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Obsidian for Learning Part II: Process — Transcript

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0:00Hi friends, my name is Tris, and this is
0:02no boilerplate, where I focus on fast,
0:04technical videos. I was tempted to start
0:06this whole video at the end because most
0:08other guides start at note-taking and
0:09then trail off and hand-wave the most
0:11important part, the process. And if you
0:14just take notes but don't do anything
0:16with them, they won't get you to where
0:18you need to be. The biggest unanswered
0:20question in nearly every book, article,
0:22and video on note-taking I have seen is
0:26what do you do after you have taken
0:29notes?
0:30Who cares if you've got a beautifully
0:31filed and linked web of notes organized
0:33by tags and folders and themes and Dewey
0:35Decimal or whatever? How does that help
0:37you write and learn? Where do you even
0:39start?
0:40Well, to misquote the great Carl Sagan,
0:43before you can write an essay from
0:45scratch, you must first invent the
0:49universe.
0:50I dedicate my video scripts to the
0:51public domain. Everything you see here,
0:53script links and images, are part of a
0:54markdown document available freely on
0:56GitHub and my website namtao.com.
0:59We are going to forge our work, essays,
1:02exam revision, books, or even video
1:04scripts, from atomic notes. You may have
1:07heard of this concept before, perhaps as
1:09smart or main or permanent notes, the
1:12core unit of the Zettelkasten system.
1:15An interlinked web of knowledge with the
1:17information digested, deconstructed, and
1:19rebuilt in your own words, in your own
1:22image.
1:23Many books on note-taking talk about
1:25what make these kinds of notes good, but
1:27I think all qualities are downstream of
1:30these two principal features of atomic
1:32notes.
1:33The notes work well together, they are
1:35highly composable and cohesive, and each
1:37note doesn't require reading lots of
1:39other notes to understand, they are
1:40loosely coupled to each other. Atomic
1:42notes are the compiler artifacts of our
1:45learning before they have been linked
1:46together into their final form.
1:48When I was at university, they taught us
1:50that good software modules are well
1:51written if they have high cohesion and
1:54low coupling, that is, the parts work
1:56well together, but are flexible enough
1:58to be reused in multiple programs. If a
2:00computer program is a composition of
2:02modules, the outputs of our system, like
2:04an essay, will be a composition of
2:06atomic notes.
2:08I have taken this part of the FLAP
2:10system directly from the Zettelkasten
2:11note-taking method, from the best book
2:13on the subject, A System for Writing by
2:16Bob Doto. These small, self-contained
2:18notes hold our best understanding of a
2:20topic written in our own words as simply
2:22as possible, but no simpler. One of the
2:24oft-claimed benefits of a mature note
2:26system like Zettelkasten is that you
2:28never need to start from scratch. The
2:31notes are already written in your words,
2:33so you can simply stack them up in a
2:34reasonable order, write the glue, and
2:36you've got a first draft. Though the
2:39graph is a good illustration here,
2:41day-to-day, it doesn't actually scale.
2:43By the time you've got 30 or 40 notes,
2:45it's all too crowded to read the names.
2:48What does scale is the original
2:50metaphor. The Zettelkasten system was
2:52originally a way of organizing notes on
2:54paper inside a linear card file, like
2:57this small demonstration here by fellow
2:59YouTuber Morgan, who makes
3:00[clears throat] really great videos on
3:01using her Zettelkasten to write her PhD,
3:03by the way. Notice how on paper
3:06there is no graph to browse.
3:09Though Zettelkasten paper notes do
3:11include numerical references to others
3:12in the box, creating a logical graph,
3:15the primary browsing and retrieval is
3:17done by thumbing through the cards,
3:19flicking through the titles, and jumping
3:21to clumps of related knowledge.
3:24Here you can see the visualization of
3:26the tree inside my Obsidian using the
3:28Vert Folder plugin, a recent addition to
3:30my system.
3:31This is better than a graph because I
3:33don't have any buttons for navigating
3:35graphs on my computer, but I do have a
3:37scroll wheel on my mouse.
3:40Okay, let's zoom in on one of these
3:42atomic notes. This is a mature example
3:45of one of my atomic notes. I will
3:46highlight a few key features, and we
3:47will deep dive later on in the video.
3:49The file name is written with enough
3:51detail to remind you next week when you
3:53scroll past it, but the body has enough
3:55detail to remind you in a year after
3:57you've forgotten the specifics.
3:59The uplink is set to slot this note next
4:01to a closely related note, storing
4:03trains of related thought close to each
4:05other. The atomic tag allows for easy
4:07searching and filtering. A see also
4:09section contains links to related atomic
4:11notes, and there are references to other
4:13literature notes either in my vault or
4:15links out onto the internet. I use
4:18uplinks for structure. Where do my notes
4:20live? Tags for the type of note, atomic
4:23or project and so on. File names for
4:25identity, not IDs, not date stamps,
4:28human-readable summaries that can joke
4:31your memory of the learning contained in
4:33the note without having to open it. As I
4:37explained in the previous video, my
4:38system has three parts. Capture. Take
4:41notes on lectures, literature, and your
4:43own fleeting thoughts. Two, process. Use
4:46these to write an interlinked network of
4:48atomic notes in your own words. Three,
4:50write. Compose clusters of atomic notes
4:53into essay outlines, exam revision, or
4:55all kinds of writing and thinking with a
4:58lightweight project management system
4:59that I can scale from one to 1,000
5:02ongoing projects.
5:04In Obsidian, I use no folders and only
5:06four tags. Fleeting notes tagged
5:07fleeting, highlights tagged literature,
5:10atomic notes tagged atomic, and projects
5:12tagged project. In the part one video, I
5:15focused on the inputs to this system,
5:17capturing your thoughts into fleeting
5:18notes and other people's thoughts as
5:20literature notes. Today, we're going to
5:22focus on processing those raw notes into
5:25atomic notes. I'm delighted to say that
5:27this video is sponsored by friend of the
5:29channel, Let's Get Rusty. In addition to
5:31being a fellow Rust YouTuber, Bogdan
5:32runs Rust training, both corporate and
5:34personal, with a new cohort starting
5:36each month. Visit
5:37letsgetrusty.com/startwithtris,
5:39link in the pinned comment, to find out
5:41more about the training. And thanks so
5:43much to Let's Get Rusty for sponsoring
5:44this video. The process that I aim to
5:46teach you today revolves around building
5:48a daily practice of distilling atomic
5:50notes, which will, over time, become a
5:52single trusted system. I will demo what
5:55this looks like practically using
5:56Obsidian towards the end of the video.
5:58The wording single trusted system is
6:01something I've borrowed from David
6:02Allen's legendary book from 2001,
6:04Getting Things Done. There are two vital
6:06components to your fleeting note system.
6:08One, your notes must only be stored in a
6:11single place, and two, you must process
6:14them reliably, never missing anything.
6:17If you have multiple places where you
6:18can store fleeting notes, such as Apple
6:20Notes and messages to yourself, then you
6:22can never be certain you have checked
6:24everything, as perhaps the other place
6:26might have some new information for you.
6:28Our eyes can only read one thing at a
6:30time, and our brains know this.
6:34Multiple places to check has us running
6:36around the hamster cage, mimicking the
6:37sad state of social media, where there
6:39are five apps with screenshots of the
6:40other four on. No. To process your
6:43notes, you must make a single trusted
6:46system.
6:47Here's mine.
6:48Like the mason, we have dragged all the
6:50stone we need into our workshop, but the
6:51real challenge begins now. During this
6:53process, our literature and fleeting
6:55notes are the raw materials we will hone
6:57into a useful form, atomic notes.
7:00There are two main parts of this
7:01process.
7:02Fleeting notes get rewritten to atomic
7:03notes, keeping the original wording of
7:05thought as a reference, then are tagged
7:07atomic. Unfiled literature notes are
7:09linked to from new atomic notes, then
7:11retagged literature for long-term
7:13reference.
7:14You must do this process daily. This is
7:17especially important for fleeting notes,
7:18as they could contain urgent tasks. They
7:21are urgent because the you of yesterday
7:23is counting on the you of today to
7:25fulfill the temporal contract. Yesterday
7:27self had the easy job, throw some random
7:30words into a note and tag it fleeting,
7:31or make some highlights while reading,
7:33but now you must process them. And
7:36processing every little thought that
7:38comes to us, and every highlight from
7:39books we read, podcasts we listen to,
7:41and videos we watch can quickly become
7:43overwhelming. And here, I propose an
7:46unusual solution.
7:48There will naturally be fleeting notes
7:49that you can't quite understand why you
7:51wrote down, or highlights that don't
7:53seem very relevant now in the cold light
7:55of day.
7:56Zettelkasten is all about following your
7:58interests, so what do you do when they
8:01change?
8:02You could refile those snoozed fleeting
8:04ideas or thoughts or highlights into a
8:06different list or tag or what have you,
8:08but this list will soon spiral out of
8:10control in due course, and then you'll
8:12be back to an overflowing list of
8:14impossible to face thoughts and ideas,
8:16and you may bounce off the system
8:18entirely.
8:19I have a better method based on misusing
8:21spaced repetition.
8:23I'm sure you know about spaced
8:24repetition. It's the effect whereby each
8:26time you revise something, you increase
8:28the amount of time you retain it,
8:29eventually flattening the forgetting
8:31curve to nearly horizontal. You've moved
8:34the information from short-term to
8:36long-term memory. It's a marvelous
8:38technique, and the only one I have found
8:39that works for me.
8:41You should certainly become familiar
8:43with Stephen Wang's excellent Obsidian
8:45plugin, Spaced Repetition, to aid in
8:47your studies. However, I also use it for
8:50managing my fleeting note backlog. I'll
8:53show you how to use it, but if you want
8:54to get started immediately, I have
8:56compiled all of this into an Obsidian
8:57vault you can download and use straight
8:59away, available for anyone who supports
9:01me on my Patreon. It's just me running
9:03this channel, and I'm so grateful to
9:05everyone for supporting me on this wild
9:07adventure. If you'd like to see and give
9:08feedback on my videos up to a week
9:10early, as well as get private Discord
9:11access and even your name in the
9:12credits, it would be very kind of you to
9:15check my Patreon. I'm also offering a
9:17limited number of mentoring slots. If
9:19you'd like one-to-one tuition on
9:20Obsidian, personal organization, web
9:22programming, creative production, or
9:24anything that I talk about in my videos,
9:25do sign up and let's chat. Part two.
9:28Finally, what does this all look like?
9:32I've been a bit abstract so far, but an
9:34example will make it clear. Join me in
9:37my daily processing. In the morning, I
9:40open my notes for review using this
9:41command from the Spaced Repetition
9:42plugin.
9:43Then I select fleeting. I'm not revising
9:46my atomic notes just yet. And the first
9:49due fleeting note is opened by the
9:50plugin, which, in this case, is ask Mom
9:53when she is free for a catch-up chat.
9:54Very important. The first time you run
9:56the note review, you'll of course have
9:58to go through and review every note
10:00tagged fleeting. The sooner you do this,
10:02the better.
10:03But as you review each note as good,
10:05medium, hard, which in our world means
10:08snooze for a while, a short time, or
10:10tomorrow, you'll find that on each
10:12subsequent day, you are only reviewing
10:14the fleeting notes that you thought was
10:15the most important to process, not the
10:17whole damn list.
10:19Back to this fleeting note, ask mom when
10:21she is free for catch-up chat. My job
10:23now is to decide quickly what to do with
10:25this fleeting note that past Chris wrote
10:27for me. This one is simple. If the
10:29fleeting note is a task that will take
10:31less than 2 minutes, do it there and
10:33then. So for this, I'll send mom a quick
10:35message, then the task is done. I delete
10:37this fleeting note and rerun the space
10:39repetition command to get the next one.
10:41Okay, buy oat milk. If the task belongs
10:44to a different project, like here, a
10:46shopping list, I copy and paste it into
10:48the other note, and delete this fleeting
10:50note, and rerun the space repetition
10:52command as before.
10:53Huh.
10:54Sometimes, like here, it's difficult to
10:57figure out what to do with a fleeting
10:58note. We're not the same person we were
11:00yesterday, I suppose.
11:02In this case, don't stress about it.
11:04Just snooze it. Future me can figure
11:06this one out, I'm sure. To snooze this
11:08fleeting note, I review it using the
11:10space repetition plugin as easy, or as
11:13Ivory named it in the plugin settings,
11:14to later. It's all the same. Whatever
11:17space repetition you use, you could even
11:19use Anki if you want, this note will be
11:21scheduled to be reviewed in the future.
11:24And hopefully, I will have figured it
11:26out by then.
11:27After I run this review command, the
11:28note is changed. Look at the new
11:31properties added to the top of this
11:32note. We can see that I won't see it in
11:34my morning note review sessions for four
11:36more days, at time of recording.
11:38Not only is the due date set, but so are
11:40two other numbers, which allow the
11:42plugin to keep track of the cumulative
11:43difficulty, or in our case, urgency of
11:46the note.
11:47Don't worry about the exact properties
11:49that the plugin sets, rest assured that
11:51it will snooze notes reliably and
11:53without you having to worry about exact
11:55dates.
11:56After a few days of doing this, you'll
11:58have a much shorter list, only featuring
12:00the things you have consistently ranked
12:02as hard, i.e. urgent. Now is the time to
12:05slow down and actually do these tasks,
12:07or perhaps file or research them.
12:09Deleting is a great option, too, if they
12:11can't be done or don't make sense
12:12anymore. The reason I process my
12:15fleeting notes like this, not just
12:17reading the list, is I need something
12:19that scales. If you are to trust that
12:21your system will work in the long run,
12:23then you need a scalable system, too.
12:26Moving on. Some tasks must be done later
12:29on, and should be added to an existing
12:31project, or like here, captured in
12:33another note. The solution was to cut
12:35and paste the fleeting thought into the
12:37appropriate note. More advanced project
12:39management with due dates and start
12:40dates are going to detail in the last
12:42video in this series, but it's in the
12:44Patreon vault already, if you'd like to
12:45give it a go now.
12:47Capturing what other people have said is
12:49as important to the student as it is for
12:51the teacher, or office worker, or
12:53someone who just wants to help out a
12:54friend.
12:55Lectures, talks, interviews, YouTube
12:57videos, podcasts, these kinds of notes
12:59are scattered and informal.
13:02They have to be. When you were writing
13:03them, your attention was on the other
13:04person speaking, where it should have
13:06been. But now, when their words are
13:08still fresh in your mind, is the time to
13:10go through your notes and expand them
13:12into atomic notes or tasks that are
13:14themselves either further fleeting notes
13:16or added to a specific project as
13:18before. And finally, we have an example
13:21of a fleeting thought that is perfect to
13:23expand into an atomic note. Writer's
13:25block is caused by reader's block.
13:28Interesting. The method is simple. Here,
13:31I've taken this idea and expanded it in
13:32my own words, cross-referencing to other
13:34notes as I find them, and keeping the
13:36original capture as reference.
13:38I have also changed the tag from
13:39fleeting to atomic. However, what makes
13:42the Zettelkasten method so useful is
13:45that we now find a place to file this
13:47note, not in a folder bunched together
13:49with other files, nor drifting aimlessly
13:51in a sea of notes only loosely connected
13:53by the links between them.
13:55We place this new atomic note behind
13:58exactly one other note.
14:00Like this. In a physical card box, you
14:03would put the note cards behind each
14:04other. And this is very, very useful. We
14:09are using the up property under the tag
14:10here to model this.
14:12This single organization technique
14:13allows us to build a tree of related
14:15links that can be explored and
14:17visualized in a much more understandable
14:19way than a graph.
14:20Like here, using the vert folder plugin.
14:24Another category of fleeting notes is
14:26knowledge, not tasks to be done or
14:28lessons to be captured in atomic notes.
14:29These are things like names, addresses,
14:32code blocks, or facts that only need to
14:33be stored verbatim. You shouldn't waste
14:36valuable time and brain space for these
14:38facts. When your fleeting review session
14:40presents you with one of these, make a
14:42new note with the info in, give it some
14:44sensible tags, and it's now filed safely
14:46away for later retrieval.
14:48You'll know where to find it when you
14:50need it. And finally, highlights.
14:53Some highlights are written up into
14:54their own atomic notes, others are
14:56referenced in existing atomics, and yet
14:58more are just snoozed for later.
15:00For example, here we have a highlight
15:01that I made while reading How to Take
15:03Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. Sönke
15:06quoted Niklas Luhmann, the legendary
15:08author whose prolific Zettelkasten card
15:10file contained over 90,000 notes.
15:14Reading this quote resonated with me at
15:16the time, and because I am processing it
15:17soon after highlighting, I have
15:19remembered the insight and can form it
15:21into a new atomic note, like so. I have
15:24made a new note with the fully developed
15:26learning as the file name, and have
15:27referenced the Luhmann quote. While
15:29thinking about this, I also browsed
15:31through my other atomic notes, scrolling
15:33using the tree on the left, refreshing
15:35my memory about similar topics, and have
15:37added two more linked concepts as
15:38references. Finally, and most
15:40importantly for the Zettelkasten system,
15:42I have slotted this new atomic note
15:44behind a related thought in the tree. I
15:47have done this just by linking to it in
15:49the up property of this note. These are
15:51the only two organizational features I
15:53need in my atomic notes. Related notes
15:55linked using normal links, but an anchor
15:59parent note linked in the up property.
16:02The very final step, if you're using my
16:04Readwise template or any highlights
16:06importer that allows you to format
16:07highlights as markdown checkboxes, is to
16:10check off the highlight to indicate that
16:12it is processed, and you can now move on
16:15to the next one. We're two-thirds of the
16:17way through the system. Once you've
16:19built the habit of daily processing, and
16:21you're making loosely coupled but highly
16:22cohesive atomic notes out of your
16:24fleeting thoughts and other people's
16:26highlights, you will have everything
16:28that you need to build novel work of
16:30your own. These time-boxed projects are
16:33the subject of the final video in this
16:34series, completing the unfortunately
16:37named FLAP system.
16:39Thank you.
16:40If you would like to support my channel
16:41and get early, ad-free, and
16:42tracking-free videos, your name in the
16:43credits, or one-to-one mentoring, head
16:46to my Patreon or Ko-fi. If you're
16:47interested in transhumanism and hope
16:49punk, please check out my weekly sci-fi
16:51audio fiction podcast, Lost Terminal.
16:54I just finished season three of the
16:55Phosphine Catalog. If you like mysteries
16:56and art, check it out. Transcripts and
16:59compiled check markdown source code
17:00available on namtao.com, and GitHub
17:02links in the description, and
17:03corrections are in the pinned errata
17:05comment. Thank you so much for watching.
17:07Talk to you on Discord.

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