I know it's a year after you've posted this, but I just had to let you know that your video has really clearly shown me how Zettelkasten works, instead of just "explaining" how it works, and helped me make the first dip into setting up my own Zettelkasten! Thank you so much! It clicks so much more for me now!
@@TranscendentIIThe idea seems to be about smaller atomic pieces of info that you string together, seems pointless if you look at one isolated example, but since they are atomic in nature you will be able to backlink to things you found and thought about before that relate in any way, combining the Zettelkesten method with the obsidian graph you can navigate through your content like Sherlock Holmes walks through his mind palace without needing to be a fictional character. Although maintaining these connections might look like a chore, if the method clicks for you then you won’t mind the little extra work upfront to save on possibly greater rework to recall the info later.
This is absolutely the best video on this subject. I spent hours and almost gave up on this method before seeing this. Thank you so much, and I'll be sure to check out your content.
This was one of the best videos of how to use Obisidian. You have covered almost every step of the full learning processo, from taking notes (studying) to writing about what you've learned (teaching). Congrats for the content 👏👏
I'll join many of the commentators and express my gratitude to the clarity of your video. Read quite a bit about Zettelkasten and only recently started to play with Obsidian, and your explanation helped to clarify the flow. Thanks!
Excellent! I’ve been looking for a practical guide like this for weeks. Your videos are the closest to what I want my own system to look like and the only ones I’ve found to show both Zettelkasten methods and their application inside Obsidian.
Out of all the Zettelkasten videos I have seen in the youtube, It never clicked to me to start using a certain method or follow a particular scheme, but this one right here, just nailed it, thank you very much G!
@@Martin_Adams how do you link bootstrapping to other fleeting notes, lets say you start a fleeting note based on "What does make a good employer?" and then u start branching the idea of a good employer and u want to link that to boostrapping literature notes or permanent notes? or projects?
@@iamtrazed I don't usually link my fleeting notes, but my literature notes might have some links within the context of that single article, and then the permanent notes in the context of everything. This blog post I wrote might help clarify some of the points: meda.io/how-to-make-atomic-literature-notes/
Amazing to finally get asuch a clear and comprehensive video on Obsidian with the zettlekasten method. I will be doing your course for sure. thank you!
I just want to say thank you! Your video was the most relatable way to explain Zettlekasten/obsidian to a beginner like myself. It’s not to talk bad about the other TH-camrs who have made their tutorials, but they always seem to “geek” out about the possibilities during their explanations and lose sight of the audience.
So great to finally come across a clear and comprehensive explanation - really helped me. will definitely be doing your course. thank you so so much!!!
This is my first day on discovering the Zettelkasten. After watching a lot of videos on the topic, this one gave me the most clarity and the fundamentals on implementing this on my studies. Thanks Martin!
I really wish that I could like this video several times over. I literally spent 45m with it walking through things step by step and you cleared up a lot of my questions.
This is the clearest, most concise example of Zettlekasten I have seen on TH-cam yet. Easy to understand with examples that I can transfer to real life. I hope you make many more videos explaining the intricacies of the system and some best practices that you find.
This video is absolutely amazing.. never had a video explaining certain concepts so simple and to-the-point that im able to confidently apply it right after.
I've already using Obsidian for awhile, but you've just shown me how more natural and simple work with that tool could be. Very interesting and pleasant guide! Thank you!
Recientemente descubrí el método Zettelkasten y tu video me aclaró de una forma clara y concisa cómo implementarlo en Obsidian, gracias Martin. I recently discovered the Zettelkasten method and your video clarified in a clear and concise way how to implement it in Obsidian. Thanks, Martin.
Great video. I've watched a lot about "Smart Notes", and "Zettelkasten" lately, but virtually everybody else are just academic about it; what the different categories are about. Few have real examples of showing the process; but none of them have been really helpful or inspirational, except this video, and the one before, that have really great concrete examples from source to output. Your book has definitely been placed on my reading list.
Martin, this is a superb walkthrough of the Zettlekasten process and Obsidian. I have really been struggling with the actual implementation of the system and you have made it really clear! Many thanks!!
Wow, I have watched at least seventeen videos regarding this system and none have come close to explaining it in such a clear and concise way! I think we take notes slightly differently but the system itself made sense given you actually showed it in practice!
@@Martin_Adams one question I’d love your take on is how the three steps play out with smaller pieces of content. Say a tweet - do you go straight to a literature note and then make a permanent note? Thanks again for such an informative video and keep up the great work!
@@lukereilly7786 Good question. I think in some context's it's okay to go straight from a fleeting note to a permanent note if you're capturing something that's pretty straightforward (facts for example). But if you want to use it to spark some new ideas, or thinking that you're yet to reason about, then a literature note (or multiple) might be good interim notes to capture. I do this with my kindle notes, I'll highlight a passage but then add my own thinking, to explore the idea in my own words and connect it with my own concepts. This would be a literature note until I'm ready to conclude that thinking in my permanent notes. Hope that makes sense.
Martin, a brilliant and precise tutorial. I substituted my own area of study and followed your implementation protocol of Zettelkasten. Thank You Knowledge Management is inherently complicated, it all depends on what you want to do and what you are dealing with. This video is a great introduction to both Zettelkasten and Obsidian.
Thanks Luke, I'm chipping away at an Advanced Obsidian Technique book right now. But I have just launched my Zettelkasten book Atomic Note-Taking which you can check out at atomicnotetaking.com
Thank you Martin for this terrific video. After I recently read Smart Notes, I was eager to set up a system, but the book really did not get me there. This video does! I started to try to set up a system in Notion, but the implementations all seemed kludgy which led me to Obsidian. I am making two modifications. One is to have a separate template for literature notes so I capture more bibliographic information to use for citation later. That way, the literature note becomes a one-stop reference. A second is to add a Source documents folder with PDF's, these being referenced in the corresponding Literature notes.
Martin, I'm so glad you created this content with the default Obsidian theme. Most of the videos I watch on Obsidian have so many colors and fonts from custom themes and I'm just getting acclimated to Obsidian with the default. For me, this has made absorbing your content so much more impactful. Thank you!
Thank you for a demonstration that I can follow along while also using the same folders and templates with few tweaking or simple duplications. It's so helpful for a messy note-taker like me!
i'm not sure this is the best method for me but it was really simple and greatly explained all the prime features of the app without plugins. i will surely use some of the ideas mentioned here in creating the system what would work for me
Great video. Started using Obsidian recently and I'm wanting to start a Zettelkasten with it. Been watching a bunch of videos on this, trying to get ideas for how I might go about it. Problem is, most of the videos I've found are either too short and basic to be useful or too long and detailed, to the point of being overwhelming and impossible to adapt to my own preferences. This video hit the sweet spot for me and I've got some good ideas for how to get started. Thanks.
same, although I'm confused about the fleeting notes. aren't they supposed to be discarded, once you have the literature notes and the permanent notes?
This is a really great work, was struggling to get started, eating a lot of content without taking the first step . . . as always. This video made it clear to me that it wasn't that big of a step and pushed me to try. Thank you, now i'll see where the taking notes business will take me !
Regarding Zettelkasten, one key idea I am missing in these how-to videos is Luhmann discouraged hierarchy. Each note was uniquely numbered and new thought was to be inserted according to the context, like 1/1 follow by 1/1a, 1/1b and so on, and new thoughts to be inserted according to the context like 1/1a1 is an extension of 1/1a. The Map of Content approach also seems wrong, the idea was to create an index note with a topic and linking two or three relevant nearby (Close links) notes. If you wanted to research one idea, you look up in index and follow the threads. The same can work for reference folder which is linked back from notes. I like how hypertext digitises Zettelkasten but these apps are really not meant for exploration, rather just storage archives.
@@Gameboob Luhman gave us a tool. How we deploy that tool in our work depends entirely on our unique needs and goals. A screwdriver is intended to be used on screws, but I can also use it to open paint cans and scrape away surface deposits. Luhman might have discouraged hierarchy, but if someone finds benefit in it for their own workflow, who is to tell that person they're wrong?
@@NjuJFama I have a different opinion on the hierachical system being purely a limitation of pen and paper. From my understanding there is an automatic connection between Note 1 and Note 2. Even when I add additional notes 1a, 1b, 1b1, 1c in between there is an automatic link from 1 to 2. This link is not present in the Zettelkasten as it is presented here. Instead I would have to reference the previous and following note and maybe even "child" notes by myself.
Between this video and a few from Artem Kirsanov, this system is starting to make sense to me and seems relatively simple. A few articles I read on the Zettelkasten system was really confusing me. But these videos are explaining it a lot better, especially in a more visual way. I've always just taken notes with no thought to it. Just hear something interesting (especially pertaining to numbers) write it down because it's probably important. But this system feels a lot more thought provoking and I really like how it is based around the connections of specific topics. Which seems to lend itself really well with how Obsidian is designed. I'm new to Obsidian and this system, but it's starting to come together. I can see just how useful this will all be and no doubt it will be worth the added effort to learn this stuff before beginning to learn what I'm after (I work in IT, I know some basic programming, but I'm looking to automate a lot more of my workflow with Python.) No idea why these methodologies weren't taught in school. I never heard a teacher once mention anything about how to take notes. The whole topic of learning how to learn never was brought up to my knowledge and it seems really important. Maybe this is the kind of thing that's implemented in private schools and the like. I could see it making all the difference in retaining the information instead of just trying to brute force memorize it all.
Thank you for the kind words! I agree, this has never been taught in school. S as a result of these videos I now have an opportunity to teach it to doctoral students. So hopefully this can expand into it being more widely accessible.
I echo what The Digital Learning Consultant said. I've been struggling to under this process for more than a year now and you simple walk though has helped me to make my breakthrough. Also, I signed up for your new app. Thank you :-)
Amazing presentation! I was able to follow and implement the demo in Obsidian easily. Good luck with flowtelic ! I have signed up and will be playing with the beta. Thanks Martin.
Thank you so much for this! literally the understanding of the topic i used while i was following along with you was so much more richer than when i just type/write it out on a bog standard note.
Just heard about Zettlekasten and Obsidian tonight. Installed Obsidian, came to your video. Your video is helpful, though I had to slow it down to a crawl to look up the commands for what you were doing. Nothing like learning on the fly. :-) I'm starting to like Obsidian quite a bit.
Awesome video! I just came across the Zettelkasten Idea and wasn't that convinced of it's version using Notion so I stumbled over this. I see a lot of potential in using obsidian. A LOT of information in this video, this is awesome! Will be coming back to it often. Thank you very much for sharing this with all of us!
I guess we all base our knowledge on Sonke Ahren's 'How To Take Smart Notes', so some questions popped into my mind while comparing the methodology described in the book and in your video. 1. Do you delete fleeting notes? After a literature note is created, they seem to be no longer necessary, creating a visual mess in Obsydian graphs. 2. Isn't it confusing to have both literature and permanent notes in one slip-box after a few hundred notes in Obsydian? After all, the whole idea is to build connections between the permanent ones. 3. The first permanent note that you create in the video looks like some kind of an index under which all related notes are stored. Doesn't it contradict the idea of Zettelkasten, where the notes shouldn't be stored chronologically, nor thematically?
Hi, thanks for the questions. Hope this helps answer them: 1. I don't delete fleeting notes as I like to have an audit trail right back to the original source information. This helps me reconsider things in the future if I find I've misunderstood something, or have a better understanding. Without that trail I might forget why I came to original ideas/conclusions. I do put them in their own folder and you can filter them out in the Obsidian graph view with the path filter. e.g. path:"Permanent Notes" to only show connections between permanent notes. 2. I don't find it confusing as I do have them in their own folders. That said, I may end up with them similarly named so when making links I make sure I'm linking from the right folder. Again, this is personal preference. I'd rather have the audit trail back to my original fleeting/literature notes. 3. If I've understood correctly the first permanent note is a Map of Content (MoC) which is an index to sub notes. I use these as entry points to a given topic grouping them by relevance to understand the topic. A permanent note may appear in multiple MoC's in this case. Strictly speaking, I should have put this in a separate folder to split it out. I personally wouldn't say this enforces a chronological outline, but may be a thematic one. If it helps my understanding by providing entry points to rediscover the notes, that's a good thing in my opinion.
The way you use Permanent notes is different, since Luhmann said your Permanent notes titles should be your own words on a topic as you see it from your point of view, ideally phrased positively. In your example, the permanent note titles seem descriptive, but are not “conversational”. This way, you can reference them in the references section, but you won’t be able to link them as you write. I have found that writing titles to make them fit in potential paragraphs of other permanent notes helps with idea connection tremendously. All in all, excellent video. You have given me some ideas to explore with my system. You have a new subscriber. 😃
Thanks. I think I understand what you're referring to with regards to descriptive vs conversational titles. If I do understand correctly I've observed this before. If the embedded link between the [[ ]] is a description, then it's hard to embed it and have it sound natural. One solution is to use the markdown link format [label](link). I'll think about it and see where this takes me. Thanks for the sub!
@@Martin_Adams if you haven't heard about him (I assume you have given that you use Obsidian), Andy Matuschak has probably the best implementation of a digital garden that I have seen. There can be some descriptive notes as entry points, of course, but I tend to gravitate towards what Andy does. I find it to help my thinking better than just making references for the sake of it. There is also a great plugin in Obsidian to visualize your notes closely to what his website does. bit.ly/3iX0C80
Honestly, this is an excellent video and your comment is also very helping. I could contrast Luhmann's approach with this and it helps me see the larger perspective behind using this system.
Great video. I do something very similar with some changes here and there. My preference is to call them capture notes, process notes, and working notes as literature notes could be from a variety of mediums and permanent notes can be added to and changed over time so 'downgrade' to process notes at different times. Less of a rigid structure but that is my preference. 😁
Thanks. Yeah that's a nice approach. I also prefer Capture (split ideas and study notes), then permanent notes. The good thing about exploring these workflows is that you can adapt it to something that really works for you.
This was a fantastic video. I got a great appreciation and understanding of zettlekasten and how to apply it within Obsidian. I am intrigued with your app and look forward to getting access to use it for myself. I have seen the trial and it has sparked an interest to see the final product when you release it. I will dig more into your video channel, I really liked your delivery and clear instructions. Thank you.
Explaining the Zettelkasten system with a practical example makes it come alive really well, great stuff! It did got me thinking on how to find the right granularity of permanent notes and maps of content (maybe it's personal). In your example your taking the "My product is my garden article" and creating four permanent notes on bootstrapping a business (what it is, benefits etc), linking them together in a map of content for bootstrapping a business. What would be the long(er) term benefits of that granularity compared to have one permanent note on bootstrapping a business with a map of content on entrepreneurship? I am also wondering what the benefits are of coming the fleeing note once a literature note has been fully written? I thought the fleeting note was meant for easy and quick notes or even copy/paste from a piece of content from others and the the fleeting note allows you to come back to later to really capture your own thinking and reflection and that added value is captured in the literature note together with the source. So I thought you would toss the fleeting note after. Curious what your thoughts are!
Thanks Oskar, great questions. So first of all, my thinking has been a little refined since this video. For me now, fleeting notes are those quick captures where you're filtering the useful parts of what you're learning (say from a lecture, book or video). These can get quite long depending on the size of the material you're learning. Literature notes are your atomic notes where you make sure you understand what's in your fleeting notes. You're breaking down the concepts and linking them together. So in the case of Bootstrapping a business, you're probing organising it in smaller chunks. They might have the "When to use it" note, the "Drawbacks of Boostrapping" note, "How to bootstrap with no money" note, etc. It can really get as fine grained as your ideas. You could have a note going as deep as "Negative feedback when building in public" or "Comparing your performance with other entrepreneurs". Then Permanent notes are when you take these literature notes and reflect on them in respect to your whole set of notes. So now you can compare Bootstrapping with Financial Management, Time Management, Motivation, Co-Founding a Business, Raising VC money. These relationships will extend the original fleeting notes and see how they fit in the larger network of ideas and knowledge you have gained over the years. As for throwing away fleeting notes. It seems like they're redundant by the time you've processed the literature and permanent notes. I personally like keeping them as they could have references to the exact place your learned it from. Then your literature notes can reference the fleeting note bullet point it was based on, and the permanent note can reference the literature note it was based on. Remember a permanent note may evolve over time as you read multiple sources on a given subject, so you might want to reference multiple literature notes when you make edits to the permanent note. The result of all this is an audit trail from any idea all the way back to the inspiration for that idea. This is great if you want to cite sources for your understanding in your writing. Hope that's helpful. I go a lot more into this in my book on the subject www.atomicworkflows.com/atomic-note-taking/ if that's of interest to you. But more than happy to answer questions here or over on my discord server: go.meda.io/community
This is VERY helpful. I've been reading How to Take Smart Notes recently, but understanding a workflow for Obsidian that matches with the process the book lays out really helps. I think it's been difficult to understand the difference between fleeting, literature, and permanent notes and this video really makes that more clear.
This is a great tool for me. I keep my document library (about 20,000 articles covering a number of business-related fields) catalogued in Zoot Software, where I can search, make notes and use so-called 'smart folders' to build selection queries and sub-set collections. Note taking in Zoot is OK, but Obsidian much more flexible and effective. The two work well together.
Hi Martin, what a brilliant video! It has been so easy to follow your workflow. I’m in process of setting up my Obsidian. I shall use this setup as my baseline.
This is a very pratical ZK tutorial. Finally i understand how to setup Zettelkasten on Obsidian in a decent way. I made light modification to your setup, but i think is normal for each one of us. I'm noticing also that you have an unbelievable engadgement rate on this video 😄 (more than half your followers liked it). Thank very much Martin!
Do you have one MOC where all topics are there or multiple MOCs? How do you handle multiple topics from a MOC perspective? Great video. One of the best I have seen on TH-cam on this toipic.
Thank you. I personally have lots of different MoCs which basically are a lens of which to see the notes though. My notes can existing on multiple MoCs if it makes sense. For me, it's to aid discovery of content, so naming them can be more flexible. For example, I could have just a "Fitness" MoC, which would be fine, but I might also have a more specific one such as "Food for Fitness" which covers the topics around that. There's no reason why I can't roll up the MoCs to be more hierarchical, such as a top level on of "Fitness" then a sub one of "Food for Fitness".
@@Martin_Adams Thanks so much, I have watched it several times already. I can't however seem to import templates like you did in the video. What I might be missing? Thanks,
@@DeveshUba Thanks. Hmm, templates. First make sure you have the plug-in enabled and a folder assigned to use for you templates. Then it’s a case of clicking the insert template button with a blank note open. Other than that, not sure if there’s something else interfering with it working.
@@Martin_Adams Thanks so much, appreciate your help. Note to my amateur self - make sure the template (notes) you've made are in the templates folder. :D
Hi Martin, Thank you for the detailed step by step process of taking notes. I have a question/clarification. Your starting point is 'my product is my garden' from which you built a permanent note: 'what is bootstrapping?'. Now lets say you want to really understand what is bootstrapping and for that you watch 2-3 new youtube videos, read 2-3 blogs as well as wikipedia (lets say 6 different sources). Questions I have are: Are these 6 links 6 different fleeting notes and 6 different literature notes or 6 different fleeting notes and 1 literature note or organised differently? Which is most optimal from combination of flexibility and not getting overwhelmed? Also it may happen one of these reference videos/blogs/wiki take you off on a tangent topic. Does it become only a new literature note or how does it proceed?
Hey. So the way I would approach this is to create one fleeting note per video or article-maybe even a book, but that's only because things like the Kindle reader app exports them all together. Then as I go through these, I want to pull out the concepts and rewrite them in my own understanding as a smaller, more atomic literature note (and reference back to the fleeting note they were generated from). This means I may have many more literature notes from those fleeting notes, because I want those literature notes to encapsulate a single thing. Then I can process these into the permanent notes, which if I've done my job correctly in the literature note, shouldn't change an awful lot-but what I am now doing is considering it against other permanent notes and creating those links. If I find the literature note contradicts another existing note, then I may create a linking note between to evaluate those. It's only when you get into the permanent notes do you consider it against the whole slip box. I hope that helps. Your question gives me insight on where I can produce more content to run these ideas in an example and see if they make sense.
@@Martin_Adams Thank you for your reply. its a bit different from what I understood from your video, which has a ratio of 1:1:n (fleeting:literature:permanent) and here the ratio 1:n:m. I would be happy to see your video with an example. Thank you for your efforts...
My book Atomic Note-Taking: The Ultimate Zettelkasten Guide is out now:
atomicnotetaking.com
This is the best introduction to Zettlekasten on Obsidian. Short, clear, and comprehensive.
Finally someone who actually shows how to create notes using this method thank you!
I know it's a year after you've posted this, but I just had to let you know that your video has really clearly shown me how Zettelkasten works, instead of just "explaining" how it works, and helped me make the first dip into setting up my own Zettelkasten! Thank you so much! It clicks so much more for me now!
Thank you, means so much you taking the time to let me know!
Agreed, just looking at implementing it and this makes it very clear.
Is it actually useful? It looks to me like creating way too many notes that will be almost empty. Doesn't it leave you feeling all over the place?
@@TranscendentIIThe idea seems to be about smaller atomic pieces of info that you string together, seems pointless if you look at one isolated example, but since they are atomic in nature you will be able to backlink to things you found and thought about before that relate in any way, combining the Zettelkesten method with the obsidian graph you can navigate through your content like Sherlock Holmes walks through his mind palace without needing to be a fictional character.
Although maintaining these connections might look like a chore, if the method clicks for you then you won’t mind the little extra work upfront to save on possibly greater rework to recall the info later.
Best practical demonstration on the web about the Zettelkasten methodology.
Most videos I watch at 1.5x or 2x speed. This one I found myself constantly going back and re-watching parts. Great video
This is absolutely the best video on this subject. I spent hours and almost gave up on this method before seeing this.
Thank you so much, and I'll be sure to check out your content.
Thank you! I'm so glad to hear that this video has helped you.
they said it couldnt be done. an honest to goodness, step, by step for the zettelkasten method! bless you and your family!
This was one of the best videos of how to use Obisidian. You have covered almost every step of the full learning processo, from taking notes (studying) to writing about what you've learned (teaching).
Congrats for the content 👏👏
I'll join many of the commentators and express my gratitude to the clarity of your video. Read quite a bit about Zettelkasten and only recently started to play with Obsidian, and your explanation helped to clarify the flow. Thanks!
Thank you so much for sharing your appreciation. I’m so happy that I’ve managed to help!
Excellent! I’ve been looking for a practical guide like this for weeks. Your videos are the closest to what I want my own system to look like and the only ones I’ve found to show both Zettelkasten methods and their application inside Obsidian.
Out of all the Zettelkasten videos I have seen in the youtube, It never clicked to me to start using a certain method or follow a particular scheme, but this one right here, just nailed it, thank you very much G!
Thank you for the great feedback. I’m glad this video has helped!
@@Martin_Adams how do you link bootstrapping to other fleeting notes, lets say you start a fleeting note based on "What does make a good employer?" and then u start branching the idea of a good employer and u want to link that to boostrapping literature notes or permanent notes? or projects?
@@iamtrazed I don't usually link my fleeting notes, but my literature notes might have some links within the context of that single article, and then the permanent notes in the context of everything. This blog post I wrote might help clarify some of the points:
meda.io/how-to-make-atomic-literature-notes/
Amazing to finally get asuch a clear and comprehensive video on Obsidian with the zettlekasten method. I will be doing your course for sure. thank you!
I just want to say thank you! Your video was the most relatable way to explain Zettlekasten/obsidian to a beginner like myself. It’s not to talk bad about the other TH-camrs who have made their tutorials, but they always seem to “geek” out about the possibilities during their explanations and lose sight of the audience.
Thank you 🙏 I really appreciate you saying so, means a lot!
Finally I found a great step by step of obsidian. Thanks a lot !!!
This is a great intro for a Obsidian newbie to follow along. Thanks for taking the time to share.
So great to finally come across a clear and comprehensive explanation - really helped me. will definitely be doing your course. thank you so so much!!!
Where has this video been all my life??? Fantastic and very methodical walkthrough of an excellent technique!!! Very many thanks.
This is my first day on discovering the Zettelkasten. After watching a lot of videos on the topic, this one gave me the most clarity and the fundamentals on implementing this on my studies. Thanks Martin!
I really wish that I could like this video several times over. I literally spent 45m with it walking through things step by step and you cleared up a lot of my questions.
Brilliant video and the clearest rundown of using obsidian I’ve seen thus far. Well done.
This is the clearest, most concise example of Zettlekasten I have seen on TH-cam yet. Easy to understand with examples that I can transfer to real life. I hope you make many more videos explaining the intricacies of the system and some best practices that you find.
Thank you! More video are definitely coming!
This is the best Zettelkasten video explanation and example i have ever encountered. Thank u so much.
This video is absolutely amazing.. never had a video explaining certain concepts so simple and to-the-point that im able to confidently apply it right after.
Thank you 🙏
I've already using Obsidian for awhile, but you've just shown me how more natural and simple work with that tool could be. Very interesting and pleasant guide! Thank you!
This is exactly what I was looking for, an example and walkthrough of how to set up an Obsidian system, actually showing examples of content . Thanks!
Recientemente descubrí el método Zettelkasten y tu video me aclaró de una forma clara y concisa cómo implementarlo en Obsidian, gracias Martin.
I recently discovered the Zettelkasten method and your video clarified in a clear and concise way how to implement it in Obsidian. Thanks, Martin.
Great video. I've watched a lot about "Smart Notes", and "Zettelkasten" lately, but virtually everybody else are just academic about it; what the different categories are about. Few have real examples of showing the process; but none of them have been really helpful or inspirational, except this video, and the one before, that have really great concrete examples from source to output.
Your book has definitely been placed on my reading list.
Thank you so much for you kind words! Really glad the videos are helping 😄
Martin, this is a superb walkthrough of the Zettlekasten process and Obsidian. I have really been struggling with the actual implementation of the system and you have made it really clear! Many thanks!!
You're very welcome!
+1
feel the same. i was looking for info on how to separate literature notes from permanent notes. now i know!
Wow, I have watched at least seventeen videos regarding this system and none have come close to explaining it in such a clear and concise way! I think we take notes slightly differently but the system itself made sense given you actually showed it in practice!
Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to say so!
This was amazing, covering not only Zettelkasten method that I wanted to learn from but also using Obsidian more powerfully. Kudos!
This was the most informative and easy to follow guide on Zettelkasten I’ve encountered. Amazing!
Thank you 🤗 I means a lot you saying that Luke!
@@Martin_Adams one question I’d love your take on is how the three steps play out with smaller pieces of content. Say a tweet - do you go straight to a literature note and then make a permanent note?
Thanks again for such an informative video and keep up the great work!
@@lukereilly7786 Good question. I think in some context's it's okay to go straight from a fleeting note to a permanent note if you're capturing something that's pretty straightforward (facts for example). But if you want to use it to spark some new ideas, or thinking that you're yet to reason about, then a literature note (or multiple) might be good interim notes to capture. I do this with my kindle notes, I'll highlight a passage but then add my own thinking, to explore the idea in my own words and connect it with my own concepts. This would be a literature note until I'm ready to conclude that thinking in my permanent notes. Hope that makes sense.
Martin, a brilliant and precise tutorial. I substituted my own area of study and followed your implementation protocol of Zettelkasten.
Thank You
Knowledge Management is inherently complicated, it all depends on what you want to do and what you are dealing with. This video is a great introduction to both Zettelkasten and Obsidian.
Martin, let me add my thanks to this excellent walkthrough of combining Zettelkasten with Obsidian.
The best video about the Zettelkasten method and Obsidia
God bless u man, I didn't understand how to actually use the system until I saw this video, thank you so much for this video
Fabulous! I learned so much about the mechanics of obsidian and their actual applications in Zettelkasten while having my hands held! Thank you!
This is a very good video about how to use obsidian in a simple way. I was strugling with templates, but now I could manage it. Thanks
Best video/source of practical example of Zettelkasten. Thank you very much!
Thank you Thomas 🙏
You are these only person who really taught me the real war of using Obsidian
Thanks for your sharing! This work flow is so useful for an obsidian beginner like me ! Hope you can create more such tutorials in the future.
Thanks Luke, I'm chipping away at an Advanced Obsidian Technique book right now. But I have just launched my Zettelkasten book Atomic Note-Taking which you can check out at atomicnotetaking.com
Thank you Martin for this terrific video. After I recently read Smart Notes, I was eager to set up a system, but the book really did not get me there. This video does! I started to try to set up a system in Notion, but the implementations all seemed kludgy which led me to Obsidian.
I am making two modifications. One is to have a separate template for literature notes so I capture more bibliographic information to use for citation later. That way, the literature note becomes a one-stop reference. A second is to add a Source documents folder with PDF's, these being referenced in the corresponding Literature notes.
Martin, I'm so glad you created this content with the default Obsidian theme. Most of the videos I watch on Obsidian have so many colors and fonts from custom themes and I'm just getting acclimated to Obsidian with the default. For me, this has made absorbing your content so much more impactful. Thank you!
Thanks, appreciate you saying!
thank you so much. watched both of your videos on this topic. I love this. it is exactly what I was looking for
Thank you for a demonstration that I can follow along while also using the same folders and templates with few tweaking or simple duplications. It's so helpful for a messy note-taker like me!
I loved your video! I'm so glad to have finally found a clear step by step example guide on implementing a topic into Zettelkasten notes.
i'm not sure this is the best method for me but it was really simple and greatly explained all the prime features of the app without plugins. i will surely use some of the ideas mentioned here in creating the system what would work for me
Great video. Started using Obsidian recently and I'm wanting to start a Zettelkasten with it. Been watching a bunch of videos on this, trying to get ideas for how I might go about it. Problem is, most of the videos I've found are either too short and basic to be useful or too long and detailed, to the point of being overwhelming and impossible to adapt to my own preferences. This video hit the sweet spot for me and I've got some good ideas for how to get started. Thanks.
Exactly what i thought.
After watching many videos on Zettel, this one is the only that I helped me understand this concept. Massive thanks !
Thank you and so happy to hear it helped!
This video really changed the game for me, cut out a lot of confusion. Thank you!
You're welcome, hope you have fun putting it into practice!
same, although I'm confused about the fleeting notes. aren't they supposed to be discarded, once you have the literature notes and the permanent notes?
This is a really great work, was struggling to get started, eating a lot of content without taking the first step . . . as always.
This video made it clear to me that it wasn't that big of a step and pushed me to try.
Thank you, now i'll see where the taking notes business will take me !
Incredible video and the best in using obsidian I’ve seen thus far. Well done.
Most relevant video on note taking . Thanks very much
This is a great overview! Best crash course for Obsidian so far. Thank you so much.
best video starting the zettelkasten obsidian flow.
Regarding Zettelkasten, one key idea I am missing in these how-to videos is Luhmann discouraged hierarchy. Each note was uniquely numbered and new thought was to be inserted according to the context, like 1/1 follow by 1/1a, 1/1b and so on, and new thoughts to be inserted according to the context like 1/1a1 is an extension of 1/1a. The Map of Content approach also seems wrong, the idea was to create an index note with a topic and linking two or three relevant nearby (Close links) notes. If you wanted to research one idea, you look up in index and follow the threads. The same can work for reference folder which is linked back from notes.
I like how hypertext digitises Zettelkasten but these apps are really not meant for exploration, rather just storage archives.
Hi bro, I have the same question (and problem).
@@NjuJFama Luhman discouraged hierarchy Anna... What are you saying?...
@@Gameboob Luhman gave us a tool. How we deploy that tool in our work depends entirely on our unique needs and goals. A screwdriver is intended to be used on screws, but I can also use it to open paint cans and scrape away surface deposits. Luhman might have discouraged hierarchy, but if someone finds benefit in it for their own workflow, who is to tell that person they're wrong?
@@NjuJFama I have a different opinion on the hierachical system being purely a limitation of pen and paper. From my understanding there is an automatic connection between Note 1 and Note 2. Even when I add additional notes 1a, 1b, 1b1, 1c in between there is an automatic link from 1 to 2. This link is not present in the Zettelkasten as it is presented here. Instead I would have to reference the previous and following note and maybe even "child" notes by myself.
This is one of the most informative tutorials for Zettelkasten implementation using Obsidian. Thanks a lot~~~~
Great sharing, the idea of use fleeting notes and literature notes for different use really give much inspiration to me. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing! I think this tutorial helps my stacked situation with the Zettelkasten method about making a writing project. 🙏
Between this video and a few from Artem Kirsanov, this system is starting to make sense to me and seems relatively simple. A few articles I read on the Zettelkasten system was really confusing me. But these videos are explaining it a lot better, especially in a more visual way. I've always just taken notes with no thought to it. Just hear something interesting (especially pertaining to numbers) write it down because it's probably important. But this system feels a lot more thought provoking and I really like how it is based around the connections of specific topics. Which seems to lend itself really well with how Obsidian is designed. I'm new to Obsidian and this system, but it's starting to come together. I can see just how useful this will all be and no doubt it will be worth the added effort to learn this stuff before beginning to learn what I'm after (I work in IT, I know some basic programming, but I'm looking to automate a lot more of my workflow with Python.)
No idea why these methodologies weren't taught in school. I never heard a teacher once mention anything about how to take notes. The whole topic of learning how to learn never was brought up to my knowledge and it seems really important. Maybe this is the kind of thing that's implemented in private schools and the like. I could see it making all the difference in retaining the information instead of just trying to brute force memorize it all.
Thank you for the kind words! I agree, this has never been taught in school. S as a result of these videos I now have an opportunity to teach it to doctoral students. So hopefully this can expand into it being more widely accessible.
I echo what The Digital Learning Consultant said. I've been struggling to under this process for more than a year now and you simple walk though has helped me to make my breakthrough. Also, I signed up for your new app. Thank you :-)
Thank you, I really appreciate the kinds worlds and support. More than happy to help!
Absolutely! By chance, could I trouble you for a copy of your awesome flow charge, with a white background, so that I can print it out, please?
Fantastic video and breakdown. I have been looking for something like this video for MONTHS!
Thank you, I really appreciate your comment! Made my day!
Super job. Enjoyed it. Really clear and the best description of an A to Z process. Thanks!
I feel lucky to have watched your video! Thank you, I have learned a lot about Zattlekasten process and Obsidian!
Aww, thank you 🙏
Excellent demonstration. Very informative. Thank you!
Great video of step by step with Obsidian. Thanks a lot !
An excellent explanation that simplified zettlekasten implementation.
Thank you for the good work Martin
Amazing presentation! I was able to follow and implement the demo in Obsidian easily. Good luck with flowtelic ! I have signed up and will be playing with the beta. Thanks Martin.
Thank you so much for this! literally the understanding of the topic i used while i was following along with you was so much more richer than when i just type/write it out on a bog standard note.
Just heard about Zettlekasten and Obsidian tonight. Installed Obsidian, came to your video. Your video is helpful, though I had to slow it down to a crawl to look up the commands for what you were doing. Nothing like learning on the fly. :-) I'm starting to like Obsidian quite a bit.
Awesome video! I just came across the Zettelkasten Idea and wasn't that convinced of it's version using Notion so I stumbled over this. I see a lot of potential in using obsidian. A LOT of information in this video, this is awesome! Will be coming back to it often. Thank you very much for sharing this with all of us!
Thanks, really appreciate you saying so!
The exclamation mark tip at 14:58 was completely new to me.
I was about to give up on using Obsidian, then I found this. Thank you!
Thank you! This was very clear and straight forward! I didn't know about ! trick in preview mode!!
Excellent explanation of Zettelkasten methodology.
☺ Thanks for your clear walkthrough of Zettelkasten note-taking system. It helps me a lot!
Gracias por el video, sos uno de los pocos que lo explica bien
Fantastic, thank you! Been thinking about this a lot, and it's great to see someone actually doing it.
I guess we all base our knowledge on Sonke Ahren's 'How To Take Smart Notes', so some questions popped into my mind while comparing the methodology described in the book and in your video.
1. Do you delete fleeting notes? After a literature note is created, they seem to be no longer necessary, creating a visual mess in Obsydian graphs.
2. Isn't it confusing to have both literature and permanent notes in one slip-box after a few hundred notes in Obsydian? After all, the whole idea is to build connections between the permanent ones.
3. The first permanent note that you create in the video looks like some kind of an index under which all related notes are stored. Doesn't it contradict the idea of Zettelkasten, where the notes shouldn't be stored chronologically, nor thematically?
Hi, thanks for the questions. Hope this helps answer them:
1. I don't delete fleeting notes as I like to have an audit trail right back to the original source information. This helps me reconsider things in the future if I find I've misunderstood something, or have a better understanding. Without that trail I might forget why I came to original ideas/conclusions. I do put them in their own folder and you can filter them out in the Obsidian graph view with the path filter. e.g. path:"Permanent Notes" to only show connections between permanent notes.
2. I don't find it confusing as I do have them in their own folders. That said, I may end up with them similarly named so when making links I make sure I'm linking from the right folder. Again, this is personal preference. I'd rather have the audit trail back to my original fleeting/literature notes.
3. If I've understood correctly the first permanent note is a Map of Content (MoC) which is an index to sub notes. I use these as entry points to a given topic grouping them by relevance to understand the topic. A permanent note may appear in multiple MoC's in this case. Strictly speaking, I should have put this in a separate folder to split it out. I personally wouldn't say this enforces a chronological outline, but may be a thematic one. If it helps my understanding by providing entry points to rediscover the notes, that's a good thing in my opinion.
Wow! just super, cannot thank you enough for this, have been searching for something like this since long time
Thanks for the video! I loved it and I'm looking forward to Flowtelic.
Thank you!
This was just amazing. I would really love to see the workflow for books and how you process them.
Yes, I have a few books which I want to share how I process these into my slip-box. I plan to incorporate some of these videos on the channel.
The way you use Permanent notes is different, since Luhmann said your Permanent notes titles should be your own words on a topic as you see it from your point of view, ideally phrased positively.
In your example, the permanent note titles seem descriptive, but are not “conversational”. This way, you can reference them in the references section, but you won’t be able to link them as you write. I have found that writing titles to make them fit in potential paragraphs of other permanent notes helps with idea connection tremendously.
All in all, excellent video. You have given me some ideas to explore with my system. You have a new subscriber. 😃
Thanks. I think I understand what you're referring to with regards to descriptive vs conversational titles. If I do understand correctly I've observed this before. If the embedded link between the [[ ]] is a description, then it's hard to embed it and have it sound natural. One solution is to use the markdown link format [label](link). I'll think about it and see where this takes me. Thanks for the sub!
@@Martin_Adams if you haven't heard about him (I assume you have given that you use Obsidian), Andy Matuschak has probably the best implementation of a digital garden that I have seen. There can be some descriptive notes as entry points, of course, but I tend to gravitate towards what Andy does. I find it to help my thinking better than just making references for the sake of it. There is also a great plugin in Obsidian to visualize your notes closely to what his website does. bit.ly/3iX0C80
Honestly, this is an excellent video and your comment is also very helping. I could contrast Luhmann's approach with this and it helps me see the larger perspective behind using this system.
Great video. I do something very similar with some changes here and there. My preference is to call them capture notes, process notes, and working notes as literature notes could be from a variety of mediums and permanent notes can be added to and changed over time so 'downgrade' to process notes at different times. Less of a rigid structure but that is my preference. 😁
Thanks. Yeah that's a nice approach. I also prefer Capture (split ideas and study notes), then permanent notes. The good thing about exploring these workflows is that you can adapt it to something that really works for you.
@@Martin_Adams exactly!
This was a fantastic video. I got a great appreciation and understanding of zettlekasten and how to apply it within Obsidian. I am intrigued with your app and look forward to getting access to use it for myself. I have seen the trial and it has sparked an interest to see the final product when you release it. I will dig more into your video channel, I really liked your delivery and clear instructions. Thank you.
Thank you, really appreciate you saying so!
Explaining the Zettelkasten system with a practical example makes it come alive really well, great stuff!
It did got me thinking on how to find the right granularity of permanent notes and maps of content (maybe it's personal). In your example your taking the "My product is my garden article" and creating four permanent notes on bootstrapping a business (what it is, benefits etc), linking them together in a map of content for bootstrapping a business. What would be the long(er) term benefits of that granularity compared to have one permanent note on bootstrapping a business with a map of content on entrepreneurship?
I am also wondering what the benefits are of coming the fleeing note once a literature note has been fully written? I thought the fleeting note was meant for easy and quick notes or even copy/paste from a piece of content from others and the the fleeting note allows you to come back to later to really capture your own thinking and reflection and that added value is captured in the literature note together with the source. So I thought you would toss the fleeting note after.
Curious what your thoughts are!
Thanks Oskar, great questions.
So first of all, my thinking has been a little refined since this video. For me now, fleeting notes are those quick captures where you're filtering the useful parts of what you're learning (say from a lecture, book or video). These can get quite long depending on the size of the material you're learning.
Literature notes are your atomic notes where you make sure you understand what's in your fleeting notes. You're breaking down the concepts and linking them together. So in the case of Bootstrapping a business, you're probing organising it in smaller chunks. They might have the "When to use it" note, the "Drawbacks of Boostrapping" note, "How to bootstrap with no money" note, etc. It can really get as fine grained as your ideas. You could have a note going as deep as "Negative feedback when building in public" or "Comparing your performance with other entrepreneurs".
Then Permanent notes are when you take these literature notes and reflect on them in respect to your whole set of notes. So now you can compare Bootstrapping with Financial Management, Time Management, Motivation, Co-Founding a Business, Raising VC money. These relationships will extend the original fleeting notes and see how they fit in the larger network of ideas and knowledge you have gained over the years.
As for throwing away fleeting notes. It seems like they're redundant by the time you've processed the literature and permanent notes. I personally like keeping them as they could have references to the exact place your learned it from. Then your literature notes can reference the fleeting note bullet point it was based on, and the permanent note can reference the literature note it was based on. Remember a permanent note may evolve over time as you read multiple sources on a given subject, so you might want to reference multiple literature notes when you make edits to the permanent note. The result of all this is an audit trail from any idea all the way back to the inspiration for that idea. This is great if you want to cite sources for your understanding in your writing.
Hope that's helpful. I go a lot more into this in my book on the subject www.atomicworkflows.com/atomic-note-taking/ if that's of interest to you. But more than happy to answer questions here or over on my discord server: go.meda.io/community
This is superbly awesome. Keep up the great work my friend!
This is sooooo clear!!! Thank you so much for this video. This is a super clear example for making notes.
This is VERY helpful. I've been reading How to Take Smart Notes recently, but understanding a workflow for Obsidian that matches with the process the book lays out really helps.
I think it's been difficult to understand the difference between fleeting, literature, and permanent notes and this video really makes that more clear.
This is a great tool for me. I keep my document library (about 20,000 articles covering a number of business-related fields) catalogued in Zoot Software, where I can search, make notes and use so-called 'smart folders' to build selection queries and sub-set collections. Note taking in Zoot is OK, but Obsidian much more flexible and effective. The two work well together.
Hi Martin, what a brilliant video! It has been so easy to follow your workflow. I’m in process of setting up my Obsidian. I shall use this setup as my baseline.
Thank you for the kind words! Really pleased the video has helped 🤗
This is a very pratical ZK tutorial. Finally i understand how to setup Zettelkasten on Obsidian in a decent way. I made light modification to your setup, but i think is normal for each one of us. I'm noticing also that you have an unbelievable engadgement rate on this video 😄 (more than half your followers liked it). Thank very much Martin!
Thank you! Yes, this video is my best performing one. I’m glad it’s resonated to sell and helped at lot of people!
Just what I am surfing for !!!. Thanks a lot.
Do you have one MOC where all topics are there or multiple MOCs? How do you handle multiple topics from a MOC perspective? Great video. One of the best I have seen on TH-cam on this toipic.
Thank you. I personally have lots of different MoCs which basically are a lens of which to see the notes though. My notes can existing on multiple MoCs if it makes sense. For me, it's to aid discovery of content, so naming them can be more flexible. For example, I could have just a "Fitness" MoC, which would be fine, but I might also have a more specific one such as "Food for Fitness" which covers the topics around that. There's no reason why I can't roll up the MoCs to be more hierarchical, such as a top level on of "Fitness" then a sub one of "Food for Fitness".
Thank you Martin, great information and presentation style . . .
Wow! Just what I needed. Can't thank you enough.
Your most welcome! Glad you enjoyed it and hope it serves you well in your note-taking journey!
@@Martin_Adams Thanks so much, I have watched it several times already. I can't however seem to import templates like you did in the video. What I might be missing? Thanks,
@@DeveshUba Thanks. Hmm, templates. First make sure you have the plug-in enabled and a folder assigned to use for you templates. Then it’s a case of clicking the insert template button with a blank note open. Other than that, not sure if there’s something else interfering with it working.
@@Martin_Adams Thanks so much, appreciate your help. Note to my amateur self - make sure the template (notes) you've made are in the templates folder. :D
Such a great video. So helpful and easy to follow!
Great vídeo. Congrats for being so clear. Keep the good job!
Hi Martin, Thank you for the detailed step by step process of taking notes.
I have a question/clarification.
Your starting point is 'my product is my garden' from which you built a permanent note: 'what is bootstrapping?'. Now lets say you want to really understand what is bootstrapping and for that you watch 2-3 new youtube videos, read 2-3 blogs as well as wikipedia (lets say 6 different sources).
Questions I have are: Are these 6 links 6 different fleeting notes and 6 different literature notes or 6 different fleeting notes and 1 literature note or organised differently? Which is most optimal from combination of flexibility and not getting overwhelmed?
Also it may happen one of these reference videos/blogs/wiki take you off on a tangent topic. Does it become only a new literature note or how does it proceed?
Hey. So the way I would approach this is to create one fleeting note per video or article-maybe even a book, but that's only because things like the Kindle reader app exports them all together. Then as I go through these, I want to pull out the concepts and rewrite them in my own understanding as a smaller, more atomic literature note (and reference back to the fleeting note they were generated from). This means I may have many more literature notes from those fleeting notes, because I want those literature notes to encapsulate a single thing. Then I can process these into the permanent notes, which if I've done my job correctly in the literature note, shouldn't change an awful lot-but what I am now doing is considering it against other permanent notes and creating those links. If I find the literature note contradicts another existing note, then I may create a linking note between to evaluate those. It's only when you get into the permanent notes do you consider it against the whole slip box. I hope that helps. Your question gives me insight on where I can produce more content to run these ideas in an example and see if they make sense.
@@Martin_Adams Thank you for your reply. its a bit different from what I understood from your video, which has a ratio of 1:1:n (fleeting:literature:permanent) and here the ratio 1:n:m. I would be happy to see your video with an example. Thank you for your efforts...
thanks so much, best YT video on the subject