Help Me Use Obsidian

[caspex]

I have had Obsidian since the beginning of this year and I wasted a lot of time taking down notes for my academics for the first few months. It was a waste of effort and time because the purpose of my notes were to be remembered and to be recalled in the exam, not to be used in further thinking. Something like flashcards would have worked much better in this regard, and it definitely did during my exams, while the notes I had so painstakingly prepared proved almost completely useless aside from helping me create my flashcards.

I know this was really dumb on my part and I am willing to admit it. In retrospect, I see now that something like Obsidian is supposed to be used for development of projects, articles or books, efficiently.

I want something like this to prevent from happening again. So I thought about how I could Obsidian to leverage my growth, and personally I don't find the idea of a Commonplace book to work. I am still very young (19M) and I don't require a Commonplace book to manage my very simple life and my even simpler mind. What I do require Obsidian for is to increase self-awareness and somehow use it to create. Those seem like the most practical applications to me and the notion of a 'second brain' is simply stupid because Obsidian doesn't organize anything, nor does it think for you, you still do that all yourself.

It seems like such a powerful tool but I literally can't use it. I kept thinking of the best ways to maximize Obsidian's potential, but that was stupid, I have decided now to focus on maximizing my own potential instead, and it's not that complex to do.

However, I do not know all the use cases of such a powerful tool in context of my two mentioned goals above. This is where I need your help. If you use any sort of advanced note taking app, and have similar reasons for using it, I'd like you to share how you use it and why it works for you.

I posted here because Actualized.org is really the niche I fit into the most on the internet, advice from here usually works really well for me even on non-spiritual matters.

[An young being]

Never heard of this app, sounds like a good one! Where did you get to know about this?

[Thought Art]

What if you focused on simply the habit of building your common place book. Having sections for study, research, contemplation. 
 

Having sections for goals and vision… section in your values… 

You can study nutrition, personal finance, spirituality, productivity, etc online and make collections… 

[UnbornTao]

I use it as a simple file structure for my commonplace book. 

[caspex]

1 hour ago, An young being said:

Never heard of this app, sounds like a good one! Where did you get to know about this?

This forum

[caspex]

10 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

What if you focused on simply the habit of building your common place book. Having sections for study, research, contemplation. 
 

Having sections for goals and vision… section in your values… 

You can study nutrition, personal finance, spirituality, productivity, etc online and make collections… 

@Thought Art

Ill take your suggestion for forming goals. I am thinking of putting in weekly and monthly goals and completing them.

I have been searching, and Journaling and Habit Tracking in Obsidian seems like the thing for me. The setup allows for much opportunity for self observation and finding patterns in your day. It seems boring but it's honestly what I need right now.

I don't need Obsidian to think, what I need it for is to perform actions and form actionable plans to move forward.

 

I really want to use it to learn but, I am so chaotic in my life and in my mind right now that I'll give up on whatever I decide to learn. I have been trying to integrate Blue casually for a few months now but I am so far gone that I have made negligible progress on my own. This is why I require an external aid such as Obsidian.

 

The reason for my post here is so that if anyone has overcome similar problems with or without note taking I would enjoy guidance. I apologize if it wasn't clear in my OP.

 

[jakee]

For increasing self-awareness I would recommend using the daily notes for journaling etc. I have created a sort of an wisdom distillation process with it, by having certain sections of daily notes - like daily reflections show up automatically in weekly notes, then after the week I can look at- and reflect on those in the weekly "meta view" section. Those weekly insights will then collect to monthly notes, and monthly insights to yearly notes. So I can look at my life from a "meta-meta-meta" perspective and see big trends and insights emerge.

You can also collect all kinds of data, or track habbits in a similar way, if you like that sort of stuf. There is endless possibilities in customising these systems, but be carefull not to put the tools before the goals.

[caspex]

18 hours ago, jakee said:

For increasing self-awareness I would recommend using the daily notes for journaling etc. I have created a sort of an wisdom distillation process with it, by having certain sections of daily notes - like daily reflections show up automatically in weekly notes, then after the week I can look at- and reflect on those in the weekly "meta view" section. Those weekly insights will then collect to monthly notes, and monthly insights to yearly notes. So I can look at my life from a "meta-meta-meta" perspective and see big trends and insights emerge.

You can also collect all kinds of data, or track habbits in a similar way, if you like that sort of stuf. There is endless possibilities in customising these systems, but be carefull not to put the tools before the goals.

Thanks a lot! That's an amazing suggestion!

[Bane]

I use such tools as Obsidian for over 10 years.
As of today, I use:

• Mindmaps (see MindManager for example) for planning
• Notion for online sharing
• Excel for tracking
• Obsidian for PKM (personal knowledge management) in STEM fields
• txt-files or pen and paper for thinking through life stuff

Ironically, among mentioned above, I beilive that txt-files increase self-awareness the most (well, Obsidian used a journal can be used this way too). Other tools just help to unload mind of extra content.

As for creation part I mostly rely on mindmaps: they provide «integrated environment» for planning, for big-picture-view and for small-details-views. OK, well, by «creation» I actually mean working on some goofy personal projects.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Bane