The Biggest Obsidian Upgrade I’ve Made in Years… — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00There's one page you need to make
2. 0:01Obsidian a better home for your mind.
3. 0:04The home note. This one note is the
4. 0:06center of my entire Obsidian setup.
5. 0:08Anytime I want to add or find a project,
6. 0:11an idea, a journal entry in my idea
7. 0:14verse, [music] I find my way back home.
8. 0:16I'm Nick Milo and I've helped thousands
9. 0:18of people set up their own idea verse, a
10. 0:20digital home that powers their best
11. 0:23thinking. And today, I'd love to show
12. 0:25you how I've set up my home note in
13. 0:27Obsidian, how it leads to each area of
14. 0:29my idea verse, and how I use it to
15. 0:32prioritize my projects, find valuable
16. 0:34sparks I've captured, and see my daily
17. 0:37notes in context to other notes so that
18. 0:39I remember more of those things that
19. 0:42matter most. And then I'll show it again
20. 0:43on mobile. You ready? Let's dig in. We
21. 0:46are now in Obsidian and I have my new
22. 0:48special home note open. It's called Home
23. 0:51Base. It can instantly launch me into
24. 0:54many useful places. And I can't show
25. 0:56them all in this video, but here's the
26. 0:58basic rundown. Atlas for things to know,
27. 1:02efforts for things to do, and calendar
28. 1:04to make it whole to reflect, plan, and
29. 1:07review with plus to capture what's new,
30. 1:10and extras for overflow, too. Everything
31. 1:13has a place in ACE, a universal thinking
32. 1:16space. And with my homebased note that
33. 1:18you are looking at, it's even easier,
34. 1:21faster, and funner to do the things that
35. 1:23I want to do. Like number one, quickly
36. 1:26prioritizing my projects. No matter who
37. 1:28you are, where you are, what you're
38. 1:29doing, you probably have a bunch of
39. 1:31efforts and projects that you're always
40. 1:33trying to figure out and prioritize. Let
41. 1:35me show you how I do that with the home
42. 1:38base note. So this is my note and I just
43. 1:40scroll down to efforts and let's go
44. 1:42ahead and click on projects together. So
45. 1:45when I do that, we get this new view and
46. 1:48what you're going to notice is I have
47. 1:50active projects and then simmering and
48. 1:53then below that a category called
49. 1:54sleeping. Now I just finished the
50. 1:56linking or thinking workshop number 16.
51. 1:59So it's no longer active and I'd like to
52. 2:02move it. So I can simply rightclick on
53. 2:04this move file to just start typing
54. 2:08simmering. Hit enter and immediately now
55. 2:11it's over here in the simmering projects
56. 2:14and we can see the rank here. So that's
57. 2:16one way I can immediately prioritize and
58. 2:18manage my bandwidth and then it gets
59. 2:20better. I can look just at the active
60. 2:22projects and if this view is feeling a
61. 2:25little messy, we can also make the view
62. 2:27a lot easier to look at. So these are
63. 2:29simply what 11 different notes and they
64. 2:32happen to be in a specific folder. That
65. 2:35folder is called projects. So if you
66. 2:37want to know where it is over here with
67. 2:39the ACE folder framework efforts
68. 2:42projects and then we have one called
69. 2:44active. So within this we have the same
70. 2:4711 notes that we see over here on the
71. 2:50right hand side. But what we don't see
72. 2:51are all these interesting columns that
73. 2:54give us rich context and help us make
74. 2:56[music] really effective decisions. So
75. 2:59with that out of the way as I'm looking
76. 3:00at this I'm like idea verse pro 2.5 is
77. 3:04the most important. So, I'm actually
78. 3:06going to without even clicking into the
79. 3:07node, go ahead and change it to 5.1. Hit
80. 3:11enter and then it immediately adjusts.
81. 3:14Since this is sorted by rank, we now see
82. 3:16that IDverse pro 2.5 is at the top. The
83. 3:19last part about prioritizing projects
84. 3:21are adding new ones. I'd love to show
85. 3:23you that. So, in my idea versse and in
86. 3:26the one that I'll be providing with
87. 3:27links later on is I simply hit command
88. 3:30S. That's going to pull up this quick
89. 3:33add window and then I'll just click add
90. 3:36effort project. So when I click on this
91. 3:38it's like what's the name of the new
92. 3:40project? Well, just to plan ahead after
93. 3:42Ideaverse pro 2.5 eventually someday
94. 3:46down the road there's going to be
95. 3:48Ideaverse pro 3.0 and I might just want
96. 3:50it to sort of simmer in the background.
97. 3:53So I've immediately just created the new
98. 3:55project. We don't necessarily need it in
99. 3:57an active project. So, let's just go
100. 3:59back to the all projects view. And we
101. 4:01can see it's right here. Now, let's just
102. 4:03give it a really high rank number five.
103. 4:05We can now move it to simmering. And you
104. 4:08can see immediately it's right here. So,
105. 4:11currently this project has a rank of
106. 4:14five. Let's actually pop into it. So,
107. 4:16what I would do is I would open it up.
108. 4:18And I'd say it's actually a three. But
109. 4:21now I'm going to say this isn't the
110. 4:23first time I've done a project like
111. 4:25this. So wouldn't it be nice if not just
112. 4:28projects but we also had a higher level
113. 4:30like an area for that effort and so in
114. 4:33this case I do and it's called areas of
115. 4:35effort. So if I go ahead and start
116. 4:38typing idea verse and a little magic we
117. 4:43have it now linking up to ideaverse as
118. 4:46an area of effort. So what that means is
119. 4:49if I click even higher we can see this
120. 4:51ongoing list of projects all these
121. 4:54different versions of the idea versse
122. 4:56and so this is an area of effort looking
123. 4:58down on all the different idea verse
124. 5:00projects and for the really ambitious
125. 5:03user you can create workspaces that make
126. 5:05it easy to surface your efforts and your
127. 5:08projects in a single view see how fast I
128. 5:11can do this I hit commande which pulls
129. 5:14up all my workspaces and I'll simply hit
130. 5:17dynamic EMPs, efforts, and projects. And
131. 5:21immediately, what do we see? This is my
132. 5:23dashboard, my cockpit when I want
133. 5:25[music] to be in producer mode. And over
134. 5:27on the right hand side, we see the
135. 5:29active projects. We see the simmering
136. 5:31projects. And over on the left hand
137. 5:33side, we see the areas of effort. And
138. 5:36you can see that idea is at the very top
139. 5:38with the really high rank. and I can
140. 5:41open it up in the middle of my Obsidian
141. 5:43window and still have these dashboards
142. 5:46reminding me of how to prioritize my
143. 5:49efforts [music] and projects and make
144. 5:51sure what I want to do is in alignment
145. 5:54with what I need to do. And I'll just
146. 5:56say like this will be overkill for you
147. 5:58if you feel like you only have a couple
148. 6:00projects, but if you're an idea person,
149. 6:02and I think if you're watching this, you
150. 6:03likely are, you're going to have a lot
151. 6:05of different ideas and potential
152. 6:07projects. And wouldn't it be nice if you
153. 6:10could have a home for each of those
154. 6:12ideas and they could just simmer in the
155. 6:15background? Or even if it needs less
156. 6:17energy, it's sleeping in the background.
157. 6:19And then when it's ready, you can
158. 6:21finally make it an active project. And
159. 6:24even if it never becomes active, well,
160. 6:26it's doing no harm simmering and
161. 6:28sleeping. Now, if you like what you're
162. 6:29seeing and want my completely done for
163. 6:32you system, including this new homebased
164. 6:34note and everything it links to, just
165. 6:37click the links wherever they are to
166. 6:39learn more about how to get the latest
167. 6:40Ideaverse Pro. It's by far our most
168. 6:43downloaded offering ever, and it's a
169. 6:46great entry point for you to organize
170. 6:49your own world of ideas. How do you
171. 6:51quickly add a new idea? How do you
172. 6:53capture it before the spark is gone?
173. 6:55It's pretty simple in Obsidian. So, if
174. 6:56you're on a Mac, go ahead and hit
175. 6:58commandN or on Windows controlN. And
176. 7:00immediately it'll create a new note.
177. 7:03Now, one of my favorite football players
178. 7:04when I was young and growing up was this
179. 7:06really intense middle linebacker, Mike
180. 7:08Singleary, and he's just got the passion
181. 7:11for the game of football. And I recently
182. 7:14came across this quote by him, and I
183. 7:16wanted to capture it. I wanted to be
184. 7:19able to come back to it in the future. I
185. 7:21think it's going to enrich my life in
186. 7:23those small nuanced sort of ways. So,
187. 7:26what do I do is I just type it into a
188. 7:28new file name like this. And let's
189. 7:30pretend I'm busy with one of the
190. 7:32projects that we just looked at. I don't
191. 7:34have to do anything else. I can go
192. 7:35ahead. I've captured this and I'm going
193. 7:37to close it. And that's the beauty of
194. 7:39Home Base because whenever I come back
195. 7:42to Home Base, I can just immediately
196. 7:44click on the plus icon. Now I see all my
197. 7:47newly recently added notes which for me
198. 7:50go to the plus folder in the ACE
199. 7:52framework and we can see that that's
200. 7:54showing up right here at the top.
201. 7:56[music]
202. 7:56So let's hop into this note. The first
203. 7:59thing I want to do is I'm actually going
204. 8:00to move it into a folder called quotes.
205. 8:03So I'm just going to hit commandM to
206. 8:05move it and just move it into a folder
207. 8:07called quotes. The other thing you can
208. 8:09do if you feel up for it and I certainly
209. 8:11do right now is I'm going to add a
210. 8:12quotes template. So with that, I hit
211. 8:15insert template. I'll start typing
212. 8:17quotes and I'll go ahead and select the
213. 8:20template. [music] Why this is nice is
214. 8:21because there's a field called by. And
215. 8:24in this case, who is the quote by? And
216. 8:26it's by this guy, Mike Singleary. There
217. 8:29it is. I'll hit enter. So I could do
218. 8:31that at any time because I wouldn't
219. 8:33forget this thing. Why won't I forget
220. 8:35it? Because of home base. I can go to
221. 8:38the ad folder and now that I've moved
222. 8:40it, I can go always to the recents
223. 8:43folder. I can scroll down and say, "Hey,
224. 8:45when did I when was that quote? Oh, it
225. 8:46was like end of November." And then I'll
226. 8:48be able to find it again. Now, to take
227. 8:50it even further, I would add some
228. 8:51personal details. Now, [music] not only
229. 8:53do I have a quote, not only is it part
230. 8:56of a collection, and I have who it's by,
231. 8:58but I have something personal about this
232. 9:00one. Now, let's say years go by. It's
233. 9:03Thanksgiving. I'm back with some of my
234. 9:05origin family, and there's football
235. 9:07playing on in the background. I might
236. 9:09just be reminded of Mike Singleary. And
237. 9:12because of the work that I did today,
238. 9:14I'm going to remember this story. This
239. 9:17is a thinking process that yes,
240. 9:19externalizes our thoughts so we can find
241. 9:21them again, but in that process
242. 9:24internalizes the memories. So it's much
243. 9:26more likely that we'll be able to
244. 9:28remember this. So those things can't be
245. 9:30measured on spreadsheets. And it's a
246. 9:32major reason why many of us really care
247. 9:34to nurture and honor our experiences and
248. 9:36ideas throughout our lives. And for
249. 9:38extra credit, because this recents view
250. 9:41is so powerful, hey, why not put it in
251. 9:44the sidebar, you can do that. So with
252. 9:46bases, what I did is I threw a base into
253. 9:49the sidebar. So now, no matter what note
254. 9:52I'm on, if I go ahead and click on the
255. 9:53quote we were just looking at, I can
256. 9:56still see all the most recent notes
257. 9:58staring at me. So I never feel lost or I
258. 10:00never feel like what was that note or
259. 10:02that I have to keep all of these tabs
260. 10:04[music] open. You can let go of the tabs
261. 10:07because you can find what you need just
262. 10:10by going to this recent base view.
263. 10:12[music] And of course, this is part of
264. 10:14idea verse pro. We just click manage
265. 10:17workspaces and I can go to base view
266. 10:20with recents which will then load them
267. 10:22in the lower left and we can just scroll
268. 10:24through to our heart's content. Now I
269. 10:26want to share with you how to work with
270. 10:28a daily note. Now projects we would hit
271. 10:30command S and add a new project. For new
272. 10:33idea, command N. And we're creating a
273. 10:35new note. For daily note, we would now
274. 10:37hit command D, which is going to create
275. 10:40a new daily note. Now, let me just put
276. 10:43in some text that I might capture in the
277. 10:45morning of my day. Had a dream about the
278. 10:47Dollaly Llama, wrote about that. And
279. 10:50then I go on to think about, okay, what
280. 10:51do I actually need to do? Send out the
281. 10:53newsletter, record this YouTube video,
282. 10:55pencils down on Idea Verse Pro 2.5. All
283. 10:58right, so that's my daily note. Pretty
284. 11:01cool so far that we can just with one
285. 11:03button press go ahead and get out all
286. 11:05the ideas on our mind. But we can take
287. 11:08this a lot further. At the bottom of
288. 11:10this daily note template is something
289. 11:13I'm so excited about. If you've ever
290. 11:15used the Day One journaling app, you
291. 11:18might remember the feature on this day.
292. 11:20Finally, we've been able to replicate
293. 11:22the on this day feature. So, if I scroll
294. 11:25down far enough, you'll see on this day
295. 11:28and 31 different notes that I've made
296. 11:31since 2006. And so, you can see the
297. 11:34different notes that are starting to
298. 11:35show up going into 2004, 2003,
299. 11:392001, 2015, down to 2011. And I have a
300. 11:45note called life in general in November
301. 11:482011. Boy, am I curious what's in there,
302. 11:51but we're not going to find out right
303. 11:52now. I just want to show you the power
304. 11:55of an embedded base in Obsidian. And to
305. 11:58get this, let me show you a peek under
306. 12:00the hood. You can set this up for
307. 12:03yourself. It's just going to take a bit
308. 12:05of work. Or if you want the best
309. 12:08version, yes, it's in ide 2.5, links
310. 12:12below. But I want to show you the power
311. 12:14of the home note. So if we close this
312. 12:17note and start from scratch, we look
313. 12:19over to the left. We open home base. Now
314. 12:23all we need to do is say to ourselves,
315. 12:26where would this be? Atlas or efforts or
316. 12:28perhaps calendar? And yes, the answer is
317. 12:31in calendar. So I go ahead and click on
318. 12:33that. And now I'm seeing in front of me.
319. 12:35And this is amazing. Any timebased note.
320. 12:39So, we have today's daily note, [music]
321. 12:41a meeting from yesterday, an actual
322. 12:43dream I had, not about the Dollaly Lama,
323. 12:45but about a flying orange llama, and
324. 12:48then a bunch of different daily notes, a
325. 12:50meeting, and it's all here. I'm
326. 12:52reviewing my daily notes in context. How
327. 12:55much more valuable is this? Because a
328. 12:58daily note is only so much value to you
329. 13:00if you're having trouble ever finding it
330. 13:03again. But then how do you find all that
331. 13:06gold and all these old days? Well, how
332. 13:09about you go to home base and you just
333. 13:11easily click on calendar and then you
334. 13:14can see everything. If you want even
335. 13:16more context, let's go to home base and
336. 13:18let's go to days [music] by month. And
337. 13:21now I can see these are all the notes
338. 13:23created in the month of November of this
339. 13:25year and then all the notes created in
340. 13:27the month of October. So now I have even
341. 13:29more context. And because this is a
342. 13:32base, I can throw in other columns like
343. 13:35in these daily notes, what am I linking
344. 13:38out to? And it turns out here the
345. 13:39nearness principle. It turns out here
346. 13:42sensemaking, ideiation, and above steel
347. 13:44manning. So some really interesting
348. 13:46context all from just going [music] home
349. 13:50to home base and just clicking on one of
350. 13:52these amazing portals to a part of my
351. 13:54ideaverse. And in idea verse pro, if we
352. 13:57click manage workspace layouts, I'm
353. 14:00going to go ahead and click on inner
354. 14:02guide dynamic days. And then immediately
355. 14:06I can see this dashboard. This is my
356. 14:09calendar dashboard. And it allows me to
357. 14:11see so much different context. And I can
358. 14:13just stare at it and immediately be
359. 14:16reminded of so many meaningful things.
360. 14:18But hey, this is a little bit too much,
361. 14:20especially if you're just starting out.
362. 14:22Don't feel intimidated or like you have
363. 14:24to do this. just know when the time is
364. 14:26right. There is functionality to allow
365. 14:28you to do a lot of neat things with your
366. 14:31daily notes. Now, what I'm going to do
367. 14:33is jump back into the daily note. I'm
368. 14:36going to click back a couple days and
369. 14:38just share another meaningful moment
370. 14:40that came about because of this daily
371. 14:43note template that allows me to
372. 14:45dynamically link to every other single
373. 14:48note that was created on the same day in
374. 14:51all of the previous years of my life.
375. 14:54This one happened to be in 2015. For
376. 14:56those of you that don't know, my full
377. 14:58last name is Nick Milo Dragovich. And so
378. 15:01I have this really cool journal that I
379. 15:03was reminded of just 2 days ago because
380. 15:06of what's happening in my idea verse and
381. 15:08how it can resurface important notes
382. 15:11exactly when I might be interested in
383. 15:13them. And that's the value. Not all who
384. 15:16wander are lost. If you just allow
385. 15:19yourself to be reminded of the things
386. 15:21that mattered to you in the past, they
387. 15:23can inform and enrich your present and
388. 15:27your future. Curiosity builds real value
389. 15:30if you let it. And I hope you see that
390. 15:32in some of these examples today. Now,
391. 15:34that's all great if you're around your
392. 15:35desktop, but the home base note works
393. 15:38amazingly on mobile. So, let's speedwalk
394. 15:41through the three examples that I just
395. 15:42covered, but this time using my phone.
396. 15:45So, let's hop into Obsidian. And just
397. 15:47immediately it's a blank page. So let's
398. 15:49just swipe over to the left. [music] We
399. 15:51can hit home base. And we're immediately
400. 15:53reminded of all these important places
401. 15:56that we might want to go. Now I want to
402. 15:58prioritize my projects. So let's scroll
403. 16:00down to efforts and just hit projects.
404. 16:03Now immediately I'm looking at all my
405. 16:04active and simmering projects. And let's
406. 16:07hit the views and just go to active. So
407. 16:10we can just see our active projects. And
408. 16:12let's go ahead and change the rank to
409. 16:14Ideaverse Pro 2.5. It's the final few
410. 16:17hours, so I'm going to make it a 5.4.
411. 16:19Really make sure it's high. But now, how
412. 16:21would I add a new project from my phone?
413. 16:24How would I do that? We can go ahead and
414. 16:25just swipe down and just start typing
415. 16:28add. And then with idea verse Pro,
416. 16:31you'll just find add effort project. I
417. 16:34click on that and say, hey, just new
418. 16:35project. We'll hit okay. And immediately
419. 16:38you see it's at the bottom. Let's give
420. 16:40it a really high rank of 5.5. It's so
421. 16:42important. and immediately you see it
422. 16:44sort to the top. [music] How cool is
423. 16:46that? So that's for projects. Now let's
424. 16:48talk about adding a new idea on mobile.
425. 16:50So for this one, and not everyone knows
426. 16:52this, just hit the magnifying glass and
427. 16:54start typing. Now let's say I just
428. 16:57watched McBth and I'm just obsessed with
429. 17:01when Lady McBth is so guiltridden that
430. 17:04she's having a dream and she's saying
431. 17:06out damned spot. And so I'm going to
432. 17:08just type that and then just [music]
433. 17:10enter to create. And now it's created a
434. 17:13new note on my phone. I can go ahead and
435. 17:16close this note because I have the home
436. 17:18base. So now at any time all I need to
437. 17:21do is swipe over to the left, hit home
438. 17:24base. And where do you think I can go?
439. 17:26Well, if I hit the plus icon, it sorts
440. 17:29immediately to the top. Now I could
441. 17:32also, if I wanted to go to home base and
442. 17:34hit the recents, and again, it's sorting
443. 17:36right to the top. So let's go into this
444. 17:38note. And I'm saying to myself, well,
445. 17:41this is a quote note and it doesn't have
446. 17:43any other information. How can I add
447. 17:45that on my mobile device? Well, in this
448. 17:48case, I'm just going to swipe downward
449. 17:50and then there's templates, insert
450. 17:51template. So, I'll add that and I'll
451. 17:53start typing quotes because that's what
452. 17:55this is. And then boom, now we have the
453. 17:58template. I go to the buy field. Hey,
454. 18:00isn't this by Shakespeare? So, I'll
455. 18:01start typing that and I add Shakespeare.
456. 18:04And that's pretty awesome to me. Now,
457. 18:07because this is a quote, I like to put
458. 18:09my quotes in a folder. That folder is
459. 18:12called quotes. So, let's just go ahead
460. 18:14and move file 2. I'll start typing
461. 18:17quotes. And now, years into the future,
462. 18:19no matter what, out damspot will be in
463. 18:22the quotes folder, and I'll be able to
464. 18:24find it a lot of different ways. Let me
465. 18:27show you the number one way. I'll just
466. 18:29go back to home base and I'll probably
467. 18:31hit quotes. [music] And you'll notice
468. 18:33right here, outdamned spot is showing up
469. 18:36because it's recent. But I can always
470. 18:39give it a high rank. Maybe it resurfaces
471. 18:41that way. Maybe I resurface by going to
472. 18:44Shakespeare and seeing all the notes
473. 18:45that link to Shakespeare. So what you're
474. 18:47seeing is how quickly we can add a new
475. 18:49idea. But that's not it. You're also
476. 18:50seeing how we can resurface and
477. 18:52rediscover and quickly find those ideas
478. 18:55as well. Now, what about a daily note?
479. 18:58So, for this one, you just swipe down
480. 19:00and you start typing daily and you hit
481. 19:03daily notes. Open today's daily note.
482. 19:05Now, this note's already been created.
483. 19:07If it wasn't, it would create right now.
484. 19:09But instead, we're just returning to the
485. 19:10daily note. And now, I can quickly add
486. 19:13new ideas here. So, new ideas here.
487. 19:16[music] And again, I can go ahead and
488. 19:17close this note because if you have a
489. 19:19home note, then all you need to do is
490. 19:21click on home base. And then it's just
491. 19:24as easy to go and hit calendar. And look
492. 19:27at all this beautiful context. And this
493. 19:30is on my phone. This is on my device I
494. 19:31can take with me anywhere. I'm more
495. 19:34empowered than ever because of how
496. 19:36Obsidian now has bases and how that's
497. 19:39been combined with the note called home
498. 19:42base. The three examples I just showed,
499. 19:44prioritizing my projects, finding
500. 19:46valuable sparks I've captured, and
501. 19:48seeing my daily notes in the context of
502. 19:51other notes. These are just a few of the
503. 19:52easiest to show ways of using your notes
504. 19:55to improve how you think, how you know,
505. 19:57and how you grow. So check out the
506. 19:59latest Ideaverse Pro in the description
507. 20:01below. And if you want to dig even
508. 20:03deeper into some of the advanced
509. 20:04dashboards that combine ACE with the
510. 20:07four ways we develop ideas, then check
511. 20:10out this video next.