I've thought about code and I've thought about para and I've thoughtabout obsidian plenty of times but Icreated this document because we werehaving that conversationand there's a lot more content than Ioften produce on a given day and I thinkI did this in a day because I had areason to do it I had some sort ofdeadline or forcing function to make meproduce and to leverage what I'd alreadybuiltso from here any of these topics you caneither see the backlinks or you canhover over them and see the content I should be able to hover personally Idon't use the hover I usually willclick on it and so you can hold commandit'll open in a new pageor if you hold it's alt commandand so like this is a view that I thinkis really interesting is when you comeacross a topic and you want to reallydig into it you can I think I can alsodo it with my keyboard so if I hit altcommand enter yeah so that'll do side byside so this is how I like often do this is so like I'll do this usually justkeyboard faceand so then if I go to a topic and youcan tell whether there's an actual fileor not based on whether they're a darkercolor or not so like zettel doesn't havea file but I can still reference itversus maps of content does have a fileso if I hold alt and command or pressenter I'll now have that side by side ifI can navigate this completely from thekeyboard and like you were saying if youhold alt and hit enter it'll togglethere and then similarly to browser shortcuts if you hit command leftbracket I can go back and so this is howI do majority of my navigation is justthrough this and then dating topics ifyou do command shift G you can get alocal graph which was actually what wasin that screenshot that was the top ofthe pageand so instead of seeing the globalgraph you can see just the graphrelative to this file and all the topicsthat were mentioned in it since this ispulling from everywhere and so I thinkby default it's got a link depth of one so these are all direct linksbut if you really want to explore so Iguess like the opposite of what we'retalking about if you want to go intoDivergent mode just expand this depth alittle bitand then you can really start to see therelated topics and again I think that'sthat's the idea behind the settle costthen is seeing the implicitrelationships this one's a very densetopic so it's a little tough maybe let'spick I say like let's go pick somethingsmaller as it also has but I think this proves that uh you've been using thisfor over a year rightyes I started mid 21 I think is whereI'm at and I guess that's the power of alike a saddle Castle system is thatevery idea is connected to somethinggenerally yeah like there's no yeah Imean I can try this up a lot by droppingthe temporal like if I drop the temporalstuff out of this this will probably dryup a lot but yeahso like if I was really trying to writesomething based on this I would filter out people and I'd filter out time andthen you just see topic to topic linksand again using what is your identifiersfor that are they tagsso I do it folder basedthey're based okay because and I'm notI'm not proposing everyone do it thisway let me explain my why so I publishmy zettle costume or parts of my subtlecost and online you know and so I need very clear boundaries of what is publicand what is not so there's a very clearwall that my personal notes my timenotes don't go on the internet my peoplenotes don't go on the internet because IjustI don't want to accidentally sharesomething and that person feel upsetabout it so for most people tags canwork and that's probably actually aneasier way to filter but because I'vepublish parts of it I want very clearboundaries that are heavily enforced in my publish process that even if Ireference a Time note in a public noteor I reference a person in a public notemy personal notes about those thingsdon't go out to the Internet so I guessmy main thought about that right now islike it feels like obsidian is easiestwhen you use a flat system where allyour files are in one place so when youlike create new people or you create newprojects or whatever like are you havingto go out of your way to generate that in a specific place in a certain wayoh fantastic question I wasn't seeingthis coming okay so I have Unboundcommand n from new fileand rebound it to this plugin calledquick addand I have enumerated my content typesand so these are all of my content typesand it does two things it puts them inthe right place and it pre-applies thetemplate that I've created for it so instead of creating a file I no longercreate a file I create a file of a typeand it does all of that magic for me solike when I create a personit's going to go into the person folderit's going to have the person templateand so I really don't have to thinkabout it got it we'll put it on the boxyou're right there is kind of a barrierthere I'm kind of used to right now I'mused to this idea of I'm going to createan in craft it's at the type of thing you're adding and then it goes boom itcreates a note based off of that thingyou created so in here it's the sameidea you use the double angle bracketsyou type the thing you want and now thatthing exists if you hit enter rightor whatever the key like command enteror whatever so for you is it justslightly different where you're like asI am about to put this thing in my noteI'm going to go command inperson Josh and then I'll add Josh to mynote is that kind of just kind of whatyou have to do in this workflow it could go either way yeah I do agree there'ssome friction there so you can eithercreate itahead of time or you can mention it andthen just click through on it and tweakit so like for instance let's go findsomething that doesn't have a fileso para is not a great example becauseit would be in the root butrightlet's just come up with some fictitiousperson let's say I mentioned Jane Doereally likes art and that this happenedjust organically so if I hit Alt Enter Jane Doe now has a file that's a realfile I have command shift M bound tomove so I can move it to people and thenI have command alt T bound to templateand so I can just apply a personand so the person template does a coupleof things it sets the day sets acategory so you can also filter based oncategory if you wanted to which is kindof working like tags wouldand you could do it with tags too and that would be perfectly fine as well andthen I've got it set up where it takestheir first name and creates an alias sothat in futurementions right if Jane is a personalfriend of mine I can just mention Janeand it it shows this Jane there arepeople in my life that I'm on a firstname basis with and it feels much moreorganic to to do it that wayand then I can go get rid of Janebecause Jane's not real it's reallyabout creating keyboard shortcuts forthose things that you commonly do so that again you can do it all from thekeyboard and it doesn't require you togo way out of your wayno I love that it makes a lot of sensebut it would be great if I couldenumerate it when I create it like if Icould say at person likelike that would be cool butI have a lot of structure associatedwith it so I'm not sure if that wouldhold up in my case yeah but other peoplemay be able to do that I wonder if itwould put it in a folder so like I haven't tried this what's in my blogso if I did sorry we're gonna go explorefor a second I'll let one two three doeswork that way actuallyso you could do it that way actually andthen you just have to apply the templateyeah or learn write a plug-in or figureout how you can Auto detect templatesbased off folders or somethingcould be the way of automating itI think there's something along thatline I think Templar might have thatfunction where it basically applies a template the first time you load thepage and I think you can set some rulesaround how that's done so yeah yeah ifthat sounds appetizing to you I woulddefinitely say go go try that out Ithink it could work part of me wants totry a flat system first but I wouldrecommend most people do the flat systemagain it's only because I publishdirectly from here that I go foldered II'm not pro folders I think you'reworking against the way obsidian's madeto workso yes like go flat and then find that you need more structure and addstructure only as needed cool no thismakes a lot of senseso I think right now the big cost for meis losingall my craft notes or deciding how muchof them to export and even find out whatif they're in a reasonable format or notwhich I don't know yet how reasonablethey'll Translateso I guess for context obsidian was notmy first note taking setup so I was actually in stoicbefore this sostoic is how I stumbled into journalingand I created maybe like four or fivemonths worth of Journal promptsin stoic and so yeah like I had to feedthat and I definitely spent like anafternoon like cleaning up some someweirdness with some of their markdownfiles I think it's worth the effortI mean and you're clever when it comesto transformation you can figure out how to automate a lot of good stuffcan we dig a little bit deeper at yourentity templates I don't know how to askto describe them yeah like your commandinso you you've decided there are certainpieces of content in your life thatshape so this quick ad plug-in huhyeah so this creates yeah because thisis generally what I want that craftdoesn't give me really they get theyhave a templates feature but this idea of like tagging and organizing andsorting based off of what it is isvariable it's almost like a mini modelright like if I think about how Iprogram these are my models in my liferightso you have personal personseedling some of these are a little bitabstract it's interesting topic just ageneral topic I'm guessingcollection yeah so topic is probablylike most common thing I would arguemost settles are topicsI toyed with this concept of a Seedling which isthis idea of a topic that I mentioned inpassing and I know it's a thing but Ihaven't had the time yet to seed it outand to really make it a full settleand so that worked as like a pseudo worklist of topics that I need to go fleshout and really get my thoughts on themout of my head and into obsidian withthat said I haven't been mining theserecently so it's an easy to remove ifthat feels duplicative well like a Blogdraft like obvious area something you probably don't do a lot of but it'ssomething that is helpful to shape yesso hold on let me let me make surethere's nothing sensitive in my areasand then I'll show you my areasand areas has become this sort of grayarea in my time with the building asecond brain Community where people arelike I don't quite get it yet like whatdoes this mean what is it how does itwork rightand I'm not doing it correctly let'slet's there's this like a gray area of thesystemin my opinion yeah I'm like contrivingareas and okrs into something that worksfor me so like I would argue areas thisroot level concept is something I'mdoing that's fairly true to parent areaswhere these are the things that areimportant to me in my life and thingsthat I want to maintain a constant levelof commitment and evolution toand then I roughed out these as sort of KRS key resultsthat would mean that I'm keeping up thatmy commitment to those areas and so andthen I did sort of these quarterly likehow am I doing in giving these areashow well am I nurturing these areas andcontinuing to invest in them in aregular way and so again I don't thinkthis is pure what Thiago intended butit's something I found that's useful forme to check in with myself to see if I'm doing what I need to do oram I spreading myself too thinespecially like with my family like Iget so focused on whatever I'm excitedabout at the moment and I'mI'm kind of a hoarder when it comes tolike digging into a topic and going tothe nth degree and so what I want tomake sure of whenever I'm exploring orworking on YouTube or anything like thatis that I'm still making time for myfamily I'm still involved in not lettingany one part of my life like take over the other parts yeahI totally get that and so I guess themain thing that I want to know in likehoware you tracking tasks in obsidian isthis become your task manager or are yououtside of this have a task manager withproject lists and steps of actions thatyou have to take to be a productivehumanyeah so I keep my tasks separate Igenerate a lot of tasks and so being able to create tasks incredibly quicklyfrom anywhere is really important to meand so I'm not saying you can't do thatin obsidian honestly I haven't tried andI know some people have had success withthat but I want a best of breed taskmanager when it comes to tasks andhaving a centralized inbox and like oneplace that I throw everythingthat I can work through incrediblyquickly that I look at at the beginningof every day that I look at on a weeklybasisand plan out my weeks and so my expectations there are Sky High and I'mskeptical that a plug-in for somethingthat's not designed to do that can meetmy needs there like I use akiflow whichis probably one of the more expensivetask managers but I generate so manytasks that it's worthwhile to me it issort of the Superhuman for me which is Idon't have a lot of email but I do havea ton of tasks and so applying what superhuman does for people who have alot of email to my tasks makes a ton ofsenseI don't know if I've heard of that oneyeah here let me okay so I can pull itup I do have an affiliate deal with themand this would be the perfect time tosay hey here's my affiliation butI was using them before that so but whatakiflow does is it's basicallycompletely keyboard gen driven taskmanagement tool that combines your yourtask manager and your calendar so thatyou're honest with yourself about like what you can get doneI would show you mine but it's really noI understand proprietary work stuff thatI would have no way to redact butbasically I time blockevery daybecause I Am Naturally someone who likesto say yes to things that move thingsforward so like if it's moving themission forward I will say yes but withtime blocking and akiflow let me do ishave a reasonable understanding of howfull my week is so that I know when I can say yes and when I can't say yes ormaybe it's a yes but not this week loveityeah I thought for a while that I coulduse Pera with a note taking app thatlets me focus on my daybut it's just not working it's like Igotta try something else whether it's Ilike Fantastical fantastic owl hasfinders integration to Deuce integrationso you can kind of do something similarto the system but this one is definitely worthinvestigatingso I also was a fantastic out useractually this is gonna sound awful butgo watch my akiflow video because Iactually touched specifically on thatwhich is fantastic that wasn't good afantastic how is a great calendar butnot a great to-do list and I was using atick tick which was a great task managerbut an awful calendar and so there werethere was a constant trade-off therewhere I actually needed both tools and akiflow finally was able to replace myneed for both tools and they did boththings well enough that I was able toremove a tool for my life and I tooksome satisfaction in thatcool that makes a lot of sensewell and there's a lot of Integrationshere oh manoh yeah I didn't get into that so okaythe coolest thing about ocuflow andsorry this became Aki flow ad onaccident but the best thing about it isyou can integrate it to slack and you can integrate it to Gmail and so if yousave an item in slack it becomes a taskin akiflow and if you star an email inGmail it'll go into your task managerbecauseslack messages and emails take time torespond to as well especially like as anengineer like a lot of those aren't fiveminute responses they require someactual digging to answer that questionand so right that deserves time blockingjust like your tickets in jira andactually they just added Euro support that wasn't there when I started butthey have jira support now are youlinking to obsidian notes at all yet inthat systemyes soI know obsidian offers let me see if Ican show you let me go to like some weekin the future so like let's look atSaturdaya week from now this is not going togive you like a full picture of this butit'll at least demonstrate my pointhere is four days from now soI can just tap on here and create a task and one of the Native things here isthis idea of a link and so the thingthat works through the URL protocol inMac OS also works here so like if I gointo obsidianand I grab some link to a file so I havecommand shift C bound to copy linkI can then just go in here and create atask so remindworkcreate new quarter and if I paste that linkit'll be referenced as a link and now ifI go into akiflow I can just tap o onthis and it'll open the link forwhatever reason it didn't recognize itas a link when I did it that way but ifI put it in hereif I tap on this file and then press oit'll open obsidian for me yeah and jumpme straight there that's great you canactually have multiple links so like ifit's not just this it's something elseas well that's coolyou can have all of them and then when you press o it'll open all of them foryou so let's say I've got that ticketOpen Press o and I've got art over hereyour art pop-up yep yep and it's rightthere no love thatso pretty handy and then projects notthat you want to show them maybe rightnow but there's this concept ofgrouping them into projects your tasks Iwould say if you're a project puristthat's probably an area where you may find this a little lacking I think acore tenant behind akiflow is you boileverything down into tasksand then you can set intention dates anddue dates on tasks and then theyrecently added this thing called Tagswhich are basically areas and so like ifI go into Monday reading these are allthe things that I need to read on Mondaynights that I haven't gotten around toand so like this is the closest thingyou really have to a project and your real metadata is all in youryour tasks themselves so depending onyour definition of projects that may ormay not meet itand that I would say is probably thebiggest shortcoming of akiflow the way Iwork I don't suffer from it but I'm in ajob that has the luxury of not dealingwith a lot of projects per se in themost formal of Senses but yeah like thatis probably one thing to watch out for that makes sense well coolwell Brandon this is a reallyinteresting conversation thanks againyes it's a blast whenever we gettogether we have to figure out what thenext topic should bemaybe in a month from now once you'vehad a chance to yeah my obsidianworkflow is going to shape up I thinkI've just decided it's worth the plungeand you've given me some helpful ideasin this conversation to I guess organizethe notes that's sort of the thing I didn't quite catch yet I just startedthis week in the process so it's likeall right how do I how do I tag and Markand label andsort this all of these notes and sothat's what I'll do nextyeah I'd say the biggest recommendationI have is start simple like I think alot of people try to build the de factosystem and then they drown in effort andmetadata and so just keep it simpleuntil you feel like you're brushing up against a rough Edge that you reallyneed to hone out because like I've seenall these systems andwhat you often see is where someone haslanded two years later not where theywere a month in or wherever you are inyour journey and jumping fromzero to two years in is a big jump andyou really can't oh absolutely takeadvantage of all of it from the startyou have to kind of build on the basics right so that makes a lot of sense and Ithink for me I have to just fullyrecognize that I think task managementand note takingwill best serve me if they're separateI've been doing the craft thing wherecrafts are projects and projects arethings that need to be done and thosethings have items in themlike tests lists and checklists andit's not really working so I gotta Igotta pivot so I will be you may explain the opposite problem I guess I'll I'llbe up front with you you may find theopposite problem which is there's someduplication of the things that yourmarketing complete in your task list inyour daily notes but it's kind of niceto be able to selectively choose whatgoes in there but if you're a person whowants your daily note to be anexhaustive representation of everythingyou did there's definitely someduplication there so it's kind of apersonality thing of like what feels right for youthank you so much for watching do hitsubscribe for more obsidian content likethis in the future and you can help meout a ton by liking and sharing thevideo If you're looking for some moreobsidian content I've got a playlist ofmy tips and tricks right over here onthe side until next time I'll see you inthe next video, Optimizing Obsidian for Content Creation, Brandon Boswell, 01gy05mdvv1q6nhy80f98gb4v4.