The Rise of Obsidian as a Second Brain | ft. Nick Milo
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มิ.ย. 2024
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Tiago Forte asks Obsidian expert Nick Milo: How good is the note-taking app Obsidian as a Second Brain?
Here’s how Nick rated Obsidian across 10 key Second Brain factors.
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 Obsidian as a Second Brain
00:23 1. Search
01:13 2. Duplicate
03:19 3. Access
04:47 4. Share
06:08 5. Ease of Use
07:36 6. Upgrade
09:10 7. Transfer
10:06 8. Connect
12:44 9. Capture
13:46 10. Organize
14:49 11. Security
15:49 How to Learn Obsidian
16:02 Final Score
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🎥 CONTRIBUTORS
Executive Producer: Marc Koenig
Video Editor: Marc Koenig
Screen Capture & App Expert: John Mavrick
Animator: Nikolay Ofitserov
Thumbnail Designer: Dillon Toma
Host: Tiago Forte
Guest: Nick Milo
What a fun time chatting about Obsidian! It's a truly amazing app. - Nick
You were verrrrry convincing, Nick. I wonder if you would do an episode on your own channel about how someone might use this for long form content. Scrivener uses Markdown, but it isn't a great quick capture environment. I wonder about using these two together.
Anyway, thanks to Tiago for a great video, and to you for such care in your evaluation of Obsidian.
Brilliant to see you guys together. Tiago helped me get my projects honed and Evernote in shape. Nick, your intro video inspired me to develop a Second Brain in Obsidian. Learned Zettelcasten principles at the same time. I've never had a place to capture and link all my thinking. Now I do, it's 'go time' for books, products, and everything else I have wanted to explore. Huge thanks to both of you!
@@RichardHaggerty Happy to hear Richard. I'll see you around!
@@jeffreythemeditator Happy you enjoyed. Thanks for the suggestion Jeffrey :)
10/10 presentation of the app! I recently started reading Bulding a Second Brain and been slowly researching which app to use. After being able to find a Notebook app with actual modern UX I've landed with Obsidan after first disgregarding it as too advanced when trying it out on mobile. This video just affirmed my bias in the best of ways.
Will definitly be hitting up your channel for more ideas on how to work with it!
THIS IS THE COLLAB WE ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR, DON'T EVEN PRETEND YOU WEREN'T.
I just started with Obsidian last week
No. The UI is pinch black. Hate this
@@alexnder8401 what are you even talking about
My Obsidian second brain is basically a mashup of the best advice I have taken from Tiago and Nick. I created a PPV in Notion following August Bradley. I spent a week building it and after another week I was frustrated. I am seven months into Obsidian and love it more each day.
Agree completely, followed the August Bradley method with Notion but found it to be an overly complicated approach. I now am using Obsidian for notes (I would consider myself a beginner but so far it is easy to capture and get my info down and pull it up in the future as needed, look forward to getting more out of tags and other features as I advance).
Secondly, I use Tick Tick for tasks, I tried really really REALLY hard to get to-dos and notes in the same app, but I think there are just so many limitations when you try to make it all happen in a single app. Separating the two gives flexibility and freedom imo.
@@CrazyCanuck55 Actually surprised we have the same TickTick + Obsidian solution! I agree with you that I just like things simple and scalable.
Same here. Switched to Obsidian from Notion and using Nirvana App for Tasks. I was obsessed with building up a workflow in notion but didn't use it really. Cheers
Same here 🥳
I love PPV, I'm just thinking to use obsidian in place of the knowledge lab of the system, ppv to organize my life, obsidian to organize my studies
Wanted a video like this to decide if I want to start with obsidian. Thank you! Loved your book btw, life changing
I love this video. Thank you Tiago. All of your videos are seriously super helpful. When you analyse apps, you don't give any fluff and you say it as it is. Much much appreciated! I am currently on a journey on building my own 2nd brain and all thanks to your methodology! Kudos!
What a coming together of great minds!
Thank you both! I appreciate this soooo much. Very valuable to get this kind of expert overview of the strengths and weaknesses/perks of Obsidian. ❤
The team and Nick did an amazing job at showcasing the powerhouse of an app, super happy you guys are spreading awareness of the up and coming second brain contender 😎
Thanks for letting me help with the screen recordings and the second brain movement :)
Thanks for being our resident Notes app expert! 👊
@@TiagoForte Anything to contribute to the second brain movement ;)
Since trying different apps, I can definitely agree with Nick’s evaluation.
If you prefer to just organize and have an aesthetic, simple organizational structure, go for Evernote and Notion. Obsidian will just be overkill.
But if you intend to one day make creative outputs such as writing about a topic, conducting academic research, youtube videos etc. I think Obsidian is by far what we have best for now.
Note: a couple of plugins are also life-changing for Obsidian such as; Quickadd, Dataview, DB folder, Podnotes, Excalidraw, Excalibrain, Mindmaps
Each takes some time to get used to be the capabilities are endless and that’s the beautiful thing to see as a community !
Thanks for the video
I’ve waited for this for years!!!
Thank you❤
The editing in this video is mind-blowing
Tip: If you want to "Copy Link to Block" and "Copy Block embed" as shown at 2:08 you will need to install an extension called Copy Block Link.
Thanks Adrian, I was looking for how Nick did that!
I don't know if it has been added or updated since this comment, but you can embed links by adding an exclamation point just before the link. No need for a plugin
![[Link Text Here]]
@@as_below_so_above Thanks :) I haven't tried it lately, but does it also work for linking to a block or rather a specific line/paragraph in a file?
@adrianswebvideos Oh I see. If you want to link a specific block or line of text, you would probably need a plugin. The way I described just embeds the entire note into another note, useful for outlines and Maps of Content (MOCs).
life saver!
As someone who uses Obsidian for my second brain, I really appreciated how much detail and candidness Nick had in his answers instead of overselling the program. I think the system is really impressive and great for second brain use but it does have its caveats that can make it or break it for people, and it's important to point those things out. 100% agree on his assessment of Obsidian's upgradability and the speed of use. Keyboard-led design is really key to this.
This is sick thank you man! I feel like Evernote’s search function just can’t be beat though. Especially since it has OCR so searching through slides, images, and handwriting is a breeze
Très bonne vidéo sur Obsidian merci Tiago et Nick !
Wow, great video format, love the concise nature of the rubric!
Fantastic video. Great collab with Nick!
Something which I needed today. Thank you Tiago for such useful content.
This video is incredibly well-edited. Well done.
Great analysis, thanks. As an intermediate user of Obsidian I have learned a few me things here, such as the possibility to edit and merge my tags with the community plugin
Was very Helpful ❤🙏🏻. I moved from Remnote to Obsidian since 4 weeks and enjoying it . The best app for me overall as second brain 👌👌🙏🏻. Very fast and backlinks are so useful. Dosent require a internet connection. Can work offline seamlessly 🙏🏻
The collaborative sync is pretty good. I think live share is the only issue but that can be solved by using VScode, so it is more code friendly yes but doable.
This is what I use for my second brain. Love it
Nice to see more on Obsidian. I moved from Notion for team collaboration to ClickUp. And for my personal notes to Obsidian.
Greate vedio! As a 8 years Evernnote user trying to find the next app for my notetaking, this helps a lot! Thank you!
subtle cutting, well made and on point.
B.A.S.B and Obisdian means true love. Thanks for this video Tiago.
Great explanation of Obsidian and its coverage. Thanks.
Markdown is really simple to learn. That is my absolute favorite part of this app.
This this awesome, gotta try it out.
Awesone video.
Dataview and the todoist plugin rock. Also if you dont have the plugin you want you can write your own.
congratulations on 100k subs!
Excellent interviewer and interviewee. Well done!
Thank you!
Awesome! Discovered Obsidian a few month ago, liked the customizability a lot, but got lost in it. In the end I got stuck with Craft. Perfect match for me while looking for an alternative for notion that works offline. Would be nice if you find an interview partner for Craft as well. Maybe numeric citizen. He works with Craft a lot and is quite critical.
why didn’t notion work for you? notion works offline
i really apreciate your help with dowloanding this software
Our team actually uses Git to enable colaboration on Obsidian vaults. Works pretty good, and you have version control / history for free.
Any videos or articles that talks about how to use Obsidian with Git and is beginner friendly and good for non-developers ? Thank you!
I've used them all and Obsidian is the best by a mile!
Great collab
Yeah, I looked at all the apps and Obsidian was just the one that best fit my use case for a second brain. I really wanted something that will link my notes together. I was thinking about Notion, but it seem super complicated. I liked the you can just start typing and linking immediately with Obsidian , then learn the rest as you go. And my goodness I feel more creative , and I NEVER thought of myself as a creative person at all.
Amazing video with great evaluation criteria. Only one problem: didn't the your second brain book on that bookshelf!! :D
Great video, I’ll have to try obsidian once at least but I doubt it’ll be able to replace notion for me though. Especially the inability to have a collaborate workspace.
Loving the Nick checking his iPhone Edits that weren't cut out. Guess we'll get distracted by our Phones ;)
Has Tiago Forte ever done this ranking for Evernote?! I feel like it would be super interesting to see how Tiago would rank his own EN second brain in this ranking system.
What I haven't quite figured out is how to combine the PARA approach with the Zettlekasten-flavored way of growing a garden of interconnected notes that Obsidian makes so delicious.
Hopefully the second half of Building a Second brain answers that question! I'm eating up the book in big chunks.
Hi!
I had the same problem that you had. How I dealt with it was using Folders exclusively for Projects, then putting my notes in like 1 folder. Areas and Resources are a bit fuzzy in my system tbh, but how I made Areas and Resources separate was using tags to separate the two.
Hope this helped!
I found with Obsidian that I was just using it as a wiki of Markdown documents. I didn't use anything else of it. And sync'ing multiple machines was a problem. So I migrated to a simple online wiki using Markdown as the document format, with a few hacks.
Tiago we need a video of you talking about Things 3 please!
Good idea
Programming in the R interface uses 'markdown' as well. Kind of interesting.
As a student I tried Remnote and fell in love!! Very similar to obsidian + spaced repetition!
May be not as robust as obsidian but fulfils my needs!
I agree! RN is massively underrated imo
But Obsidian has plugins for that, too :))
@@leolit55 for spaced repetition flash cards?
@@AumJi13 Yes, plugin called "Spaced Repetition"
@@leolit55 does it work on mobile?
This is a great video! Where can I find more information on tracking projects that was shown at 8:31?
Actually, though, if you trust your teammates (and backup frequently), it DOES work to share a vault someplace like Dropbox. That's how my Obsidian Book Clubs collaborate. It's in a shared, but private, folder.
Obsidian also becomes a complete data playground if you know basic java script and have the courage to play around with dataview with javascript
Loving Obsidian!
Now we have to talk about deep focus and doing one thing at a time like not picking our phone each 30 sec in an interview :D
I just learned the technique of the second brain and I tried Notion at first, but too much "bullshit", too much time to have something beautiful, and I don't think I would have used it.
Then I found Obsidian (thanks to Eliott Meunier) and I love it.
I'm just in the beginning but it's simple, there are a lot of useful plugins (kanban, Anki, Todo...)
I'm a software engineer and I use dendron for my programming related notes. And Samsung Notes for other notes. Samsung Notes is just amazing..!
For my notes, Logseq works the best. Its list nature is what I need to dump everything into it and add some tags and TODO marks. It structures it all for me.
Obsidian can be accessed on the web, just not out-of-the-box. I containerized it with Docker and access it through a cloud provider.
One big question not answered: I use three different Macs at home and my big Windows desktop depending on where I am working, and three more at work. So where do you house the database, If the answer is a cloud-based solution, how do you resync when working offline? Loved the format of the video with ratings for each area.
Cool video
First! Great video Tiago!
I love the theme, which one is it?
Good job, you tried to calculate 11x10 and got pretty close! The correct answer was 110 though, so the score is 92/110.
If you don't include the bonus "Security" category, the score is 82/100.
lol
Just a small correction at the end, the final score is 92/110, not 92/100 (or ignoring the bonus points it’s 82/100).
Bonus points on a test aren't in the denominator. They're bonus!
@@colerees3965 what bonus are you talking about? aren't there 11 categories?
No 92/110 becomes 92/100. The max score would be 110/100, which would probably never happen anyways
Finally!!!
@TiagoForte, when are you launching your own app?
Regarding transferability, I wonder if that works with images taken on the app - as well as plain text
Nice I'm struggling to decide which second brain to use: Org-Roam (Emacs) or Obsidian
Obsedian supports collaboration when you use it with git. Collaboration is just as robust as git so rating of 5 was a little too strict.
You can collaborate with Git. Just do a shared repo. Each team member checks out a branch off the Master branch before working on a file, then does a pull request for their changes. The team can review, any merge conflicts can be resolved and then the new content can merge back to Master. You can setup a hook to re-deploy the web version each time you merge to master. So it stays up to date.
In that way Obsidian could be as collaborative as any programming project. Very easy to manage and avoid mistakes
A follow-on. You should be using version control regardless of whether or not you’re collaborating because you can make large scale edits safely.
If you don’t have version control you have to be pretty careful not to mess anything up because you can’t revert changes.
We use Obsidian as an internal company brain with multiple people with next to no problems. We use Git to resolve issues about rights and conflicts.
yeh i love obsidian. i have notion and that has better features for some things, and i may use it in future, but obsidian is superior for most things, in terms of my preference and what i need it for which is soley gardening notes and developing ideas
Would like to see a video using various systems together as a system. For example, I like using Evernote to capture things. It is simple, everywhere, but I don't find Evernote or Notion as useful as Obsidian for linking information together. Notion is a bit overwhelming until you have used it for a while. and gets expensive in a hurry if used as a team tool. My system uses Smartsheet and Evernote together. Smartsheet is more of a major system for organizing companies, projects, and teams rather than a second brain, and surprisingly much less expensive when used as a small team because with my plan I have unlimited collaborators with editing capability.
Any advice on how to back up obsidian? I have looked and can't seem to find videos on it.
Nick Milo is an Obsidian Rockstar!
Next one should be a Logseq expert!
It will be ;-)
I'm interested in Obsidian. Does anyone know if we can create a page within a page in Obsidian? Because that's one feature I love on some apps.
5:35 "So I say it's almost unusable in a realistic team scenario. So with this one, I'd have to give it a 5."
That's a very accommodating rating for an app that, as you said, is meant for a single author only 😅
That said, if your team is familiar with a version control system like GIT, treating it like a code project can be a workaround.
Any videos or articles that talks about how to use Obsidian with Git ? Thank you!
Actually not that hard. Just install git and save your vault in the git repo. Then you just git pull, edit notes, git commit, git push and done.
I've seen someone do his thesis with it using a self hosted git.
It was genuinely brilliant.
@@ghosthunter0950 did he write the steps anywhere online?
Seriously, just look up git tutorial. There are many of them. Or just ask ChatGPT to explain the steps to you. There is also a obsidian plugin which git pulls and git commits periodically for you.
Notion is too much extra work (but I used Notion for a long while)
Roam was the first... But i was paid and exclusive when I tried it...
So... I'm All in to Obsidian for the longest time now
By the way what obsidian theme is being used in the video?
Three words about why Obsidian is the best: Native Vim Mode.
Being able to quickly navigate through links and edit text without taking my hands off the home row is a boon to my productivity. It removes friction between information retrieval and idea generation. I think there should be another category for this rated 10/10.
God I hate vim. But so much respect for you brave souls who can use it efficiently.
Man
Finding the vim key setting was the best thing that happened while using Obsidian
Tiago, I would love to hear your comments on the A.C.C.E.S.S. framework that Nick has developed.
It is 92 out of 110, not out of a 100. So on a 10-scale, it scores a 8.4
Can you do comparison analysis of clickup with notion
Notion, Evernote e Obsidian combination is GOOD SECOND BRAIN
Greetings,
What app do you use to create a mind map or flowchart of the Second Brain diagrams as seen on various TH-cam BASB videos?
Please advise.
Richard James
We mock these up in Keynote (for Mac OS) and then our animator rebuilds it in Adobe AfterEffects
Obsidian does include folders, but the hierarchical tags themselves act as folders as well. I’m slowly walking myself back from the folder based workflow to sit purely in tags. We’ll see how that goes though, as I may return to some folder based organization in particular cases. Having files in multiple “folders” simultaneously is useful, though.
I’m just getting into notion, but I wonder how future proof the linking aspect is. I understand that the text files can be opened in any text editor, but how are the links managed or exported? Having something like notion using database, the etl would be pretty easy to backup into any database for long term storage. Im not sure if this has a solution. Is it using something like Redis for the backend and that’s why it’s much faster than other alternatives.
Markdown is an open standard. Many other apps support linking. For example github pages or sphinx documentation can process obsidian notes without any problems.
The best part about this chat is Nick has a scathing blog against progressive summarisation yet here they are spreading joy together, such an epitome of civility ❤🎉
Wait til you hear what I think about MOCs
When might the reveal happen? 😁
@@TiagoForte Any idea when is this happening, Tiago?
4:00 - why would you need to "setup sync"? Can't it just work without my attention? I'm wondering would I get access to all my notes if I'm offline and app decided to log me off for some reason?
Funny thing is, it's just a workspace on top of the Atom IDE. There are a lot of dev tools that programmers have been using for years that could do wonders if they were "dumbed" down for average consumption.
How does it compare to scrivener and google docs when writing a book other than having it on your computer and not on the cloud?
6:55 How can he highlight anything and move it? I use a Community plugin named 'Outliner' that allows me to do that with lists. I want to do the same with block other than lists. Someone knows?
Do you happen to have recommendations for building a second brain from scratch for someone with ADHD?
I tried and found a way to use obsidian with other people.
I set my obsidian vault in my google drive and share the vault to other people. He sync the vault in his computer(by add the shortcut to the drive) and I sync mine.
There would be a bit lag but I think it is acceptable.
Nice
The main issue with this approach is that if you edit the same note the google drive will create ".conflict" note that you should manage by yourself. Also all the settings like last opened note or color theme will be synced to all the devices
Does transferibility work well with images?
I think making notes on paper still has an advantage from a neurological point of view, but my problem is effectively organizing and accessing all the various notes related to all the different learning areas in my life. (disparate subject matter and courses etc.) I'm drawn to the power these apps have as far as dealing with those issues.
Try numbering the pages of your official notebook - and starting new notes on new pages; then start in Obsidian by creating an Index (or Table of Contents) of your notebook as your initial note. That way at least you'll have a searchable index of your content. I still brainstorm or just think slowly & thoroughly on paper, but I always transfer a synthesis or the final results to Obsidian, and an Index or everything. Hope this helps!
I believe the same benefits can be reaped by using something like an iPad with its respective stylus. There is a significant neurological advantage to writing over typing when it comes to learning, but as far as I'm aware, there's no substantial evidence that the advantages are inherent to the physical materials, but rather, to the actions required by pen + paper. However, some people just like and engage better with certain materials over others.
Could you do a video on RemNote
Definitely a good idea
My problem is that I take a lot of notes with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Is it possible to integrate your handwritten notes in Obsidian? I would like to see those notes in my second brain too
Possible, but needs plugin i think
7:02 Anyone know what plugin they used to move lines of text?
Great video, but a slight mistake at the end. You mentioned it got 92 out of 100 but actually it was out of 110 with the added security question.