Pocket book LM and Obsidian are the dynamic duo I did not know I wanted

Taking notes is one thing many people do all through the day. I do know I am unable to get by mine with out setting reminders or jotting down a couple of issues to jog my reminiscence. It is like I am nonetheless in class and note-taking is my saving grace earlier than the subsequent take a look at — besides as a substitute of learning, I am simply making an attempt to not overlook one thing I must do.

Whether or not I am in a gathering or researching a brand new subject for a narrative, I take notes as I am going. I attempt to determine what is going on on with a brand new program or make sense of a subject that is getting traction currently, and I jot issues down alongside the best way. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for maintaining tabs on every kind of subjects, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is develop into fashionable with thousands and thousands of customers.

I am additionally an enormous proponent of NotebookLM and figured why not attempt to use Google’s note taking app to assist me decipher a few of my notes in Obsidian. What I discovered was truly fairly stunning. Not solely is my handwriting atrocious, however my notes could be actually exhausting to decipher. Fortunately, AI was in a position to assist me spot some patterns.

Obsidian is simple to make use of and easy to combine

I used to be happy with how you can convey it over

Should you’re utilizing Obsidian, you’ll be able to open completely different sorts of notes and use them for absolutely anything. On the finish of the day, you are the one typing in them, so it is utterly as much as you ways you employ them. I like to make use of Obsidian to maintain monitor of my week. I normally have a word with reminders for every day, together with one for freelance subjects I wish to analysis for story concepts. I will even make a every day word for random ideas or issues I must look into.

Fortunately, there are a couple of methods to combine the notes I maintain in my Obsidian vault. I can export them as PDFs and add them to NotebookLM. It is easy sufficient, however you do have to avoid wasting every word individually. That may current a little bit of a problem, because you may lose the connections between your notes — and the AI might not perceive how every part suits collectively. So, utilizing Markdown hyperlinks is necessary.

Markdown is the key ingredient for straightforward integration

You may copy, paste, and get the hyperlinks

As a result of NotebookLM works with Markdown, I exploit Markdown hyperlinks in my Obsidian notes. I depend on these hyperlinks to attach my notes and assist me perceive which subjects are a part of the identical analysis thread. I do maintain them in folders in my vault, however moderately than opening one word after which one other simply to toggle between them, a Markdown hyperlink lets me bounce from one to the opposite.

Meaning I can copy and paste textual content from Obsidian into NotebookLM, and it understands how the notes are related… all because of the Markdown hyperlinks. That is confirmed once I use one of many many options that NotebookLM affords to assist folks research and do analysis. In fact, I additionally fill out my pocket book with different analysis hyperlinks outdoors of Obsidian to color a fuller image of no matter subject I am diving into, particularly if I am beginning with notes I uploaded from Obsidian.

Thoughts Map helps me join my analysis additional

I uploaded a listing of the notes I had opened at this time and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, displaying how they’re related and how you can finest navigate by them. It even discovered components of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t related through Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. Which may look like a small factor, however I accomplish that a lot analysis on completely different subjects that it may be robust to maintain monitor of every part.

Granted, I do not at all times put every part into Obsidian. However I do continuously hyperlink again to older notes from new ones. Utilizing Thoughts Map helps me make deeper connections to notes I could have missed linking. I additionally actually loved the newer NotebookLM software, Stories. I will add in a few of my scribblings (which can learn like they’re from a madman) and Stories can flip that right into a briefing doc to assist me higher perceive each my very own writing and the analysis hyperlinks I’ve added from across the net. Since NotebookLM makes use of no matter I present as its supply materials, it may well pull the solutions I would like straight from my analysis.

Generally, I simply use it to summarize and assist me set up

I can ask inquiries to remind me in regards to the subject

I do lots in Obsidian to maintain monitor of every part happening in each my skilled and private life. Since I am at my laptop for a lot of the day, I converted from the iPhone’s Notes app to Obsidian as a result of it is a lot simpler to prepare and customise with completely different options. Now that NotebookLM has a cell app as effectively, it opens up much more flexibility in how I combine it with Obsidian.

I can return into Obsidian to revise or broaden what I’ve written and reap the benefits of its wide selection of options. Conserving Obsidian tidy additionally improves how effectively NotebookLM can course of and use the content material — particularly as I make updates. As soon as I sync the 2, I can use NotebookLM like a chatbot, asking questions to go looking deeper into the analysis. The extra I exploit these two and combine them, the higher they’re going to be, which is one thing I am genuinely so enthusiastic about.