If you want to:
• navigate complexity
• take your thinking to the next level
• work with your knowledge like a master
You need to know IDEA EMERGENCE
✨»🌱»🌲»🗺️»🌎
Here's an overview that will immediately change how you think about ideas 👇
The most powerful note-taking app
- Obsidian
But most of us don't know how to write in it
Here are 17 Shortcuts that will make your writing flow and save you tons of time 👇
There are many note apps out there...but among them...
Obsidian is one of one—without equal—an app of apps.
It's a generational level event.
Here are 8 ways Obsidian (
@obsdmd
) is changing the game...& the 2 forces driving it.
A love-thread🧵
🔆 🧰 Introducing...LYT Kit 6
The
#1
starter kit for linked notes anywhere on the planet has been downloaded ≈ 30,000 times.
Learn. Experiment by doing. Play in a sandbox of linked notes. It's free.
Here are the 7 additions I am most excited about in LYT Kit 6 in
@obsdmd
👇
💡 IDEA EMERGENCE 🌱»🌲»🗺️»🌎»🏡
If you can use this framework masterfully, you will immediately change the game—and take your thinking to the next level!
🧵A thread 👇 (1/19)
There's nothing more satisfying than watching your knowledge graph grow as you grow as a person.
Here's 3 years of notes in 20 seconds
Credit: u/jcperezh
Best trophy ever. Thank you
@obsdmd
for this awesome gift in the mail today. Grateful to be part of the wonderful ecosystem of
#obsidianmd
content creators.
It's official: Evernote doesn't care about you. Evernote was bought out by a foreign company. That company fired every single employee. Now they are cutting off their app from new users. If you are still using Evernote...first why?!...second GET OUT!
The secret is out 📣
This summer I'll be instructing a brand new course at UCLA!
To my knowledge, this is the first-ever university course teaching writers how to use PKM for their creative efforts.
...and it's all thanks to the amazing powers of the humble note.
In this
Obsidian Properties
With the release of
@obsdmd
Properties, we now have an easy way to manage metadata. Woohoo!
But with great power comes great responsibility (or at least a little). I think many of us may have found a moment where we spent too much time fiddling with
This is a huge. Our podcast "How I Think" is launching!
My first guest is doctor turned YouTuber
@AliAbdaal
We cover so much it's ridiculous, these are only a taste:
• What is Ali Abdaal's true relationship to Obsidian?
• Which YouTube video is his secret favorite?
• What
This is my first
@ProductHunt
launch ever! I never imagined I would be doing this. Would appreciate any and all the love you can give it today 🥰
"Obsidian Flight School" (
@obsdmd
,
#obsidianmd
)
To understand why
@FastCompany
's article is called "The Cult of Obsidian" you have to go back in time.
I'm not talking about at the start of the pandemic when a company called Roam Research leaned hard into branding itself as a tongue-in-check "cult"—with a hashtag "roamcult"
I know I rag on
@evernote
but them being acquired by Bending Spoons is a bummer.
It's a reminder that if you don't own your own data by keeping your notes local—some company called "Bending Spoons" might someday own it.
Ooooff!
I can't wait for you to watch my interview with
@AliAbdaal
We cover so much personal & professional stuff...A lot of it orbits around his instant bestselling book Feel Good Productivity
Also, Ali is my 1st guest on "How I Think". I'm honored 🙏
Episode drops Nov 17
Introducing Properties. A simple way to add tags, aliases, dates, and even link between notes.
As always, the metadata is stored durably in plain text files local to your device.
Obsidian 1.4.0 is now available for early access 💜
Wow, Obsidian has finally gone 1.0. Congrats
@obsdmd
It's been a true game-changer, helping hundreds of thousands of people.
Today they have a Product Hunt page. One hour ago it was
#12
, now it's
#6
. Let's support and upvote and get it to
#1
!
I reviewed over 800 Obsidian plugins 🤯
Here are my Top 44.
This super review includes "Core"
@obsdmd
plugins and special functions. You'll see what I mean...
Notes continue to become more visual in more ways
Another new epic view coming in hot for
@obsdmd
thanks to pashashocky. This is looking at the last 15 notes I've modified in my Atlas folder.
You know that lively card preview view of your notes that Craft offers? There’s now an alpha plugin that does this for notes in any folder in
#Obsidian
. And it works. And it's bonkers. Wanted this for SO LONG. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Name a productivity tool (apart from
@obsdmd
) that is:
- Ultra fast
- Simple
- Future-proof
- Promoting good thinking
- Safe from hacks
- Customisable
- Free (mostly)
I’ll wait…
I just launched a new Youtube channel called:
Linking Your Thinking
It will explore:
- The Why and How of note-making
- Making meaningful notes, across genre, and throughout time
If you vibe with that, please show some love ❤️
Big update to LYT Mode in
@obsdmd
. Every time Cecilia May ships the next version of our collaboration it feels like receiving a present.
• Beautiful Hover Editor
• Alternative Checkboxes
• Tons more
Updates here:
🔆 All 15 LYT Conference Recordings
4,916 attendances for the inaugural LYT Conference!
If you couldn't attend live, or want to experience it again, go here:
Every recording has links, transcripts, and soon even timestamps! This is
@the_LYT_way
After 3 years, thousands of students, and 70,000 downloads, I'm excited to share a major contribution to knowledge management:
Ideaverse for Obsidian
Download it over at the launch page:
(And please support us while you're there)!
For only the next
I hate to tell you this but you've been misled about PKM.
It's no one's fault. But it's set you up to fail.
Here's the break down of what's happened and what you can do about it.
[Thread]
𝗘𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻
Anyone interested in how to use the Eisenhower Matrix for tasks in
@obsdmd
?
Should keep going with this experiment and maybe make a video about it?
Grateful to have been a tiny cog in the wheel of the most amazing group of kind and talented people.
Now it's time for the premiere of the final season of Better Call Saul!
Exciting news.
🚀 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼 launches today!
Manage your EVERYTHING in Obsidian.
Your efforts, your meetings, and especially...
...your ideas!
It's been stress-tested over 3.5 years, with 80,000+ downloads and I believe it marks a MASSIVE moment in Personal
There is a universal pattern of sensemaking that can accelerate your best thinking.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s how I used it to take a massive leap in my career.
The Rules of Ideas Part I [Thread]
I just released an update to TheBrain-navigation script + a walkthrough video introducing new features.
It's amazing what you can do with
@excalidraw
in
@obsdmd
.
This version of the script abandons Breadcrumbs in favor of Dataview.
📽👉📽👉
The New Obsidian Icon! 🎉
@obsdmd
has reached great heights including: 1 million downloads, 100,000 Discord members and 1,000 community plugins
To celebrate, they have created a new icon that reflects Obsidian's values (durable, private, malleable, independent and yours)
🔆 How can you use linked notes in practical and powerful ways?
That is the question. The answer?
Attend the first annual Linking Your Thinking Conference!
This is the LYT Kit
It’s the world’s most downloaded kit for linked notes (over 35000 times)
It has 250+ notes that are linked 1000+ times
Explore, experiment, and learn by doing
Plus you get a free email course on core PKM and LYT concepts
Comment “YES” if you want access!
Obsidian writers use Markdown to write
But so many people don't know why
Here are 8 reasons to master Markdown language so you can be a better writer 👇
Tired of feeling intimidated by Obsidian?
You need to try the world's most downloaded FREE starter kit for linked notes (35,000+)
Here's a breakdown of it and how it will help you gain momentum on your creative ideas👇
I love the Linear Calendar but I never see any apps provide a view for it.
In 2013, I made my own version.
It was the best of times.
Can this be made in
@obsdmd
or
@logseq
or
@craftdocsapp
or
@RoamResearch
?
People complain about Obsidian graphs, but they're forgetting its most powerful purpose...
TRIANGULATION!
Here's how you can use it to unlock new insights in your PKM 👇
Are you embarrassed to take notes?
Have you been shamed by Toxic Productivity People saying notes are worthless?
This video is for you.
The thing is, Toxic Productivity People miss the point.
They have a myopic view on notes.
"Surely, all notes must lead to outputs," they
I'm continually amazed at all the Richard Feynman love, but the truth is...
...he deserves it. Here are three reasons why:
1. Triangulation
2. 12 Favorite Problems
3. Writing is the Thinking!
I propose a radical new practice of PKM:
SENSEMAKING SUNDAYS
One day a week, note-takers around the world have to put down their highlighters, web clippers, & regurgitated quotes...
They have to stop gorging on endless information.
Then something amazing can happen...
No, books are NOT for reading.
Finishing a book means nothing and is a harmful goal.
It doesn't matter if you've read 100 books in the last year.
What matters is what the book got you to think!
Books are for thinking, not reading💭 📚
When people see what's now possible in Obsidian for managing everything from people to movies, they are going to have their minds blown
It's all thanks to "Properties". While Notion has silo'ed databases (last time I checked), Obsidian has one, unlocking incredible power.
Making notes is one of the best habits you can have.
But most people do it wrong - leading to mess, chaos, and frustration.
Here's how to do it right, using the 5-Step NoMa Method (thread) ⬇️:
Wonderful convo with
@obsdmd
CEO
@kepano
and
@n_vanderhoeven
and Andy Polaine.
Three things that resonated for me...
• 1,000,000 Obsidian users 🤯, maybe...ish...🤷
• Metadata improvements coming...easier to input 👀
• Collaboration/Shared notes,
Moving fast in
@obsdmd
isn't just a "nice thing".
It opens up new ways of thinking.
Think of a plane flying at 342 meters per second. It's fast, but nothing happens.
Get to 343 though—and BOOM 🚀—it's broken the sound barrier.
It's invisible, but damn, you HEAR it.
That's
I finally took a break.
It's rare that I feel like I've actually taken a break. Vacations don't usually count. You can go on vacations and feel exhilarated, but not really relaxed.
Since I started Linking Your Thinking in the summer of 2020, it's felt like a nonstop
It turns out, not everyone manages knowledge the same way I do! Related to a recent post by
@roamhacker
, here's an attempt to make sense out of this thing we might call PKM.
Hope this encourages the questions of Where & How we spend time managing knowledge. It has for me!
Most conferences are boring.
That's why I made a better one!
Here's an official invite to our 2nd all-time LYT Conference on Sept. 6!
→ expose yourself to new ideas
→ meet stimulating thinkers
→ challenge perspectives
→ let idea sparks fly
Here's what's in store 👇
My two favorite parts of Obsidian 1.5.2
You can now select text, right click, and get a bunch of standard formatting options. This is great for those new to Markdown.
If you use Callouts like me, the "Clear formatting" command is really nice to remove any wacky formatting.
Obsidian 1.5.2 is now available for early access!
Many improvements to tables, Sync version history, editor formatting, outline, and more.
Tables
- Triple-click in a table cell to select the whole table.
- Clicking on the drag-indicators is now a quick way to select the entire
Obsidian's massive surge is unlike the ones from Roam (and the start of the one we are seeing from Tana).
It's a broader, less Twitter-active, set of users.
It also makes it harder to predict.
I find it odd that
@fortelabs
speaks with aliens.
He shared how he does it in my 2nd-ever podcast for "How I Think".
We cover a lot. The 10 questions he uses to hack his brain are gold.
Here's a taste of what to expect:
• What is the # 1 question to unlock any situation?
•
Obsidian 0.13.14 is here! 🎄
• Live Preview
• Preview images, checkbox, embeds and even plugin custom blocks
• Spellchecker supports multiple languages
• Learn more
• Drag and drop to rearrange headings from Outline
• Basic RTL support
20% of your knowledge comes from reading.
80% of your knowledge comes from thinking.
Problem: Most people spend 80% of their time reading & only 20% of the time thinking.
Solution: Spend 3X the time thinking and analyzing what you read and watch your knowledge skyrocket.
It boggles my mind how a $30 million VC-backed company ⭕️ has no one around on a Tuesday to solve a simple issue for a customer that pays $4000/yr to use it.
Compare that to Obsidian, where if I ask a question in the community, many people are able to help almost immediately.
I just experienced the most incredibly warm and impactful weekend with group of wonderful humans. The professional unlocks pale in comparison to the personal ones—and the generosity of spirit assembled there is hard to express.
Thanks to
@fortelabs
and
@TheLaurenValdez
and
The Trap of Linear Thinking
When people inevitably say, "but how does that make you more productive" inherent in their question is a belief that things move in straight lines. They rarely do.
Our best thinking and our greatest contributions rarely come from linear, efficient
Apps come and go, but the files you create should last.
Our new open source plugin makes it easy to convert your Evernote data to plain text Markdown files that you own.
You can download Obsidian Importer from the plugin directory, it's completely free.
I think it's fair to say there are a contrarians on this platform. Maybe they are not deliberate disagree'ers in their private lives, but they are in these digital realms. That's good because it means they don't blindly accept what other people say. This can open up discussions,