Obsidian Base: What is it and How to use it? — Transcript

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1. 0:00Today we're going to talk about the
2. 0:01base.
3. 0:04>> No, no, not that base. This base, the
4. 0:07obsidian base, just like the one we have
5. 0:09in notion. We're going to talk about
6. 0:11what is a base, how obsidian base is
7. 0:14different from the one in notion, how
8. 0:16you can use the base to upgrade your
9. 0:18workflow in Obsidian, and my final
10. 0:21thoughts on this feature. Hi, my name is
11. 0:23Darren and in this channel, we help you
12. 0:25think better and take bolder actions. If
13. 0:28those are the things that you are
14. 0:29interested in, please consider
15. 0:31subscribe. All right. So, first of all,
16. 0:33what is a base? So, basically, a base
17. 0:36stands for database. And a database is
18. 0:38very similar to an Excel spreadsheet
19. 0:40with some key differences. So, in Excel,
20. 0:43each cell is a piece of data. And the
21. 0:46relationship between these data could be
22. 0:49very random and very flexible. But a
23. 0:52database or a base is a completely
24. 0:54different paradigm. So each piece of
25. 0:57data or each piece of entry has what we
26. 1:00call properties and the relationship
27. 1:03between these data is very structured.
28. 1:06So for example, this is a database in
29. 1:07notion but it works very similarly to
30. 1:10the one in Obsidian. Each row is a piece
31. 1:13of data with different properties. For
32. 1:16example, in this case, this piece of
33. 1:19data or entry has name which is text,
34. 1:23title which is also text and age which
35. 1:26is number. The relationship between each
36. 1:29piece of data is very structured meaning
37. 1:32that you cannot have this cell talk to
38. 1:35this cell or you cannot add this cell
39. 1:38with this cell. So like everything is
40. 1:40very structured. So a database is not
41. 1:42really designed for calculations. is
42. 1:45designed to organize the information.
43. 1:46Now, one of the most popular database on
44. 1:49the market right now is notion and
45. 1:51another one is air table but I think
46. 1:53it's less used. So, I want to compare
47. 1:55obsidian base with the notion database.
48. 1:58Firstly, Obsidian has one giant database
49. 2:01and you can have different views but you
50. 2:03cannot have different database unlike in
51. 2:06notion which you can have different
52. 2:08databases, you can have people database,
53. 2:10you can have finance database. All the
54. 2:13bases are completely independent to each
55. 2:16other. You can have relational database
56. 2:18but that is a different story on a
57. 2:20different day. The idea is that Obsidian
58. 2:22has one base, notion has many different
59. 2:24databases. Obsidian database is super
60. 2:26fast to work with. Notion is very slow
61. 2:29to work with. Obsidian based currently
62. 2:32has very limited properties and limited
63. 2:35functionalities versus notion that has
64. 2:37very powerful properties and you can do
65. 2:40many different things with notion
66. 2:41database. All in all, I think Obsidian
67. 2:44is not designed to replace notion
68. 2:46database. Obsidian base is more to
69. 2:49structure the information and we will
70. 2:50talk about that later on. But notion
71. 2:53database is designed for you to take
72. 2:55better actions. So even though obsidian
73. 2:57base looks very similar to the notion
74. 3:00database, I think they are very
75. 3:02different animals to be honest with you.
76. 3:04Okay. So I'm going to show you how to
77. 3:06use Obsidian base. So to use Obsidian
78. 3:08base or actually any database, there are
79. 3:11two things that you have to think about.
80. 3:13One, what you want to see and two, how
81. 3:16you want to see the information. So
82. 3:18let's get into Obsidian. So to create a
83. 3:20database you can use the slash command
84. 3:23and search for base and create new base
85. 3:26like so or you can use a slash command
86. 3:29and insert a new base or you can use
87. 3:32command or control P and then search for
88. 3:35base and create a new base. So as I said
89. 3:38there are two steps to using the
90. 3:40database what you want to see and how
91. 3:42you want to see it. In terms of what you
92. 3:44want to see you want to use filter. So
93. 3:47this is where the power or all the magic
94. 3:50comes in. So this is the entire obsidian
95. 3:53vault with all the notes that you have
96. 3:55and you can filter it using different
97. 3:58properties. The ones with the text in
98. 4:01the back, these are the inherit
99. 4:03properties that comes with the notes
100. 4:05already. But the ones with no text in
101. 4:08the end, these are the properties that I
102. 4:10added to the file. So you can filter
103. 4:12what you want to see. So for example, I
104. 4:14want to see permanent notes, the notes
105. 4:17with permanent tag. I can even filter
106. 4:20down the permanent notes that contains
107. 4:23the word happy. So now we down to 17
108. 4:26results. I can even filter down further.
109. 4:30For example, file size more than 100
110. 4:33characters. So this is the example of
111. 4:36filtering down to what you want to see.
112. 4:38Now that we have what we want to see,
113. 4:40the second step is how we want to see
114. 4:42it. So how we want to see stuff, you can
115. 4:45select the properties that you want to
116. 4:47show up on the screen. For example, you
117. 4:50can select the file size or you can
118. 4:54select the links that are associated
119. 4:57with this file. You can even select
120. 4:59different views. So now you have the
121. 5:01table and you have the cart view. In a
122. 5:04nutshell, that's basically how you use
123. 5:06obsidian base. So now we know what is a
124. 5:09base and how it works. I would like to
125. 5:11offer some ideas of how you can use this
126. 5:13in your obsidian workflow. So first of
127. 5:16all is to bridge between the thinking
128. 5:19part to the action part. In another
129. 5:21video I'm talking about my concept of
130. 5:24five levels of productivity. And
131. 5:27essentially Obsidian is designed for
132. 5:29level four productivity which is to
133. 5:32reflect and learn but it is not designed
134. 5:35for actionoriented tasks. And I think
135. 5:38with the introduction of obsidian base
136. 5:40you can use it for other levels of
137. 5:42productivity. For example for me I'm
138. 5:45using Obsidian base for weekly reviews.
139. 5:48In my weekly reviews, I write down the
140. 5:50one thing that I would like to get done,
141. 5:52the reflection of last week and the
142. 5:55score from minus5 to plus five of the
143. 5:59happiness or the well-being of that
144. 6:02week. So essentially I can write down
145. 6:04what I have learned from last week and
146. 6:06then I can plan the things I would like
147. 6:08to do next week. So this is sort of like
148. 6:10bridging between the level four
149. 6:12productivity to the level three
150. 6:14productivity. And also because my weekly
151. 6:17reflection is in a base, I can search
152. 6:20for the week that I score less than two,
153. 6:23which is not very good. And I can see
154. 6:25the names of those really bad weeks and
155. 6:28I can show the reflection of those weeks
156. 6:31and I can learn what happened and how I
157. 6:35could prevent bad weeks from happening
158. 6:37again. The second way of how to leverage
159. 6:39the base is basically a new way of
160. 6:42discovering information which is one of
161. 6:44the coolest thing about obsidian base.
162. 6:47So currently in Obsidian you have
163. 6:49different ways to view information
164. 6:52right. You have the graph which helps
165. 6:54you see the relationship between each
166. 6:56notes. You also have canvas which is a
167. 6:59place for you to think and to play
168. 7:02around with the ideas. And now we have
169. 7:04the base which is really powerful way to
170. 7:07discover information because it is very
171. 7:10easy to see things in this format and
172. 7:12you can filter things however you want.
173. 7:14I think this is going to be one of the
174. 7:16most powerful features in Obsidian. I am
175. 7:19very excited about Obsidian base and
176. 7:21this is still pretty much work in
177. 7:23progress. So I think there will be a lot
178. 7:26of new features that are coming up next.
179. 7:28If you have any questions, please leave
180. 7:30down in the comments below. Thank you so
181. 7:32much for watching and I'll see you in
182. 7:34the next