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 can not get by way of mine with out setting reminders or jotting down a number 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 finding out, I am simply attempting to not neglect one thing I have to do.

Whether or not I am in a gathering or researching a brand new matter for a narrative, I take notes as I’m 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 these days, and I jot issues down alongside the way in which. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for conserving tabs on every kind of matters, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is develop into standard with hundreds of 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 really fairly shocking. Not solely is my handwriting atrocious, however my notes might be actually arduous to decipher. Fortunately, AI was capable of assist me spot some patterns.

Obsidian is simple to make use of and easy to combine

I used to be happy with learn how to deliver it over

In the event you’re utilizing Obsidian, you may 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 fully as much as you ways you utilize 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 matters I need to analysis for story concepts. I am going to even make a day by day word for random ideas or issues I have to look into.

Fortunately, there are a number of methods to combine the notes I hold in my Obsidian vault. I can export them as PDFs and add them to NotebookLM. It is easy sufficient, however you do have to save lots of every word individually. That may current a little bit of a problem, because you may lose the connections between your notes — and the AI could not perceive how the whole lot matches collectively. So, utilizing Markdown hyperlinks is essential.

Markdown is the key ingredient for simple integration

You’ll be able to copy, paste, and get the hyperlinks

As a result of NotebookLM works with Markdown, I take advantage of Markdown hyperlinks in my Obsidian notes. I depend on these hyperlinks to attach my notes and assist me perceive which matters are a part of the identical analysis thread. I do hold them in folders in my vault, however slightly than opening one word after which one other simply to toggle between them, a Markdown hyperlink lets me leap 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 due to the Markdown hyperlinks. That is confirmed once I use one of many many options that NotebookLM affords to assist individuals examine 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 matter 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 the moment and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, displaying how they’re related and learn how to greatest navigate by way of them. It even discovered elements of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t related by way of Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. That may look like a small factor, however I achieve this a lot analysis on completely different matters that it may be powerful to maintain monitor of the whole lot.

Granted, I do not all the time put the whole lot into Obsidian. However I do steadily 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 device, Experiences. I am going to add in a few of my scribblings (which can learn like they’re from a madman) and Experiences 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 internet. Since NotebookLM makes use of no matter I present as its supply materials, it may possibly 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 concerning the matter

I do loads in Obsidian to maintain monitor of the whole lot occurring in each my skilled and private life. Since I am at my pc for many of the day, I converted from the iPhone’s Notes app to Obsidian as a result of it is a lot simpler to arrange 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 make the most of its big selection of options. Preserving 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 look deeper into the analysis. The extra I take advantage of these two and combine them, the higher they’re going to be, which is one thing I am genuinely so enthusiastic about.