This is my Obsidian setup for turning input into output. You’ll learn how I build a simple second brain with Zettelkasten notes, backlinks, source notes, output-based tags, Smart Connections, and templates so my notes become useful for thinking, writing, research, and creating.
⏱ TIME STAMPS ⏱ 00:00 - Why I Built a Second Brain in Obsidian 01:49 - 3 Rules: Obsidian as a Tool for Thought 06:17 - Obsidian Setup 08:40 - Creating Your First Obsidian Vault 12:59 - Zettelkasten: Turning Input Into Output 16:55 - Connecting Notes and Source Ideas 19:38 - Tags 26:45 - Nice to have settings and plugins 32:53 - Templates in Obsidian 37:03 - Obsidian Settings 🟡 Course: The 5 Minute Communication Framework for Knowledge Workers: https://tinyurl.com/YTcommsframework
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Video Summary
AI Generated
This guide explains how to use Obsidian to build a \"second brain\" using the Zettelkasten method. It emphasizes a bottom-up approach to knowledge management, focusing on active output over passive collection. By prioritizing simplicity, atomic note-taking, and strategic linking, users can create a future-proof system that enhances deep thinking and synthesis in the age of AI.
Four years ago, I started building my second brain in Obsidian and it was hands down the
highest leverage thing I did for my thinking, for my writing, for my learning. Because before that,
I had notes everywhere. I had book margin notes, I had notes in my Apple notes that I never looked
at again. I had a bunch of Google Docs, I couldn't even remember which account is Hunter, where and
what is it called. And I never went back to any of my notes. So I couldn't build on the knowledge
that I was just hoarding and collecting. And plus, the ideas that I had that were mine,
things that came out of the shower or came out of walking or having a really good conversation
with others. I didn't write them down anywhere. And I was so sporadic. I couldn't remember half
of them. So to just get over that frustration, I decided to go into Obsidian. Once I built my
second brain, I realized this is a true tool for thought, which by definition means it protects
your thinking and it expands your thinking. So this is my Zettelkasten, my second brain,
and I'll show you how I set it up. And the goal is simple. Get off the consumption hamster wheel
and take input and actually turn it into output, right? All of these things that we're learning
from podcasts, from YouTube, from books, like it sounds really great. But the second we close that
book, turn off that podcast, we don't remember anything. So we're not using the knowledge. And
if we're not using them, we're not actually learning anything new. So it's just a waste of
time. And that is what this tool for thought, my Obsidian Zettelkasten is built to do. So let's
talk about how to set this up. First of all, there are three non-negotiable rules. If you want to
make sure that your Obsidian is actually a tool for thought. Number one is never spend more than
1% of your time in Obsidian tweaking the system. The number one problem people have is they
continuously tweak the system, try out new features, try out new plugins that actually
don't spend enough time working on the ideas. And the idea of thinking inside Obsidian is so that
you spend most of your time thinking. So 1% might sound crazy low, but for the past four years,
I really spent less than 1% tweaking the system. The system is actually really simple to set up.
And the more simple your system is, the more flexible it is and the more it's going to be able
to grow with you. So definitely if you find yourself, you're spending your own 90% of your
time tweaking the system rather than putting things into it, then that's a moment to really
assess and think through, okay, can I just stop thinking about the system for a second and focus
on the notes I'm putting in, the ideas I'm putting into my Obsidian. The second rule is to avoid the
other extreme, which is dump everything you have into Obsidian before starting, right? For a lot
of people, there is a need to be very comprehensive in their knowledge system. But the problem with
that is once you put those things in, you're never really going to look at it again. I find it
really helpful when I started was to start completely fresh. And the first note will just
be the note that's top of mind for you right now. Maybe it's a book that you're reading that you're
putting the idea in. Maybe it's something that you're working on and start to build your Obsidian
from the bottom up. This way you'll realize that the important things always come back in because
you're referring to it, you're starting to think, oh, with this note, I need to refer to this other
really great idea that's really central to how I think. And you'll pull them all in. And the ones
that are nice to have, but you never really encounter it again, it's okay to let those go
because there's more than enough information out there. And we're probably continuously learning
if you're on this channel. So don't worry about dumping and translating all of these different
notes that you already have into Obsidian, but start the other way of, okay, what am I working
on now? Let me just build something, get used to the system, and then you can import more later on.
Now for the third non-negotiable rule, which is you have to sync Obsidian across all the devices
that you use. And there are two ways of doing it. I'll share it in a minute, but I want to mention
why this is important because when I first started, I had Obsidian on my laptop and that was it. But
when I'm reading, I don't have my laptop next to me. So all of these reading notes, I think, oh my
gosh, what am I going to do? Maybe I write it down on the, in the margins where I put it on my phone
and then I can put it into Obsidian later. That never happened. So I just kept on losing momentum
and feeling like, oh, still, you know, I thought Obsidian was going to be the home for all my ideas.
And yet I'm not capturing them in the moment when I have my idea. So now I have my Obsidian on my
phone, on my iPad, on my laptop. So it doesn't matter where I am. I have a device that's there
for me to put notes in. And because they're synced all across, so I don't have to worry about, oh,
version control, all of these things. Now for syncing, you have two options. One is free. One
is paid. I'll share the paid one first because it's easier to set up, but of course it's paid.
And this is the official Obsidian sync where you just click a button and all of your Obsidian apps
have this very safe and secure way of storing all of your data across the different devices,
which is awesome. I don't actually use this. I sync everything through iCloud, but I'm actually
considering switching because I've got so many notes that anyway, I have to pay for iCloud.
Might as well just use Obsidian sync and make everything easier. So I am in the middle of
transitioning, but when you're just starting and you don't have that many notes, you can totally
use a free version of your iCloud folder, or you can use Dropbox if that's something you like.
I have a video actually outlining how you do that, so you can check out that video here.
But either way, the main thing is you want your notes to be synced across all your devices. So
it doesn't matter which one you have on hand. You put one in and it is stored in your Obsidian.
Now we have the rules out of the way we're going to set up. Now remember, this is only going to
take 1% of your time inside Obsidian. So it's going to be very simple. My system is so simple
that for the last four years, I really haven't done too much to it. It is no crazy plugins,
no crazy hierarchies. It's just bare minimum driven by Zettelkasten. If you don't know what
that is, I have a full video on this, but I'll explain a little bit in this video as well.
It has served me so well. Again, a reminder, this setup is for me to think. So this is not a personal
wiki for AI. I will do a different video on that if you're interested. This is really not for AI
to read, but for me to capture the ideas, process the ideas, create output from the input so that
I'm integrating the learnings and actually doing something with it. And to do that, you really do
not need anything complicated. People keep on asking me that I haven't posted many Obsidian
videos for years, and they're wondering if I'm still using it. I am. It's just I've told everyone
everything they need to know about the system, so I didn't want to make any extra videos for the
sake of it. But now that AI is here, this video is important because the number one complaint from
smart people who are using AI is that, okay, now I'm overwhelmed because it seems like I'm
outsourcing too much of my thinking to AI, but at the same time, I don't want to not use AI.
So where's that line where I can protect my brain and how I think and be able to not just
protect it, but grow it and at the same time, get productivity out of AI? And to me,
the answer is absolutely having a knowledge management system that helps you think and
protect that space for you to go deeper on ideas. And that's something that AI cannot do. So this
video is going to be on that. I have a separate video here on more of the meta philosophy. I think
now we have three brains that we need to work with together and make sure that each one has
their place. If you want to get into the more meta ideas, you can check this out here,
but in our video here, we're going to make it really practical and set up that obsidian
specifically for thinking. Step number one, simple. We're going to download obsidian,
use it for whatever device you currently use. It's mostly all supported, download it,
and it'll open up like this. Once you open obsidian, it'll look something like this.
It'll ask you to either create a new vault or open a folder as a vault. So a vault in obsidian
is just a folder where all of your notes are going to go. So if you don't have one folder in mind,
you just click create, name it. So let's say obsidian demo and pick a location. I'll choose
my desktop and create. So now it's created. Here's obsidian with one note already created
for you so you can see. Now obsidian is just a markdown file reader. Let me show you in the
desktop just so you can see how simple it is, right? We said obsidian demo is the vault that
we're using. So it's a folder that exists on our computer. And then within it, the notes are just
these MD files. Since obsidian created this first one, you'll see only this one here and
you can even see a preview on the side. It's simply a text file, which is why people love
obsidian because number one is straight on your computer. It's not saved in the cloud by,
you know, the software itself. Obsidian is not forcing you to store all of your notes in its
cloud. It's locally on your zone, which means it's private. You always have access to it.
And two MD files are really great because they are very easy to process, not just by humans,
but also by AI, which is why there's this resurgence of obsidian. People are saying,
oh, obsidian won the AI war because it uses MD files. So it's a great place if you want to set
up not only your second brain, but also your AI's second brain, which I also talk about in this
video here. So you can check that out. Now, if you create a new note by either clicking here or
command N on the Mac, control N on PC, you'll see that there is now a new note created,
a markdown file that's created in your folder. So this is how obsidian works is just helping.
It's just a wrapper for creating notes inside a folder. That's it. And you can read it.
That's the basic function of obsidian, which is the simplicity of it is what makes it powerful,
because then you can really tailor it to how you think and help you think. So let's call this
first idea. And you'll see as you update this, then your markdown file also updates.
And inside obsidian itself, you'll also see that note is there on the sidebar so that as
you create more notes, they're all going to be there. And this is a good time
to get you orientated on this page of what's going on. So first, the left most icons are
functionalities, which we'll get to in a moment. And then you have this bar of all the files that
you have access to. And you can do a few things with them. Then in the middle here, it's your
note where you're going to be editing, you're going to be typing things, you're going to be
processing the ideas and capturing the ideas, you can open up another pane like this one here,
obsidian decides to open up graph view. So you can see the power of connecting your notes together.
If you close it, it will just go away and you just have your note here.
Then there's also another side panel on the right hand side, which has all of the additional
information that's linked to your note. So it will have things like backlinks,
it will have the links that are mentioned, it will have tags, it will have properties, if any,
and outlines. We'll get into the details in a moment. But all you have to know is all of your
notes are going to show up on this left panel here. And then you're going to be able to click
on them and edit them inside the middle section. The structure is really simple, just a bunch of
files inside a folder. That's not where the magic is. The magic is how you take your notes,
which is where I use Zettelkasten. In a nutshell, this is a way to capture ideas into notes,
process them, and then be able to turn them into output. It's an input to output process.
I talk about it more in detail here, but basically there are five steps to your note taking in order
to make it a place for you to think. And the five steps are capture your note, process your note,
connect your note, create output with it, and then improve on it based on feedback. Let's go
step by step with an example. Let's say I'm reading the book by Alan Watts called The Book,
and I'm reading through the chapters and there's an idea here. It says that there are quite a few
notions in the world that are made up. And one of them is that we think they're opposite poles,
in his words, of relationships. So things like light and dark, you know, good and bad,
solid and space. And we think that there's an actual conflict between these two. And usually
there is one winner, like between light and dark. We probably like the idea of something being
light. Between good and bad, well, we prefer good. And we don't actually think about them as a
continuum or that they can coexist, you know, paradoxes exist. So when I want to capture this
note, previously I might have wrote something in the margins, but this time I'm going to put it
into obsidian. All right, first let's create a new note, ctrl n or command n, and we'll call it
fictional belief. And here I'll show you the first thing to avoid, which is your file name
cannot contain these characters, the forward and back slashes, as well as colons. So
make sure that you use something different. So I'll use a dash fictional belief, which is
opposite poles of relationships with one usually winning. All right, so that's the key idea.
So we've captured this idea. Inside the body of the note, we're going to summarize the idea. So
here I'll use a few Zettelkasten principles. Number one is atomic notes only, which means
each note only has one idea. So for example, in this book where he talks about this idea,
actually there's more. There's six ideas that he mentions that are fictional beliefs that we have.
So instead of creating one note with all the six, I'm going to focus on one of them and then link
them to all of the other six, if that's what I want to write down. Here specifically, I want to
demonstrate one idea. So I'm putting this one here, and then you want to rephrase it in your
own words. So already we're starting to process the idea, not just to go for the quote and very
easily forget that, but try to integrate that idea with my ideas. So I may say Alan Watts talk
about the idea of social fiction, and one of them is believing that opposites are actually
contradictions of each other, rather than thinking about them as a continuum or a paradox
that can definitely coexist. By the way, if you're wondering what I'm using, I'm using whisper flow
to dictate rather than type. This has also helped me with my note taking. So if you're curious to
try that below, I'll leave a link down below. And now we have the core idea written down in our
words in an atomic note that has one idea per note. Okay, perfect. Now, just as this is not very
helpful, the next step we're going to do is to connect this note to other notes. So as I'm looking
at this idea, why I picked it out is actually because it really reminds me of one of the core
ideas that I believe in, which comes from Scott Fitzgerald, who says that the test of first
right intelligence is to be able to hold two opposite ideas and still be able to function.
So I'm going to connect this note to that quote. So we can create another note, you can do
Command N or Control N and create the next note here. But I'll show you a different way of doing
it, which is start with double brackets, which then pulls out all the notes that you have.
And then you can put in the note title that you want. And I will do this.
And once you click out of it, it will create a placeholder for a note. So this note doesn't
exist yet. If we look here, there is no note called this yet, but we have a placeholder.
And if you click on it, it will create a new note. So this is a really easy shortcut that
you can use inside Obsidian. And if we open up graph view here, we can see now these two
notes are connected. You can pull them around if you want to see them, but we've just made
our first connection. There are two types of connections that you can make. The first one
we've already made here, which is another idea. But one of the things that you want to do,
and I highly recommend this, and this is for me now a non-negotiable rule as well, which is,
I want to name my source into a source note. So for example, for this one, I will name it
the book by Alan Watts. And this way, whenever I have any idea that come from this book,
I make sure I tag with the source, the book. So this way, when I look at this note and I look at
the backlinks, I'll see all of the ideas that are connected to this book. And now I regret choosing
this book because it's so confusing. It's called the book, but I'm calling it, you know, the book,
this book, but hopefully you know what I mean. You'll see all of the mentions of the source,
which helps you again, find ideas back to the book and from the book, find the ideas that stood
out to you. All right. So now we've connected ideas. We've connected the source. Now we want
to move to the next step, which is to think about the output. This is where I want to introduce
tags. So of course, when we were taking notes, it doesn't mean we're turning it immediately into
output in that moment, but it is really a game changer. If every single time you take notes,
you think about how am I going to use this note? Is it that I'm going to bring it up and share it
with someone? Is it that maybe I want to do more research on this topic or is it maybe, Oh, I'm
going to write a report about this idea. And this is going to be one of the things I want to pull
in by just thinking about how this is going to fit into an output and really gives more purpose
to the idea and help you better apply it. And I found that using tags to signal, Hey, this is the
status and this is the purpose of this note has really helped me use more of my notes. So a tag
inside Obsidian is just a hash. And then you write something, let's say, you know, if we call this an
then it will have the tag of idea. And you'll see there's a light purple behind to indicate that
this is different from the body text. And if you come here to the side and go under tags, you'll
see, okay, there is one technical idea and there's one noting. So if we continue to take this, let's
say as the other tag, it will show up here and you'll see how many notes are inside each tag.
Now, I think a lot of people just tend to tag their ideas with topics. For example, for this
one, you might say, Oh, this is philosophy. And then for any other philosophy notes, you also
take it the same. I found this not at all helpful, especially because my thinking is very bottom up
and I want to think intersectionally between different ideas. So it's really unhelpful to have
these tags as philosophy because easily I could be saying that this is also a note about thinking.
This is also a note about critically reviewing the world. This could also be social science. This
could be a lot of things. All right. So what I found really helpful is to tag them in relation
to the output. And I have a few go-to tags that I use, which are questions, quotes,
anecdotes, studies. And so these are basically building blocks that I want in my output. For
example, this quote here, I would tag a quote so that in the future when I'm looking for a quote,
this will then allow me to later filter all of the notes in my vault to quotes. So if I'm
looking specifically for a quote inside, let's say a YouTube video I'm doing, or maybe in the
newsletter that I'm doing, instead of looking through all of the notes, I can filter by quotes.
That has been really helpful. And the same idea is for anecdotes, for studies, for questions,
so that I can think about my notes in terms of the output I'm going to do.
The second type of tags I like to use are status-based. So for example, this idea, let's say
I want to do more research into it. I typically then have a research tag so that I know there
is something I want to do with this. Or it could be something like draft. I have everything I need
in this idea right now. And my next step towards the output is to draft this, right? Or it could
be, okay, this note, actually I've already drafted it and it is published. Then I can also tag it
published so that I know, okay, if I ever want to look through my vault to find everything that
I've published, I can find it through the tag. So in this sense, even though you're not always
working on output based on the notes that you're taking, let's say I have an hour right now, I can
sit down, I go to my research tag and I spend that hour researching specific ideas I've already
left for myself so that I can go further on those ideas as opposed to, okay, my vault just keeps a
bunch of ideas. I don't really know what to do with them or where I should start. Just by keeping
in mind the output you're going to have already makes the notes so much more useful. And once you
have these notes, it'll grow over time. For example, when I was Googling the exact quote of
the two opposing ideas, it created, it mentioned that, okay, there's also another sentiment that
he said as well, which is an artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still
remain fully functional. So what I can do then is also take this quote over here into my obsidian,
link it to this quote here because the two are very similar, which is great.
All right, so I have another quote here. I'll tag a quote as well so I can find it later on.
But also this links to one of the things that I've written about, which is creativity as a
proxy for intelligence. Now, this comes back to what I mentioned at the beginning for the three
non-negotiable rules. Right now, I've started a vault that is empty, right? And even we can
delete these welcome notes and the first idea which is empty. Okay, I've just started and right
now I only have four notes. But the thing is, I have written a lot of other things before and if
I haven't imported them, now is a perfect time to import the essay I wrote on creativity as a proxy
for intelligence because it really is directly related to this idea of Scott Fitzgerald. I would
then come to the essay I wrote, copy paste it or find the word document that had this, put it all
into it. And now I have, let's just put this into it and let's just say, okay, this one's published.
And now inside my graph view, I have all of these interrelated ideas, right? And so next time when I
hit on any of these topics, whether it's creativity, whether it's intelligence, whether
it's fictional belief, whatever it is, I'm going to be able to trace back to all of these different
notes that have a slightly different angle coming at some of the very similar concepts. And this is
how I can then build on my ideas, right? Because previously it was, okay, I have these ideas. I think
they're pretty good, but I don't have a one place for them to consolidate. I don't have one place to
connect them to build them towards some sort of output. So this is why obsidian for thinking is
so powerful. Now you can really just stop here and start building your vault, but I'll also share a
few nice to have settings that you want to put in plugins that are really helpful and help you
save some time. So let's get into the nice to have. First of all, let's talk about how to search in
obsidian because when you're connecting things, you have to look something up. You, as you build
more vaults, how do you make sure you can find the notes that you've created? So three ways. The first
one is the quick switcher, which you can open by command O or control O if you're on a PC, which
helps you find or create a note. So the word that you type into the quick switcher is only going to
look for titles that include that. So for example, if I look for opposing viewpoints, it will show
me all of the notes that have the title, including my keyword. If there are notes that have opposing
or oppose as a word inside the content only is not going to show up. So this is the first one quick
switcher for finding file titles. The second type of search is global search within your vault. So
it's not just the title, but it could be in the body. It could be in the tag. It could be anywhere.
So you can either find it here to search, or you can go command shift F or control shift F if you're
on the PC. And let's say, you know, I'm looking for Alan Watts and here is his name is not mentioned
in the title here, but you see that I actually mentioned his name both in the body as well as
in the source note. So it's going to be able to find that the notes, no problem. Whereas if I did
command O, so opening up the quick switcher and I type in Alan, I can only find the note that has
his name inside the file. So those two are different. Then there's actually a third option. This requires
a plugin in order to be able to do, but it is to do semantic search rather than keyword search.
So as you'll notice with obsidian, if you type in a keyword is going to be able to find that keyword.
But if I mistyped it, then it's not going to really understand what I'm actually trying to say.
But if you have AI helping you do semantic search, then you're going to be able to do this. This is
completely optional, but as you have more notes and you start to not being able to manually memorize
everything that's there, I highly recommend this plugin, which is under community plug plugin.
And here is a really great moment to talk about plugins. So obsidian comes with, you know, all
sorts of functionalities so that you can view these markdown files. You can manipulate them,
build them together, but there are a lot more things that you can do, which are in plugins.
And there are two types of plugins, core plugins, as well as community plugins, core plugins are
built by obsidian. And so these are really all of the functionalities that you can decide to turn
on and off. For example, you can turn off backlinks to show up on the side. If you like,
for whatever reason, you can, you know, enable canvas, you can enable footnotes view, whatever
it is that you want is here. Leaving it in default usually is good enough to just get you started.
And then you can tweak the difference if you find yourself wanting some functionality later on down
the line and community plugins are kind of like exactly as obsidian says, kind of like softwares
that you install, they're created by people outside of obsidian. And so you have to be able to trust
the source. Now obsidian does some of the reviews and they require them to be open source, all these
things. Uh, but it is a choice whether you use community plugins or not. And for the function
of semantic search, you do have to turn on community plugin. So you turn on, you reload,
you come back, go to community plugins, and you'll be able to browse. So the one that I use is called
smart connections. I've actually been using this plugin for two plus years now. And for all of
these community plugins, you can click into it, you can see how it works, and then you can click
install. If you ever wonder whether the community plugin is safe, there are some
social proof up at the top of how many times it's been downloaded, as well as they share
their repository. So if you use AI, you can copy and paste the link and ask AI to take a look and
look for any security concerns as well before you install. Now, once you install it, you enable it.
And this way you're going to be able to use it. So let me show you my own bowl, which has a bunch
more notes so that you can see how the embed works. All right. So I actually have a quote
that's called this. And as if you can click to connections, you'll be able to see all of the
notes that are semantically similar to this note. So as you can see, I've got dialectical thinking,
which is really about the ability to embrace paradox and be flexible with ideas being
seemingly contradictory. I have things about what is intelligence, since it talks about the first
rate of intelligence, we talk about paradox, we talk about unlearning as the hardest part of
learning. And so you'll start to see that I might not remember I have these notes, but by having
semantic search on the side, I'm going to be able to say, oh, OK, actually, you know what?
This is a really great note to link inside this note. I can just drag it over. And this way
is a lot easier to connect your notes as your vault really grows. But at the beginning,
don't worry about it too much because you don't have that many notes to even embed in the first
place. Speaking of plug ins, there's another really common one that people like to use,
which is templates. And this is when you notice yourself always putting in the same type of
information into your notes. You know, a lot of people put in created dates or a lot of people
have different headings they like to have in their notes. So if that is you, you can come down
to settings here, go to core plugin, scroll down to template. It should be automatically turned on,
but you do need to change the settings. First of all, files for a folder for the template is
important. So let's for us put in a folder called template so that Obsidian knows, OK,
everything inside that folder is where the templates are stored and ask you for what
kind of date format you want and time format you want. I'm just going to leave it as is.
All right. Now that we come into our vault, we can create a folder that matches that template
folder that we set. So you can click here, new folder, we'll call it templates. Then within
that folder, if you right click on the folder and create a new note, you'll be able to create
a new note. So let's say this one is called template and I will do a idea compass. So this
is another idea that I've talked about in this video here, where when you take notes and you
want to really stretch your thinking, you can use an idea compass on the note. So what happens
is you have four directions, north, south, west, east. And for each of them, you want to,
the north is the theme, for south is where the idea leads to, for west is similar ideas,
and for east is opposing ideas. And so this is sometimes a really useful tool if you want to
stretch your thinking or think about what other things are related. It's great to use the idea
compass here. And since I don't want to type this in every single time, it's a really great way to
create a template for this. And here's a side note, by the way, you'll see that there's funny
things going on when you look at this bolded text, and this is marked down formatting. So
you don't have to remember any of these because they're actually really intuitive. If you want to
bold, you can just select the text and do control B or command B. If you want to italicize, it's the
same as word control or command I to italicize as well. So you'll see that there's like different
star signs to indicate that as a part of markdowns formatting, but you really don't
have to worry about this until much later. So, and you can see this video here for a quick
breakdown. Now, when we want to insert the template, we can go into the node that we want to insert it
from, and then you have several different options. You come to the side ribbon here,
find insert template. We need to rename this to template. My bad. Now we can go back here to
insert template, and it will show you all of the templates that's within the template folder.
We're going to click on this one and bam, you have your template inserted. Another way of doing it
is control P or command P. This is the command palette. And if you type in templates, it will
say, okay, template, you can insert template, you can insert date, you can insert time. So that's
another way of doing it. And then there's one more way of doing this. You can also add a custom
shortcut to add templates as well, or really a custom shortcut for any command. I'll put the
video down here if you want to explore that. But again, you know, don't get too excited about all
of these things. If you don't even need to use templates, then don't worry about this. And this
brings me to the settings that you want to have. If you go into settings, you click on files and
there are two things you want to set up. Number one is to have your default folder for new
attachments. Attachments usually are just dumped into the folder. And over time, it can really
clog up your side panel if you care about that. So you can select, okay, I want it in my vote
folder, which is by default, or you can say, okay, I want to have it in a folder that's specified.
So you might call it, you know, attachment. And then you create a, once you say that, you create
that attachment folder here, and you'll be able to add any images or things like that,
and it will show up in attachment. While you're in files and links, there's another setting you
want to enable, which is under links, you want to enable automatically update internal links.
And this happens when, if you rename a file, Obsidian will automatically update all of the
other files that's referring to this file with the new name, as opposed to have a bunch of
broken links. So let me give you an example. If this is turned off, and I changed the name of
this file to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, instead of Scott Fitzgerald, it will then tell you, hey,
by the way, you know, you have other links, other files linked to this, do you want to update this?
And you might have to say, okay, just one answer, do not update, in which case you'll
have a broken link. Whereas if you click always update, then it doesn't matter which note you
change, it will always help you update. And it will tell you how many links have been updated
because you changed the name. And that's a really good hack. And the last setting that is nice to
have, but you know, lots of us like to do this, is go under appearances and choose the theme.
Right now I'm using default, but you can go under manage and really see all sorts of different
themes. It's very easy to get lost in this. I currently just use default and I really like it.
And I think part of the reason why people feel like Obsidian is very intimidating is because
most of the YouTubers that talk about this are using, you know, like a dark mode and it looks
super technical when it's really not. So if you want something clean to start with,
use default. If you want to customize it, you know, give this a few try, but it will be a time sucker.
So I'm just putting this out there. If you want to get things set up first, start with default and
then customize it over time. There are so many functions in Obsidian, but really all you need
are some nodes within a folder and just connect them over time. Think about the output that you're
going to use and structure your Obsidian vault so that you move towards the output. And that is
going to create such a luxurious space for you to think and be able to take your ideas deeper,
which in this very fast paced space is the differentiator between the quality of your output
versus someone else's when you do knowledge works. Let me know if you have questions down below. I
have videos here on both the meta idea of how to set this up as well. I will create a video
on how to set up Obsidian specifically for your AI to use as well as a part of the shared
second brain. So I'll see you in the next video. Bye.