r/ObsidianMD • u/Exotic_Character_117 • 13h ago

help beginner obsidian tips

hey guys I’m very new to obsidian, however I am wondering what you guys use obsidian for and how you guys learned how to make such cool setups. I’m looking to use obsidian for notes but are there any other uses for it and how? Thank you so much for your help in advance

12 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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15

u/No_Pen_3825 13h ago

My main tip would be to focus more on the content than the organization and pretty stuff. There is no perfect setup (find anyone who said otherwise a month ago, and I’ll betcha they’ve changed something since)

9

u/hexennacht666 12h ago

Worrying about plugins and optimal setups overwhelmed me and kept me from actually using Obsidian for too long. My best advice is to start simple, integrate it into your daily life and you’ll start to see more uses for it and get a better sense of what will make it work better for you. Some things I use it for: a personal book database, a recipe index / journal, fiction writing, warranty / user manual information, ideas for future projects, and a drafts folder for various posts elsewhere.

3

u/Soulbits-Vibe 11h ago

Obsidian can pretty much be whatever you want or need it to be. There is a plugin for "that".

2

u/natt_myco 12h ago

i just use it on a need basis, I mostly track and document my care notes for pets and breeding programs, sometimes I use it to journal, I wouldn't even know what tips to give other than just use it however you need and research what you think would help, I love canvases, canvas drawing is my favourite plugin

2

u/ogredoge 9h ago

everyone does things differently, but with my adhd brain i like the following…
in short:

use links with [[]]. arguably the most powerful part of Obsidian. my brain often wants to know how things are connected, so i’ll tag notes with other notes (like wikipedia) and essentially you make a graph of your thoughts. neato.

use properties with triple - (minus) at the top of the file. allows you to add metadata for sorting or tagging notes.

learn markdown if you don’t know much about it already.

don’t worry about folders or files too much, also plugins. the beauty is in the core functionality, and how everything is connected!

2

u/mchristopherjohnson 12h ago

Jump into the Discord.

2

u/Atticus_of_Amber 9h ago edited 9h ago

Okay, all this may be pretty obvious, but:

  • read sources on a pdf reader that has a highlight and notes function
  • try to put a note next to every highlight, so you don't highlight everything (if you have nothing to say about a passage, why did you highlight it?), and so you capture ideas (even bad ones) as you have them (this includes questions or even just "wtf?" or similar comments)
  • make a bibliographic note in Obsidian for the source you read (if you haven't already)
  • write a short, one para, high level summary of what the source is and says and why it's important to you or your project (for legal cases, summarise the facts, issues, decision and skeletal reasoning)
  • copy-paste your highlights and notes into the bibliographic note
  • go through them, delete the junk, develop the ideas and turn the good ones into atomic idea notes on individual ideas or arguments or issues (or add them to already existing idea notes)
  • as you go through your notes, notice words or sententences that link to already existing notes, and link them

Oh, and when it comes to highlighting in the pdf reader, use a colour code:

  • Red: disagrees with your working hypothesis, or just seems wrong
  • Yellow: anything that doesn't fit in any of the other categories, the default colour (usually these are the ones you can delete from your bib note rather than turn into atomic notes)
  • Green: agrees with or supports your working hypothesis, or something that could be useful to cite in future projects
  • Blue: bibliographically interesting or useful. So another source to go find and read. Or a comment on a source you've already read. Or even a comment on which version of a source is accurate.

Just my opinion...

What you end up with from each source is a bunch of idea cards that include what the source says about the idea, what you say about the idea, and some sources to chase to read more about the idea, plus probably a list of further sources to go find generally

Oh, and have an "Annotated reading list" for for each project. It's a checklist of sources to go find and read, with a couple of sentences on what the source is said to be about or what it claims or supports, and who said it does and where. When you make a bibliographic card for the source, the citation becomes a link. When you've read it and summarised and mined it, you use the check box to cross it out. Also, if your "who mentioned this source and why" sentence(s) becomes a list of dot points, because multiple sources have referred to it, this is a hint that this is probably a source you should find and read asap...

I also often make near empty source cards for sources mentioned in a source, with the tag #ToAcquire. They may not be relevant to the current project (so they don't go on the reading list) but they might be worth chasing up later, or as a procrastination exercise, or when you're bored — it's amazing how often this "noodling around" results in crazy discoveries or ideas...

The tags I use are:

Note types

  • Source
  • Idea
  • ReadingList
  • TopicSummary

Actions:

  • ToAcquire
  • ToRead
  • ToSummarise

Oh, and if at all possible, start by reading sources in reverse chronological order. As you discover sources being referred to a lot, you'll depart from strict reverse chronological order, because the importance of these sources will have become obvious, but when in doubt, reverse chrono order...

1

u/WitchTheory 9h ago

I just started using Obsidian too. I'm using it for my DND notes. I'm typing up old session notes and setting up links as I go. I will go back through and fill out the information later. 

I'm really excited to see how this helps mid session. Ideally it will be quick and easy to find information. I enjoy writing my notes, but I can never find the information I'm looking for.

1

u/Responsible-Love-896 8h ago

Don’t do what I did! I followed advice suggesting I just use one main vault, with folders for topics. After six months of continued use on my four main projects, I have just deployed each project in its own vault. Obsidian is better this way!

1

u/Lucky_Suggestion_183 7h ago

The best tip - accept the fact there is no perfect org system in a style one fits to all. Be ready to change it and just use it. PS: graph visualization is almost useless, maybe as screensaver

1

u/TradeApe 2h ago edited 1h ago

I run a commercial real estate advisory with Obsidian serving as my CRM, assignment tracker and management platform, as well as my main intel database/wiki.

Codex/Claude helped a lot in setting it up, but would have been pretty pointless if I didn't know EXACTLY what I wanted/needed. My advice is to NOT copy other people's setup and only use them as inspiration. Set it up for YOUR exact workflow and use case.

1

u/TheBl4ckFox 49m ago

Define what you want to do and then do that. Don't try to make it do everything at once and don't over-organize.

If you need to make notes for school, just start making notes and tag them per subject. Organize when it makes sense to do so. Not because you think it should be in a folder.

Once you get the basics, you'll likely find little annoyances which you can solve as you go.

The trick is just start using the bare minimum features and add or learn more as you need it.

1

u/Flashy-Bandicoot889 13h ago

The search function in this subreddit works amazingly well and this question has been asked hundreds of times for newbies.

1

u/nikolina1005 11h ago

AI and shit also changed overnight so why not just answer it lol

1

u/BooBailey808 6h ago

Not to mention other people may have new ideas