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 means of mine with out setting reminders or jotting down just a few issues to jog my reminiscence. It is like I am nonetheless at school and note-taking is my saving grace earlier than the following take a look at — besides as a substitute of finding out, I am simply making an attempt 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 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 recently, and I jot issues down alongside the best way. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for retaining tabs on all types of subjects, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is grow to be common with tens of millions 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 might be actually laborious to decipher. Fortunately, AI was capable of assist me spot some patterns.

Obsidian is straightforward to make use of and easy to combine

I used to be happy with the best way to deliver it over

In case you’re utilizing Obsidian, you possibly can 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 the way you utilize them. I like to make use of Obsidian to maintain observe 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 day by day word for random ideas or issues I have to look into.

Fortunately, there are just a few methods to combine the notes I preserve 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 could not perceive how all the pieces matches collectively. So, utilizing Markdown hyperlinks is vital.

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 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 preserve them in folders in my vault, however somewhat than opening one word after which one other simply to toggle between them, a Markdown hyperlink lets me soar from one to the opposite.

Which means I can copy and paste textual content from Obsidian into NotebookLM, and it understands how the notes are linked… all due to the Markdown hyperlinks. That is confirmed after I use one of many many options that NotebookLM affords to assist individuals research and do analysis. After all, 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 as we speak and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, displaying how they’re linked and the best way to finest navigate by means of them. It even discovered elements of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t linked through Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. That may look like a small factor, however I accomplish that a lot analysis on completely different subjects that it may be robust to maintain observe of all the pieces.

Granted, I do not at all times put all the pieces into Obsidian. However I do often 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, Reviews. I will add in a few of my scribblings (which can learn like they’re from a madman) and Reviews 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 could possibly pull the solutions I want straight from my analysis.

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

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

I do a lot in Obsidian to maintain observe of all the pieces occurring 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 arrange and customise with completely different options. Now that NotebookLM has a cellular 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 wide selection of options. Maintaining 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.