Obsidian is primarily a text-based tool for me. I only use images occasionally, and I’ve also outsourced my PDFs to DevonThink. I take the approach that it often makes sense to use specialized tools and not do everything with one app, even if that’s potentially possible. Drawings and diagrams are a bit different. I need them relatively rarely anyway because I work very text-based. However, I’m currently trying to get into the habit of using drawings a bit more because I believe that complex topics can be understood much better that way.
And that brings us to the topic of visual note-taking. The champion in the Obsidian scene in this respect is certainly Zsolt Viczian, whose plug-ins Excalidraw and Excalibrain I have mentioned here several times. Excalidraw, in particular, is constantly under development and is an impressive tool. I would go so far as to say that Excalidraw is one of the five best plug-ins for Obsidian overall.
As I said before, I rarely create drawings and the like. However, I am interested in handwritten notes, as evidenced by my many articles about GoodNotes here on the blog (1, 2, 3). Unfortunately, I can’t work with GoodNotes in Obsidian. Excalidraw would be the obvious solution here. And to some extent, I have already used it in the past. However, you can see that Excalidraw is not primarily made for handwriting. It works, but the delay between pen movement and the appearance of the strokes on the screen is a bit too long for my taste. This makes writing feel sluggish.
Scribble Helper is a game-changer
This leads me to Scribble Helper, which is a game-changer! Zsolt has built his plugin system (scripts) for Excalidraw that extends its functionality. One of these scripts is the so-called Scribble Helper. If you activate it, a small input field opens in which you can use Apple’s system-wide feature Scribble. This allows you to handwrite in normal text input fields with the Apple Pencil, and the system converts the handwriting into typed text. I love this feature, and thanks to Zsolt and Scribble Helper, it is now available in Excalidraw. It’s true that Scribble also works like this in Obsidian itself, but then you miss out on the great features of Excalidraw.
Installing Scribble Helper is quite simple. First, you should make sure that Excalidraw is updated to the latest version. To do this, open the settings in Obsidian on the iPad, tap on Community Plugins, and then tap on Check for Updates. Once that’s done, a new Excalidraw drawing can be opened. There, you have to look to the top right at the gear icon. If you tap on it, the Scripts Store will open. Then scroll for a while (and admire the many other great scripts or install them right away), and tap on Scribble Helper. The script is now installed.
After that, you can click on the Obsidian icon in the upper right corner of Excalidraw drawings to open the Actions menu. At the bottom, under the heading Downloaded, you will find the just-installed Scribble Helper. The Scribble Helper itself is divided into two parts. At the top is the input field, where you type the text. Typing is also possible, and then you can still use the formatting options. These are in the lower part of the window. There, you can change the text color and set that you can easily open Scribble Helper with a double-tap of the Apple Pencil. I find that very handy. You can also insert line breaks, spaces, links to notes, and delete text.
I still need to play around with the new feature a bit more, but I have the impression that Excalidraw together with *Scribble Helper* could be a real replacement for GoodNotes. Especially the ability to combine handwriting, drawings, machine text and images seems extremely appealing.
Obsidian is an incredibly powerful tool. However, it can be difficult at times, to get a sense of all the information in your vault. This is where visualization comes into play. In this two-part series, I’d like to talk about two plugins that help me greatly in working with my data visually: the Kanban plugin by MG Meyers, and Excalibrain by Zsolt Viczián.
I don’t want to say too many words about the terrible things that are going on in Ukraine right now. This is the wrong place for that. But the war there prompted me to inform myself very thoroughly about various topics, such as the history of the war, the situation in Crimea or the Donbass, or military-strategic considerations, so that I can better assess the situation there. As a political scientist, I also have a professional interest in this regard. Twitter has become an enormously important source for me.
You can say whatever you want about Twitter, but there are also a lot of very smart people there that I would never meet otherwise. On Twitter, they write easily accessible long threads about their expertise, and for me, these are enormously helpful entry points. Now, Twitter is not designed for the consumption of long texts. Long threads are not particularly comfortable to read, let alone process.
Readwise and Obsidian in concert
To solve this problem, I use the Twitter bot from Readwise, which I wrote about before. I just have to write the comment @Readwiseio save thread below a tweet, and the bot captures the thread. Since I have my Twitter account put into my Readwise account, that’s where the thread goes.
So much for the import. But it gets really exciting with the export function of Readwise. Here, I have installed the official Readwise plugin in Obsidian, so that new highlights are imported directly to Obsidian. There I also read the thread, because I can use parts of it directly for my own notes or compare and relate sources. In connection with my Obsidian Set-Up this works flawlessly and automated, so exactly the way you want it. Twitter is an important source of information for me, and in combination with Readwise and Obsidian I can also work with it productively.
If you want to try Readwise, feel free to use this link for that. We will both get a free month.
Ich will gar nicht viele Worte über die schrecklichen Dinge verlieren, die gerade in der Ukraine vor sich gehen. Dafür ist das hier der falsche Ort. Der Krieg dort war aber Anlass für mich, mich sehr intensiv über verschiedene Themen wie die Vorgeschichte des Krieges, die Situation auf der Krim oder im Donbass oder auch militärisch-strategische Erwägungen zu informieren, damit ich die Lage dort besser einschätzen kann. Als Politikwissenschaftler habe ich ja auch ein fachliches Interesse in dieser Hinsicht. Twitter ist dabei zu einer enorm wichtigen Quelle für mich geworden.
Man kann über Twitter ja sagen, was man will, aber es tummeln sich eben auch viele sehr kluge Menschen dort, mit denen ich sonst nie zusammentreffen würde. Auf Twitter schreiben sie leicht zugänglich lange Threads über ihre Expertise und für mich sind das enorm hilfreiche Einstiegspunkte. Nun ist Twitter nicht für den Konsum von längeren Texten konstruiert. Lange Threads lassen sich nicht sonderlich komfortabel lesen und schon gar nicht weiterverarbeiten.
Readwise und Obsidian im Zusammenspiel
Um dieses Problem zu lösen, nutze ich den Twitter Bot von Readwise, über die ich an dieser Stelle schon mal geschrieben hatte. Ich muss einfach nur einen Kommentar @Readwiseio save thread unter einen Tweet schreiben und der Bot erfasst den Thread. Da ich in meinem Readwise-Account meinen Twitter-Account hinterlegt habe, gelangt der Thread dorthin.
So viel zum Import. Richtig spannend wird es aber erst mit der Export-Funktion von Readwise. Hier habe ich das offizielle Readwise-Plugin in Obsidian installiert, sodass neue Highlights direkt nach Obsidian importiert werden. Dort lese ich den Thread dann auch, weil ich so auch direkt Teile davon für eigene Notizen nutzen kann bzw. Quellen miteinander vergleichen und in Bezug setzen kann. In Verbindung mit meinem Obsidian Set-Up funktioniert das tadellos und automatisiert, also genau so, wie man es sich wünscht. Twitter ist für mich eine wichtige Informationsquelle und in Verbindung mit Readwise und Obsidian kann ich auch produktiv damit arbeiten.
Falls du Readwise mal testen möchtest, kannst du gern diesen Link dafür nutzen. Wir bekommen dann beide einen Gratismonat.
Obsidian is also so great because you can extend it almost at will with plugins. In this two-parter, I present my 8 favorite plugins and show how I make Obsidian my perfect writing environment!
Obsidian ist auch so toll, weil man es durch Plugins fast beliebig erweitern kann. In diesem Zweiteiler stelle ich meine 8 liebsten Plugins vor und zeige, wie ich Obsidian zu meiner perfekten Schreibumgebung mache!
Organizing notes in Obsidian is certainly possible thanks to folders and hashtags. However, I wanted to take a different approach and rely on a mixture of tables of contents (or maps of content), tag pages, and very classic folders. A detailed overview of my file structure in Obsidian
For about a year now, I can’t imagine my daily work without Obsidian. In the beginning, I was just looking for a home for my Zettelkasten, but in the meantime I write everything from quick notes to diary entries to scientific papers in Obsidian. And sometime last year I realized that it would no longer be enough to treat Obsidian like a Zettelkasten. Because it wasn’t (just) that anymore.
Sure; if I only kept notes and fragments of knowledge in Obsidian, there would be no need for structuring beyond tags or the like. But I use Obsidian every day for my normal work and for that I need quick access to all notes and texts from the project I’m working on. If I had to use search every time to find the summary of a meeting, for example, I could stop working right now – I simply wouldn’t get anything done. So I had to find a system to structure the different types of text in Obsidian and make them quickly accessible. I decided on a mixed system of tags, folders and maps of content.
Folders for different types of notes
The first organizing principle is folders, but they are filled very disproportionately. The background is that I do not use thematic folders, but divide them by note types (with one exception). The following folders are currently in use:
My folders in Obsidian
0 [Seedbox][1] is my inbox. New notes end up there first, whether I create them in Obsidian or import them from another app. Extracted notes from Zotero consequently end up there as well. I often leave notes there that I’m working on. I usually take a closer look once a week and decide which notes get moved to 11 Notes as permanent notes, what can be deleted and what stays there for now. With that, we’ve already anticipated the second folder: 11 Notes contains the absolute bulk of my notes, as it’s the place for all content notes I want to keep – regardless of the topic. Classic Zettelkasten notes are there as well as texts I wrote for the blog or drafts of scientific publications.
1 Indexes and MOCs contains the already mentioned Maps of Content which I will discuss in the next section.
2 Daily Notes contains my daily notes, which I use as a kind of diary. I usually capture there what I did during the day, what I was happy with and what I was not. I find this kind of reflection to be an extremely valuable part of trying to continually improve myself.
3 Meetings contains meeting notes that I want to keep separate so that I can quickly get to a specific meeting if I need to review something. I have also created a template for meetings, so that my meeting notes are always structured according to the same scheme. Together with the [Templater Plugin][2] I can create a meeting note in no time and focus on the content.
In 4 People there are notes about people. Especially for my PhD this is very valuable, because I often read the names of people that might be interesting later on. Interview partners sometimes give clues to other interesting people, or you meet someone at a conference, but you wouldn’t remember them after a few years.
The folders 5 Categories, 7 Attachments and 8 Templates are quickly told: In the first one are my category notes. Pretty much every note gets a category according to the scheme @category. For example, a note about a book gets @book. A podcast gets @podcast. But I also use categories like @PhD or @PapierlosStudieren. I use the @ sign only so that I can see the category at first glance and so that it stands out better from other tags. For me, categories are just tag pages, which I will discuss below.
7 Attachments is then simply my folder for all attachments (images and PDFs) and 8 Templates holds – not surprisingly – templates for notes.
My PhD folder as an exception
What remains? 6 Literature, 9 Reviews, 10 PhD and Old notes. Maybe starting directly at the end: In Old Notes are leftovers from an older system, which I still haven’t integrated completely. A bit like the last moving box, which still stands in the corner half a year after moving into the new apartment. But one day it will be unpacked, eventually.
In 6 Literature there are literature notes. These are often quotes or marked parts of texts that I imported to Obsidian to write new notes with them. How I do that, I have described in detail [here][3]. I have a separate folder for it, because it’s often not my own thoughts, but what I find exciting in other people‘ s work. To separate both, I use different folders. There are also resumés for books I’ve read. Every book I read gets a little résumé in which I briefly note what it was about and what I thought of it.
There is not much in the ninth folder yet. In principle, however, annual reviews or reflections on my [annual theme][4] end up there. All the reflections I do in regular intervals to think about whether I’m still on the right path (for me).
10 PhD is then the only exception, as there is not a specific kind of note in here, but everything (content-wise) related to my dissertation. As much as I like to use tags and search, I also like to click through folders from time to time and with such an important and at the same time extensive project as my dissertation, I wanted to have a place where everything can be found. Hence this folder, which doesn’t fit into the system, but gives me peace of mind as I have a very specific place to go for all my thoughts, notes and texts on my PhD project. I can still use tags and search, so I don’t lose anything.
Quick accesses and Maps of Content
So much, then, for my basic folder structure, which still doesn’t do that much with actual content notes. Here I use tables of contents, also called Maps of Content in the English-language discussion. These are located in the appropriate folder (see above). I have created these maps of content on different hierarchical levels. At the top is my index, where I link all other MOCs. So to speak a table of contents for tables of contents.
Then there are the actual MOCs, each representing a large area of my life. For example, I have one for everything related to my work as a social scientist or one for my freelance work as a writer and blogger. In another, I link my mini-reviews that I write for each book I read. Within these MOCs, individual project MOCs or individual notes can then be linked. Here I just decide based on what feels useful to me. Often this comes with working as well. I’m working on a project and I always need that one note, so I end up just linking it in the appropriate MOC. Also, MOCs are very helpful for me to clear my mind. I don’t like having to rely solely on search, and that’s where MOCs give me the ability to create a clickable collection of all project components.
An example from my MOC for the blogand my books MOC, where I link short reviews of books I read
And then there are the pinned notes that Obsidian itself provides. Here, notes can be pinned with a keyboard shortcut and quickly retrieved. I find this very helpful, because I can pin everything I need regularly, including MOCs and searches! Currently I have there
pinned my most important MOCs (Index, Academia, my old project I worked for until the end of 2020 and my PhD MOC),
a note containing article ideas for the blog,
a help note with the color codes I use to mark up PDFs,
a search for all notes that have something to do with my [newsletter][5]
and this article.
My current pinned notes and searches
Topic pages instead of tags
The last thing that remains is how I connect pages with similar topics. Many will resort to tags (i.e. #) here, as you know it from Twitter. I usually don’t do that, but use topic pages. To do this, I simply create a [[topic page]] and link to it at the end of the note. A note about academic writing would then have e.g. [[academicWriting]] linked. This has the advantage that I create keywords over time that work like pages. So I can quickly see all the notes that have been linked to that topic page via backlinks. Also, I can potentially expand topic pages into „real“ notes simply by writing in the still empty note. I can’t do that with hashtags.
Combining structure and flexibility
Obsidian does not provide structure. This is both a curse and a blessing. At the beginning, I still thought that the search and the Knowledge Graph would be completely sufficient for me. However, from the moment I started using Obsidian for my daily work, I quickly reached its limits. I simply lacked quick access and overviews so that I didn’t have to search for a note every time I was in a meeting, for example. With the combination of topic pages, pinned notes, folders and maps of content, I now feel like I have enough structure in Obsidian to not panic every time I can’t find a note.
My constantly growing Knowledge Graph
At the same time, my content notes are still all in one folder, so I get the inherent benefits of Obsidian. With the Knowledge Graph, I can still drift and roam associatively through my knowledge base in a beautiful way. Obsidian’s great strength (among others) is precisely this flexibility. I can easily adapt it to my preferences and working conditions. On the other hand, it also increases the barrier to entry, since you really have to think about what you want and need. For me, though, it was more than worth it.
Notizen in Obsidian zu organisieren ist dank Ordnern und Hashtags durchaus möglich. Ich wollte aber einen anderen Ansatz und setze auf eine Mischung aus Inhaltsverzeichnissen (oder auch Maps of Content), Tag-Seiten und ganz klassischen Ordnern. Eine detaillierte Übersicht meiner Dateistruktur in Obsidian
