// ABOUT ME Site: https://nicolevanderhoeven.com Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@nicole My travel YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/luckydippers k6 YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/k6test // APPS I USE - Obsidian: https://obsidian.md - Readwise: https://readwise.io/nicole - Shortform: https://shortform.com/nicole - Reclaim: https://reclaim.ai/r/s/yYOqK // GEAR https://nicolevanderhoeven.com/gear/ // WANT TO SUPPORT ME? ❤️ ..." --- Taking Notes on People in Obsidian  ## Metadata - Author: [[Nicole van der Hoeven]] - Full Title: Taking Notes on People in Obsidian - Category: #articles - Document Note: ## Summarize: In this video, the speaker, who uses the pseudonym "Pepe," shares how they utilize the note-taking app Obsidian to keep track of people they meet and maintain meaningful connections. As an individual frequently on the move and engaging with others online, Pepe finds it crucial to foster intentional relationships with notes acting as a memory aid. The video demonstrates templates Pepe uses for meetings and person profiles to capture essential details and aspects of individuals they encounter. Pepe also explains how they create character profiles inspired by role-playing games to understand people's motivations, attitudes, and interests better. The note-taking process varies depending on whether they meet someone in person or online, and Pepe also utilizes LinkedIn and other tools to remember faces and names. ## Bullet Points: - The speaker, "Pepe," shares their method of using Obsidian for note-taking on people they meet, fostering intentional relationships. - Pepe employs templates for meetings and person profiles, including agenda, log, next action, occupation, goal, attitude, stake, ideals, bonds, flaws, character alignment, and "Magic the Gathering" colors. - They differentiate between taking notes during in-person meetings, where they jot down essential points for later detailed logging, and online calls, where they have more leeway to take notes without interrupting the conversation. - Pepe utilizes LinkedIn and social media to remember faces, names, and other information about the individuals they encounter. - The video emphasizes the importance of maintaining notes to deepen connections and make interactions more meaningful. ## Paraphrase: 1. Pepe explains their unique approach to maintaining meaningful connections with the people they meet, using the note-taking app Obsidian. Their lifestyle, which involves frequent travel and online interactions, necessitates intentional efforts to nurture relationships. 2. They use templates in Obsidian for meetings and person profiles, capturing details such as agenda, log, next action, occupation, goal, attitude, stake, ideals, bonds, flaws, character alignment, and "Magic the Gathering" colors. 3. While Pepe is fully present during conversations, they take notes afterward, summarizing essential points and observations from the interactions. For in-person meetings, they try to remember as much as possible and then log the information later in their daily notes. 4. Social media and LinkedIn serve as useful tools for remembering faces and names, enabling Pepe to maintain connections with the people they meet. 5. The ultimate goal is to create a repository of notes that helps Pepe understand others better, fostering deeper connections and meaningful interactions. ## Conclusion: Pepe's video outlines their approach to building and maintaining connections through the use of Obsidian as a powerful note-taking tool. By capturing essential details and character insights, they ensure a comprehensive understanding of the individuals they encounter. Whether meeting someone in person, on an online call, or consuming their content, Pepe demonstrates the value of intentional note-taking to enhance interactions and create more profound relationships. ## Questions: 1. How can the application of character profile frameworks, inspired by role-playing games, benefit our understanding of the people we meet in real life? 2. In what ways can the use of templates, like those presented in Obsidian, be adapted for various professional settings to improve relationship-building and networking? 3. What potential ethical considerations should be taken into account when using note-taking and data management techniques for personal relationship enhancement? 4. How might the implementation of Pepe's approach impact the communication dynamics between individuals, considering the recording of personal details and interests? 5. Are there any other innovative tools or applications that could complement Obsidian in creating and maintaining comprehensive profiles of individuals we meet? ## Auto-tagging: Relationship-building, Note-taking, Obsidian, Templates, Character Profiles, Role-playing Games, Networking, LinkedIn, Social Media ## Index Creation: - Obsidian - Templates - Meeting Notes - Person Profiles - Character Insights - Role-playing Games - Relationship Building - Networking - LinkedIn - Social Media ## Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Pepe's Method: Utilizing Obsidian for Note-taking - Templates for Meetings - Templates for Person Profiles - Utilizing Role-playing Game Concepts 3. Note-taking During In-person Meetings 4. Note-taking During Online Calls 5. Utilizing LinkedIn and Social Media for Remembrance 6. The Goal: Fostering Meaningful Connections 7. Conclusion ## References: - Pepe's Video: [Link to the video] - Obsidian Note-taking App: [Link to Obsidian] - "Magic the Gathering" Colors: [Link to MTG Colors] - Readwise: [Link to Readwise] ## Future Research: - Investigate the long-term effects of maintaining comprehensive person profiles on relationship depth and quality. - Explore the impact of utilizing character profile frameworks in professional networking contexts, such as conferences and industry events. - Examine the ethical implications of storing personal information in note-taking apps and assess users' perceptions of privacy and data security. - Conduct a comparative study of different note-taking tools and applications, evaluating their effectiveness in relationship enhancement and memory retention. ## Hypotheses: 1. Individuals who maintain detailed person profiles using character profile frameworks will experience more meaningful and authentic connections with the people they meet. 2. The utilization of templates for meeting notes and person profiles in professional settings will lead to more efficient and strategic networking. 3. Active note-taking during in-person meetings will positively influence individuals' recall and comprehension of key information shared during the interaction. ## Methodology: 1. Conduct surveys and interviews to gather qualitative data on individuals' experiences with note-taking practices for relationship-building. 2. Organize focus groups with professionals to test the effectiveness and user-friendliness of templates designed for networking and person profiles. 3. Observe and analyze participants' interactions during in-person meetings, comparing those who take notes afterward with those who don't, to measure memory retention and information recall. ## Implications: The future research in this area has the potential to advance our understanding of how intentional note-taking practices can enhance social interactions and create more profound relationships. The findings may inform strategies for improving communication and networking in various settings, contributing to personal and professional growth. Additionally, insights into the ethical considerations surrounding data management and privacy can guide the development of note-taking tools that prioritize user confidentiality and security. ## Logical validity: Pepe's approach to note-taking for relationship-building exhibits logical coherence and practicality. By using Obsidian and character profile frameworks, they create a systematic and comprehensive method of capturing key details about individuals. However, while the method serves Pepe's specific needs, its applicability to other contexts and individuals may vary. Additionally, the potential ethical implications of storing personal information should be acknowledged and further explored to ensure responsible data management. Overall, Pepe's approach showcases an inventive and empathetic way to maintain meaningful connections with others. The video discusses using Obsidian to take notes on people to maintain connections while traveling. Templates are shared. Notes help prioritize and remember. [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYUQXy0nsg&t=0) Using Obsidian to take notes on people [02:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYUQXy0nsg&t=179) Creating a meeting template and person note in Notion [06:00](https://www.yo - Summary: Taking notes on people in Obsidian sounds weird, but I think it just shows how much I care. If I take notes on things that matter, why shouldn't I take notes on people that matter? Here are the templates I use to remember important things about significant people in my life. // TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 00:25 Why take notes on people? 01:51 When should you take notes on people? 02:44 Meeting template 04:23 Person template 11:27 Knife theory 12:56 In-person meetings and conferences 16:12 Consuming content from people 16:57 Following up with people 18:42 Privacy 22:09 Outro --- // ABOUT ME Site: https://nicolevanderhoeven.com Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@nicole My travel YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/luckydippers k6 YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/k6test // APPS I USE - Obsidian: https://obsidian.md - Readwise: https://readwise.io/nicole - Shortform: https://shortform.com/nicole - Reclaim: https://reclaim.ai/r/s/yYOqK // GEAR https://nicolevanderhoeven.com/gear/ // WANT TO SUPPORT ME? ❤️ ... - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYUQXy0nsg&ab_channel=NicolevanderHoeven - This might be weird, but if you've ever beenon a call with me, met me in person, or just made some sortof a connection with me on a social network,then the chances are pretty high that somewherein my Obsidian vault is a note with your name on it.In this video I'm gonna talk about how I use Obsidianto take notes on people and I'm gonna sharethe templates that I use as a framework for those.Why take notes on people?Well, the lifestyle that I've chosen has me moving around a lot and traveling and that makes it kindof difficult to foster these friendships.Usually I might start something online or in personbut the majority of the relationshipis going to have to be online.That requires a little bit more work on both partsand so any type of relationshipis going to have to be intentional.Having notes with me helps me prioritizewho is the most important to meand make sure that I allot my time accordingly. There's also the issue of just not being ableto remember everything about everybody that I care about.But you know what does remember? Obsidian.So when I meet a person that I think is really interesting,I take notes so that I don't have to remember itin my brain and it's not taking up space in my headthat I could be using for something else.All I have to do is know that this personis important and then I know to lookin Obsidian for some of the notes that I took. When you haven't seen someone in a while,think about how long you spend trying to rememberwhat they said to you last or how much you rehash thingsthat you've actually gone over already.Having notes on people helps me maintainand make deeper connections faster.When do I take notes on people?Well, the overarching principle hereis to listen in the first place.So I do always take notesbut not when they're right there in front of me. When I'm talking to someone, my primary objective isto just be there fully present in the moment with them.Now that does look a little bit different dependingon whether I'm there in person with themor if I'm on a call with them.I feel like on a call there's a little bitmore leeway to take notes like I don't haveto look at what I'm typing to be able to type.So it's a little bit easier for meto maintain that eye contact while also taking notes. But in general, when I have a meeting,that's what I'm doing.I am trying to have a connection with the personby looking at the camera or looking at their faceand then I'm just like typing my notes on the side.So this is what that looks like.These templates are in my Patreon vault.You can sign up for Patreon hereand I'll also leave it in the description below.But this is what it looks like.This is my meeting note that I apply every timeI have a meeting and these are Templater strings that get replaced by, in this case, the date.And then this one will be the title of the meeting.I usually put attendees here.Then I just have Agenda, Log and Next Action.So in agenda, I might put things that I've prepared to talkto the person about beforehand and then log isjust for things that come up during the meeting.Let's say I want to create a new meeting.In my Patreon vault, I already havesome macros set up using the Quick Add plugin. So I just have to go to the command palettewhich is Command+P for me.And then I want to select this one, Quick Add,which is going to apply a template to a new note.So I'm going to hit that.This is already going to have the dateso I'm just going to write the title of the actual note.So let's say meeting about stuff and that opens upin a new pane here and that was already filled out like the date is in there and it has the inbox tag.And let's say for attendees, I'm meeting with a new person.Let's call her Hanna, and I would typethe agenda and log here, and next action.So if I have any,let's say I also want to create a note for Hanna.So then I'm going to just command click thatand that automatically brings through the person template, which is right here on the left.So as you can see there aresome more things in the person templatethan were in the meeting one, and that'sbecause this is really where all the meat is.I'm going to move these two over hereso that you can just see them bigger.All right, now this is my note for Hanna.I would then type her company.Let's say she works at Grafana Labs like I doand then I might put her location, let's say she's in the Netherlands.By the way, I'm using keyboard shortcuts thatI have using a separate app called Text Expanderbut that's a different video.So I then just go through all of these.I always set publish to false.I mean I do have this automatically gointo the People Folder, which is never publishedbut you know, I just wanna be extra, extra sure.So then I would fill out all of these fieldsbut I do want to call out thisdate last spoken field and the follow up field. So if Hanna is someone that I think is either relevantto what I'm doing right now or someone that I'm gonnabe working with or just someone who's cool,I would go ahead and put true here and sometimesthere's like a real useful reason for doing that.Sometimes it's just, hey, I connected with this person.Maybe I'll catch up with her at some point.And then I would say, date last spoken.And then I would just put today's date. Again, that's still a Text Expander shortcutbut it's just today's datein the specific format that I use for Obsidian.Then I would write something about Hanna,like Hanna is a graphic designer who lives in France.And then I would put here the agendas.As soon as I think that somebody is someonethat I would meet up with on a regular basisthen I switch to having the agenda on their person note and then I can pull that into a meeting if I need to.I would talk about how we metlike we both know Pepe let's say.And then I would fill out these sections.These are more like prompts.So if our conversation went into this directionthen I would fill out, maybe this couldbe employment history or where she's livedin before, then if she mentions like,you know, a partner or kids or something,I would put family there.Now I also have some other things that I don't always fill out.You know, sometimes all I fill out for a person isthis initial one or maybe like company location and title.But I think that when I get closer to somebodyI would go and try and fill more of these out.So I try to put things about their personalitythat kind of just strike me at the time.Like I would say Hanna is an incredibly positive person but I also use this template that I alreadyhave prepopulated, and this is actually from D&D.I like to play tabletop role playing games, TTRPGs,kind of like D&D or "Dungeons and Dragons."And in those sorts of games we have player charactersand non-player characters, both of which you needto have some sort of framework to be able to understandlike who they are and what they like.And so these are actually inspired by those games. There's something called OGAS Framework,it's occupation, goal, attitude, and stake.I kind of skipped the occupationbecause I figured that'll be where the title is.And then I just go to the GAS part.Goal, attitude, and stake.So goal would be like her motivation,she wants to live in Africa someday.Her attitude, well I kind of already saidthat she's positive, she's cheerful about it. Now what is her stake?Stake is something that can kind of swingthe pendulum one way or another.So she has this goal of wanting to live in Africa.So she wants to travel probably, and she's quite cheerfulbut what makes her not want to travelor what makes her not be as cheerful?Maybe she doesn't like itwhen things are spontaneous and unplanned.There are people like that.And then if you've played D&D, this Ideals,Bonds and Flaws is pretty common. It is a standard framework for most NPCs,non-player characters, in the game.So an ideal would be something like freedom, independence,you know, abstract ideas that she really gravitatestowards and what are things that she's bonded with?They could be, not so much ideasbut like people or factions.She really gets along well with Pepe, let's say.And what are her flaws? Let's say she's easily rattled when things don't go her wayand her character alignment in role playing gamesand in D&D in particular, there are these two sort of axes.So there's chaotic, neutral and lawfuland then there's good, neutral and eviland you kind of mix and match the two to see how they go.So maybe she's more like chaotic good, let's say. And then just for a fun thingsometimes I put "Magic the Gathering" colors.By the way, all these, at least in the Patreon vault,I do have them linked to notes from my personal public vaultwhere you can see the note that I have on it.So for example in "Magic the Gathering,"there are five different suitsand each one kind of stands for something.So when you have a deck, 'cause this is likea deck of cards you can choose a theme for the deck based on the colors and you can mix and match as well.But I kind of just stick to one.So well we said that she likes,you know, freedom and independence.She also does like disinhibition though.I'm gonna say she's red, freedom, emotion, action.Well she's not about impulse.Hmm, you know, let's say she's green,let's say that she's more greenand this is just a little bit of fun. The idea is not to kindof pigeonhole people into this label.The idea is to come up with a setof shortcuts that are a little bit more fun.And then if I don't remember her exactlybut I remember that I wanted to get to know herthen I can kind of look and be like, oh yeah, that's right.She really loves nature so maybeI shouldn't ask her to go see a movie with me.Maybe I should ask her to go hikingwith me or something like that.And then I really love this idea of knives. The idea is that when you are in a role playing gameand you're creating a character backstoryyou should sharpen some knives that are interesting hooksthat the Dungeon Master can then use to pull you in.So if you say that one of your knives isthat you are a wanted person because you have a lot of debtthen the Dungeon Master can later use that knifeand have those people come looking for you.So I kind of extend this to real life, to real people by having knives as things that get them fired up.It could be good things or it could be bad things.These like hot button things that every timeI talk to Hanna, she just fires upand gets really excited and can talk foreverabout let's say the environment and climate change.They're just a bunch of topics that, you know,if I really want to provoke or inspire her in some way, these are the topics that I can talk to her with.It can also just be as simple as interests.And then here in meetings I have this Dataview querythat automatically pulls in all the meetingswhere I put Hanna in the Attendees field.So this is how it looks to havea somewhat filled in person template.The second way that I might be meeting somebodyis in a conference or an in-person meetup. And in those cases I don't alwayshave the chance to stop and take notes.I mean, if you're standing and you know, you also havelike a sandwich in your hand or coffee or somethingyou can't just be like, wait, I gotta take notes.So what I do in that case is I just try to rememberas much as I can and then I look for breaksin the day or I just do it at the end of the dayand then just dump all of my thoughts.Usually it's going to be in my daily note. So let's look at that.In a daily note, this is just an example,I have a few things here because this is the Patreon vaultbut I'm not actually gonna use any of that.So I might just quickly jot down a few things.Like let's say if I didn't have that meetingwith Hanna and I actually met her in personI could just put bullet points like lives in France,wants to go to Africa, loves freedom, travel, environment. And then I would go on to the next oneand Pepe and then so on.So when I have a conference,I mean, I can't actually show you an exampleof these notes because sometimes they can be prettyrevealing when people say something that, you know,even though I'm a stranger, sometimes they reveal thingsabout themselves that I can't actually show.But this ends up being like a long bullet point list. And sometimes for some people it's mainly personal things.For some other people it's more like where they workor what they're currently working on.And that's totally fine.I just dump in everything that I can seeand then later on at the end of the day I then go backand try to actually like make links outof them like this and then create notesfor the people that I don't already have notes for. So it can be difficult to remember people's names sometimes.So what I like to do is use social media as an excuse.I whip out my phone and say, you know,"Do you mind taking a photo with me?"And then I then take the photoand it's good for the event usuallybecause they like the social media interactionbut also then I remember what they look like.I might bring that into Obsidian later.And sometimes if I'm lucky I can also like snap a pictureof their lanyard with their name and you know their title or company and otherwise I sometimes use LinkedIn.So I have the LinkedIn app on my phone.If it's a work thing it's easier.But what you can do, and I didn't know this at firstis you can actually go into search here and thenyou can have a LinkedIn QR code and somebody elseif they also have LinkedIn on their phones can scan thatand you can get connected right away.So that's your code.And then you can also scan something. Oh look, there you are.But then you would scan somebody else's codeand then they could also be addedto your connections to your network on LinkedIn.And then the third way that I would meet peopleis when I'm consuming their content,this is like not me really meeting them.This might be, you know, someone wrote this tweetthat I think is really interestingor something on Mastodon or wrote an articleand I don't really even know them. I've made videos on how I process articles from the web.Basically I use something called Readwise,if you wanna sign up for that, that's Readwise.io/Nicoleand check out this video to see more about how I use that.So I've shown you my templates for peopleand for meetings and I've talked a little bitabout how I would go about it if I were in a conferenceand was meeting people like in person.Now I wanna show you what I do to follow up. Remember I had that follow up flag in the people note.Well this is how I use that, in my daily note,I have a few things here like for processing notesbut I also have a section for people to catch up withwith a Dataview query that returns resultsfrom the People Folder where follow up is trueand where the date that I last spoketo them is a month or more ago.Now you can also adjust this basedon what your preferences are. Maybe when you put follow up true to peoplethat's like you wanna talk to them every week or something.And in that case you would just put one week here.But let's say that when I talked to Hanna,that was actually two months ago and I do havefollow up true and this is more than a month ago.So let's go back to the daily noteand Hanna's going to come up thereand this is kind of like a prompt for me to say, "Hey,remember that cool person that I met at this time on January 20th? Maybe I should catch up with her."And just to kind of add an element of randomness,I also have a Dice Roller string here which justrandomly chooses a person with the tag,"person," and then returns that link.So I don't have many people here.I think I have Hanna, Pepe and person, the template.So it's not going to be too usefulbut I can like kind of roll through the dice and just if I don't wanna talk to Hanna todaythen I can try and get somebody else.In my actual vault, I have more people hereso this is more useful than that.One thing I try to always keep in mind is that becauseof the nature of the notes that I take about peoplewhere I at times I'm trying to peek into their psycheand trying to understand why they are the way that they are.Sometimes I write things that they told methat maybe shouldn't be made public and because of that privacy is a really important thing for me.So there are few things that I like to doto make sure that I maintain people's privacy.The first is what I already talked about.I like to keep all people notes in one folder.So in this case it's under the People one.And this is handy because then I knowthat I will never publish this folderand like I do use Obsidian Publish.So let me just show that to you in my main vault. And I do have a folder here called, "Gente,"that's people in Spanish.And when I go to Publish, so in Obsidian Publish you can goand click Manage Publish Filters here and you can excludea bunch of folders that are never going to get published.So as you can see, Gente is one of them.So that doesn't get published.And then also I do have that flag in my person template that says `publish:false`.The other thing is if you're using Obsidian Sync thenI would make sure to encrypt that folder, it is optional.So you can go into Sync here.So this one isn't being synced, but you can,when you're creating a remote vault,you can choose whether or not it's going to be encrypted.And if you are taking notes on people,I would suggest that you do encrypt your vault. And the other thing is this plugin called Meld Encryptwhich I've just installed and it is a wayto encrypt notes and kind of password protect them.So let's say I'm in today's note, I can just hit Command+Pand Meld Encrypt, I'm going to create a new encrypted noteand this one is going to have a password and I'm just goingto put `nvdh` here because it's not really a secret.I wouldn't actually put it in the hint, but just so you can see then this note is completely encrypted and I cantype whatever I want and it can be an complete secret.This is cool because it's encrypted locally,it isn't making any calls out to anywhereon the internet and it is password protected.So then you can also rename this "Secret Hanna Note,"and then on the day you can kind of link to it. So then you can just type the title of it.If you don't remember, you can just kind of copy it hereand then you can just type it there sothat you'll be able to jump to it.If you do use this Meld Encrypt plugin,I would recommend that you go into the settingsand then where it says "Remember Password," maybe untickthat so that it doesn't automatically remember it.So this time when you open the Secret Hanna Note, it's gonna ask you for the password.In this case I put it as the hint, but you know,that way you actually have some security on it.I don't take notes on every person that I meet.I take into account a bunch of factors such ashow likely it is that I'm going to run into them again,my chemistry with them and how important or relevantthey are going to be in my life or how muchthey're going to affect it going forward.And then I just take notes accordingly.After years of taking notes like this, I've come to the conclusion that maybe taking notes on peoplein this way isn't not as weird as it might initially seem.I actually think that it's the opposite.When I take notes on someone and I go throughall of those things that I showed you,I actually see it as a compliment.It's like me saying, "Hey, I know I'm not goingto remember as much as I would like to about you.So I just wanted you to know that I care enough about you to try to have a system so that I doremember those awesome things that make you you."And when viewed under this lens, I think that it'sa pretty positive thing and it's definitely helped memake connections with people that are a lot more genuine.If you'd like to see more about how I use Templaterto create the format for a bunch of different notes,then check out this video, thank you for watching.(Italian) One who finds a friend, finds treasure., Taking Notes on People in Obsidian, Nicole van der Hoeven, 01gxe8ypt8pwz31ta5kb2hngwn.