falling, getting back up, falling, getting back up. it's never as quick as it sounds written in a sentence. it takes days and weeks at times. i'm used to it, so it's gotten easier. remember when you used to ask "does it get better?" and wanted so badly to hear "yes, it does." only to get hit with the "no, but you get more resilient as you go too, so maybe in a sense it does." it used to piss me off because i would think "why do i have to become resilient in the first place??"
well, at least they didn't lie. and i am grateful for that. happy reading folks! it's the only way to be! reading! reading and reading ~｡༚˖⑅｡༚˖♡
The Alternative title of this entry should be "How the Church of Obsidian saved by dirty heathen soul".
Anyway, I have a (now on Hiatus) youtube channel that I had fucktonnes of notes, scripts and suchlike for that were sat on my overcrowded gDrive unorganised and doing nothing.
I had heard of Obsidian before but it all looked very overcomplicated and I didn't think I would have a use for it from watching all the how to videos where members of the Church of Obsidian showed people their simple (read: complex) note taking system that they had optimised.
However the one thing I will say about Obsidian is that there is no one system and because everyone works differently, everyone will do shit differently. Take ideas from those videos on how you can organise shit, but don't copy their system because their system might not work for you. However, I have been converted to the Church of Obsidian so I'm going to stand here and testify.
Anyway, as I said, I had a big fuck off load of Youtube Shit, and I decided the best way to do that was using Obsidian. Why? Well unlike other note apps, it's all text editor readable .md files. It's a personal wiki system and you can literally change .txt files to .md files by changing the file extension. Yes you heard me. Also, there is no server. If Notion or Evernote's servers got hacked or taken down, you're notes are gone. With obsidian, your notes are on your harddrive (I have my vaults, yes, plural, on a pendrive). You can put them on a cloud server or a home server or just on your PC and you can copy them and fuck around with them all you want, they're yours and if Obsidian decides "Obsidian Sync" (their optional paid web sync service) isn't enough and decide to paywall the app completely, you'll be fine because your notes are literally just a load of files readable on any text editor.
Anyway, how did I adapt all my files on gDrive to Obsidian. Well first I went to drive.google.com and downloaded all the relevant notes, scripts, files and shit relating to my Youtube Channel. They download as .doc files so I had to convert them to text. Most web "doc to txt" services limit you to two files per upload unless you pay, but I found a free (if slightly janky) app called MultiDoc Converter which is free and did the job well.
Next thing I did was mass rename the files from .txt to .md, which you can do with the shell. Yes the shell! It took me a while to figure out but here's how I did it.
Go to the folder where the .txt files are.
shift + right click > Open Powershell
Type ren *.txt *.md
This converted the txt files to markdown files. Yes, it's as simple as changing the friggin file extension. If you do not change the files to .md, you will not be able to Edit them.
Next is to open a new vault in Obsidian (if you don't already have one). In Obsidian, make a folder for all these new files (if you want) and in the file explorer, move all the files from the folder where they were into the folder in your vault.
Congratulations, they're now in Obsidian.
Now what?
Well the files (for me) were unlinked and unorganised. So I took the subjects the videos were on (I had a lot of videos about closed stations) and put relevant hashtags in them to link them all together, then when an article mentioned something else, I would link to the article using that.
This was a history channel, so I made a lot of Ghost notes to link references to years together (some I made into blank MOCs) and gave them the Hashtag #year. You can't make hashtags from numbers I'm afraid.
The Result?
Organised, but searchable and indexable chaos.
I'm now using Obsidian as a note app regularly, albeit on a different vault in a different method.
I am a person that loves to learn and take notes, but I tend to run into the problem of over-consuming. I’m a big idea type of person so I have many things I want to try but if I don't have a system most ideas are stuck in my head taking up space that can be used for creating.
I need a system that can be used in all parts of life that will help me capture my ideas and build on them. I reintroduced myself to the concept of a second brain. A second brain is essentially a methodology for saving and systematically reminding yourself of ideas, insights, and connections you’ve made through your experiences. It's used to free up your brain space and ensure you are creating valuable things from the information you consume.
It's a pretty simple concept that is achieved through a 4-step process:
CODE
Capture the ideas and insights worth saving
Organize for accountability
Distill down to the essence
Express your unique ideas and experiences
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Capture the ideas and insights you think are work saving
Keep your notes in a centralized place so you will always know where things are
Make conscious decisions about what you consume
Only keep what resonates, that way everything has a purpose.
Decided that I will use OneNote as my one-stop shop. I also started using a read-later app as a way to save articles for later and it has a tagging feature which is amazing!
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Organize for accountability
When it comes to note-taking, the simpler and more flexible the organization method the better.
Pro-tip: Avoid making a perfect hierarchy of folders from the get-go
PARA Method: Everything in your life can fit into one of the below categories
Area: Long-term responsibilities
Projects: Short-term responsibilities
Resources: Topics or interests that will be useful in the future
Archives: Information that is inactive
I adopted the PARA method for my work OneNote, I have the tabs sectioned out for the different categories and I also have a section that I named inbox. The idea here is that everything has a place but try not to overthink it. The more flexibility you give yourself the better.
Pro-tip: Start with a clean slate. Move all existing files into an archive folder with today's date.
This is the main issue I had with the methodology, when I first tried to implement the PARA method I thought I had to use it on existing information. Needless to say, it was overwhelming and I ended up giving up. This time starting fresh took the weight of what to do will all the old information and allows my system to grow with me and helps reshape my method of thinking. It also helps that I didn't delete anything. If I need an old piece of information, its always there.
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Distill down to the essence
Create actionable, bite-size summaries and focus on the main points
Summarize progressively, save an excerpt, create a summary, and create a summary of the summary.
I know it sounds a bit redundant BUT this allows you to see the note in different ways and you always want to leave a note better than you found it.
Add value to each note every time you touch it
Highlighting the most important parts
Add a link to reference later
Defining key terms in case you forget
Inserting placeholders when you leave off so you know where to pick up
You always want to enhance your notes and design them for your future self.
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Express your unique ideas
For me, note-taking is also an art form. It's how I express my interests and thoughts. I love that anything you want to learn is at your fingertips and I love sharing what I find in hopes that it helps someone else.
I also find informational blogging therapeutic. If I have a problem, goal, or task I usually make a post about it which helps me to not only think through my thoughts but also as a way to showcase what I learned. I feel like I found my voice and note-taking helps me not only learn and stay organized but also keeps me sane most days.
I'm excited to perfect my craft and the best part is that there is no finished product, you’re always improving!
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Music Challenge Day 4: A song by a new artist you just discovered
My Pick: Muni Long is not a new artist but I've fallen in love with her voice and her pen is nice!
Todays Reading: 📖 I will be finishing up Keith Haring Journals and extracting my highlights and notes from these books by Steven Pressfield
-The Artist’s Journey
-The War of Art
- Do the Work
-Turning Pro
-Nobody Wants to Read your Sh*t
I will be taking my notes and adding them into my second brain 🧠 📖📓📚📲📱🤳💻🖥️💾👨🏾💻👾
My paperblanks journals 📓 are the conduit in which the obscure, brilliant, broken, and racing thoughts 💭 of my mind transmutate into physical form.
Once captured, via transferring notes 📝 and highlights in my various books and media, to my paperblanks journals, they will be organized and distilled using Notion. An amazing app and the digital hub or control center of my second brain 🧠.
I'm starting to use a Second Brain system this week -- and much as I like writing in a notebook when it's in a notebook I have to admit to myself, it becomes out of sight and out of mind.
In order to start, I'm playing around with Notion and Obsidian.
I have so many notes cluttered around that honestly just becomes useless.
So putting this here as my public accountability.
Also, I'm in the upswing on the productivity energy scale and I'm going to ride it as far as I can take it.
