Rethinking MY PKM: How I Organize Everything In Obsidian

hey everyone in today's video I'm going

to share with you how I organize

everything in obsidian this is the end

of a long journey that started almost a

year ago when I first published

rethinking my PKM one and since then

I've been releasing various videos on

the topic and now I'm ready to share how

my entire system works so in today's

video we are going to look at the six

principles of my PCM and the 14

components of my system and for each of

them each of the components I'm going to

try to give you multiple examples from

My Vault

also the drawing that I'm going to use

in today's video I'm going to include a

link in the video description to this

excalator drawing so you can open this

and you will find lots of additional

information

links to various videos that I've shared

and links to blog posts and other

materials so you can really dive into

the topic that interests you the most

just a quick reminder the visual

thinking Workshop cohort for is starting

this Saturday if you're interested to

learn more about visual thinking if you

want to learn from me about organizing

your information and obsidian this is an

awesome opportunity to meet with me and

to work together I'd love you to join

cohort for

so now let's dive in and let's start

with the six principles

so my first principle is to keep it

simple

each component each of the 14 components

has a clear purpose and a single purpose

and I try to keep these separate from

one another so I don't get confused

about it

second I'm keen on minimizing friction I

use two primary tools for this templater

and data view but of course there are

some other automations as well but

automation is an important part of my

workflow

third

I live in the Brownfield reality and I

bet most of you also this means that

I've had previous PKM systems where I

stored information I had my file system

so I've every time I upgrade my PC I

store the previous PCS content in a

folder called archive so this is archive

in an R Hive in an R Hive in an R Hive

going back to the 1990s so there's lots

of stuff

also I use multiple tools like the brain

Evernote ROM research Etc and I've

imported materials from there but this

means that overall my volt is a mess I

try to get on top of the categories or

tags or the folders but it is really

hard with this Brownfield reality and I

decided to accept reality for what it is

fourth I'm keen on avoiding moving files

around I make this point because Thiago

forte in building a second brain

proposes a workflow where you move files

into a folder for the project and when

the project completes move your files to

somewhere else

I don't like to move files around

because then links break even in

obsidian where you get some control

around it there are some issues with

moving files around so I place the file

somewhere and I stick to that location

even if it sometimes means that things

don't end up in their correct folders

fifth I apply latch latch stands for

location alphabet time category and

hierarchy and this was coined by Richard

Warman he is the founder of TED talks

and he said that everything in the world

can be organized by these five means and

by these five means only and the way I

apply latch or the reason I apply latch

is to maximize the vase how I can find

information so I can find information

based on my calendar I can find the

information based on the physical

location if it was force some reason

memorable I can find it based on

categories and with the other methods as

well using latch and applying latch to

each pieces of information in my world

helps me maximize findability and

finally I always link now this is

something that I've not been always

deliberate on I looked at how many

orphan files I have in my Vault and I

was surprised to see that it was in the

high hundreds meaning five six hundred

orphan files and this is because often

I'm using folders in a way that they

provide a structure and often I just

simply place a document with the topic

in that file but of course that reduces

findability so recently I've decided

that I'm only going to place files in my

vol if I'm able to link it to somewhere

to My Graph so these are my principles

and then let's dive into each of the

tools I'm going to start with folders

and first of all you can see my folder

hierarchy here

it is

a relatively lean folder hierarchy so

you can see I have these are my folders

there are some folders that I would love

to get rid of but because I don't want

to move files and because of the

Brownfield reality I cannot so archive

the brain is there it has lots and lots

of files where you can see there it has

almost

4500 files and the Thousand subfolders

so that is a big mess but also Hobbies I

would love to move on their projects but

again lots of files here lots of folders

and I just decided to leave it there it

is by the way I think of folders not as

physical storage locations but as name

spaces so let me show you what I mean by

that

so when I create

a new link to a file that doesn't exist

in My Vault let's imagine I'm adding a

new book to My Vault and I want to add

the author I don't just write the name

of the author for example Dan Rome but I

create the author in the people author's

namespace which simply means that I type

in and here in search we can actually

take a look at this so I type in

a link that starts with people then

slash author and then slash I continue

with the name of the author so in this

case you can see I have a number of

ghost links so ghost link means that the

actual folder for the author has not

been created so you can see here Dan

Rome or Eliezer yutkovski you can see

here a couple of Hungarian poets as well

as some other authors

by doing this then I create the file or

when I create the link to the name of

the person I can

already give it a type I know it's an

author even without creating the file

and adding a tag author to me this is

helpful

second I like folders because they help

me manage what gets synchronized with

obsidian sync so here in obsidian sync

settings you can actually

specify exclude folders so here on my

Mac I have nothing all my videos are on

my desktop PC

there I have lots of folders that are in

the exclude because for example I

exclude all the folders with the video

files and voice files because they are

large and there's no point in

synchronizing them however I keep them

in obsidian but I can ring fence that

content and not move it around with

obsidian sync

and then

I try to name YouTube Project files and

other files as well or rather folders

with a year month date naming this is

something new that I've started so I

don't really have many examples of this

but here you will see that some of the

folders that are now created recently

followed this naming convention what

this helps me with is it gives me a

chronological order for my videos

because you can see I have whole bunch

of files here and sometimes it is a bit

of a difficult

thing to find the video however I do

remember the time when I created that

video

and then in obsidian you can set up the

attachments folder and also the new file

so here if I come to settings under

files and links there are these

additional settings that you can create

so first of all the default location for

new notes for me is the same folder as

the current file which means that if I'm

working on a topic and I just simply

write the name of a new file not using

the namespace then that file is going to

be created in the same folder if I want

to place it somewhere else then I follow

this namespace approach and I type out

the location of the file

and second I keep my attachments under

the subfolder of the topic for me

attachments and the

notes are very closely connected and

this is why for me this makes sense so

for example here if I come to input this

is where all my inputs are for example

articles and assessments and books and

conferences films if here's for example

my book notes on deep work and you can

see here that I have my attachments

folder which includes all of my

illustrations for deep work so that's

about folders now moving on to tags I

only use one tag per page there's one

exception to this which is more a

stylistic thing and I didn't even

include it here

but you will see it in the next step

when I talk about data View and how I'm

using search so

for now

the point is I

aim to give a single tag to each

document and that will give that

document a type so for example if we

open this page and I'm going to navigate

here

if I open this page you can see that

this is a map of content and you can see

I have my tag map of content here and

now if I open xcoli Brain for this page

then what you will see here is based on

the tag on the page I'm going to give

this file a different look and feel in X

call your brain so all my map of

contents are with this red color and

have this icon of a map there all my

people file so you can see couple of

people here Thiago Fort and Nick Milo

are they have this person at the

beginning all my books have this book

there then I have ex College Road

drawings have this painter's palette

there

Etc so I use the tag for the page to

also Define the look and feel of this

page in X color brain and just to show

you how I configure this in excalib

brain so here if I come to excalibrane

settings I can scroll down here here are

all the different tags listed that I'm

using in My Vault with a special purpose

and here if I choose one of the tags so

let's look at the Moc that we looked at

a second ago you can see that I have my

prefix which is this map emoji and then

I have the background color and the text

color specified and I can see that this

is how these are going to look and for

example if I look at a person then you

can see that this is how a person node

looks like in X color brain I need to

add these Stacks here and then they

appear here in the list and finally on

tags I have this article call and on the

link that I'm going to include in the

show notes that will take you to

excalator.com with this drawing there

you will find this link and you can

click on this so back in the time when I

was working in the brain I had this

whole

color scheme of how I used the different

thought types and these are actually the

equivalents of tags or the way I use

them in obsidian and I had different

color ranges so read the range were all

the media that I consumed the yellow

range was for example all the people

friends family colleagues all these

purple items were companies or legal

entities

Etc so each color had its own purpose

and then I looked at my graph then I was

able to understand it immediately or

understand it much better

so moving on talking about links so

we're going to look back to my PKM Moc

and you will see how I'm using links

here so or the ontology so the ontology

is defined here in the front by this

data view field with double columns

after it and then I have the link the

way this is going to appear on the graph

in X color brain is here if you take a

look you will see that these tags that

are here on the left hand side appear

here as related to examples

example examples Etc author you have the

different type of relationship so I use

ontology in My Vault

and I use it to describe the

relationship between this file and the

next file to me this helps to think

about why I have that link there it

what's the purpose of the link actually

coming up with the ontology is sometimes

a challenge in ex call it brain there's

a feature that I get prompted with these

ontologies so if I type triple double

colon then this list comes up and I can

just simply type and we'll get all the

different type of ontologies I have

defined and each of these has a

definition index color brain whether

they're a parent a child or a friend so

again here in ex call it brain you can

see that these are all the fields that

our parents or children and friends I

have some

excluded ontologies of HR there for some

other technical reasons and I have also

a couple of

unregistered ones that I either still

need to register to make it explicit in

X color brain or they're just there

because over time these were created

anyway so this trigger oh and let me

just show you this so you can see here

you have the ontology suggestor is

something you can turn on and then using

these features these hot combinations

the suggestor comes up so if I only want

to see friend relationships then these

are all the type of ontologies I can

apply here that will create a lateral

Link in escalate brain for me

so the lateral link just to show you

that as well they'll look like this so

everything here the central idea is the

document I have open and everything on

the left hand side are lateral links

these are parent

links and these are children nodes so

that's the logic and I use the ontology

to specify where each item gets on my

graph linking also

includes embedding items into the

excalator storyboard so again let me

just show you how this storyboard looks

like so the document we are looking at

right now so again I'm going to open

excalibrane and now in the center you

can see that this is the file we are

looking at so this is mypkm design text

links folder ontology Moc zettel custom

Etc and you can see that all of these

items that are embedded here are also

present here so for example here I have

this calendar icon that's embedded I'm

not going to navigate to this because

that will take us off on a tangent but

you can see already that this icon is

actually used in four other places so

it's used in five places so already with

this I'm making a connection to

somewhere else where I talk about time

and calendaring

Etc but so for me when I embed an object

into my X call it raw storyboard for a

topic then that already will create a

link

and on the ontology we already talked

about the ontology bit so we are going

to take this topic off as well the

ontology describes the relationship

between notes and I differentiate

between parent child and lateral

connections I implemented with data view

fields and I visualize it with

excalibraine here's a video where I talk

about this in more detail

then the next important element of my

organization system is I'm trying to

work with atomic nodes and use

transclusion so for example as just I

mentioned with the calendar item and

maybe we can

we can actually navigate to that

calendar to see where else we are using

the calendar so by reusing or maybe

here's the check mark and we're going to

navigate to this

by if I click here this will open the

check mark and here I can

come to the various documents

so for example evaluating evidence this

is actually a part of my book on a page

for the book rationality so here I'm

using exactly the same check mark and

using the same check mark I can navigate

to to the topic sometimes these links

are

irrelevant oftentimes this comes as an

interesting surprise that yeah that that

visual link that I reuse

also provides a contextual linking

so that's about Atomic notes I also use

this the construction of images there

are two videos here I'm not going to go

into this because this is a big rabbit

hole that goes down into this hole how I

deconstruct excel drawings into sub

drawings but this is a very important

part of my whole methodology of reusing

components not redrawing and using these

components to create links but also

I tried to do this by creating

consistent sections in my other notes as

well so here are two examples here's an

example of an article and you will see

that the article has a summary section

and by the way if you look at my book

notes then the book note also has a

summary section by way of having this

commonality I know that if I'm

referencing a book I can immediately

write hashtag summary and just get the

summary embedded into the location so if

I transclude this so let's say I open

today's daily node and I want to

transclude building a second brain

summary so then I would write

building a second brain like this and I

would immediately write hashtag summary

and with this I'm able to embed this

here and I would also probably add a

reference here so in this case the

reason I'm putting this here is because

this is an example so I would add my

ontology like this but by having this

consistent approach of always calling

the summary summary this just simplifies

my life because with this consistency I

can easily embed items and reference

them the same with quotes don't ask me

why I ended up with P but every quote

that I have so for example here's the

daily quote from today if I look here in

markdown then you will see that here I

have this quote from Napoleon Hill and

here I have this reference with p and

again I know that if there's a quote a

single quote in a file that is worth

referencing then it's going to have a

block reference p and that just helps me

easily find these items in My Vault this

file this example book is a good example

for Section headings

so there is a trade-off between

embedding files and in reference or or

creating larger files so if I look at

building a second brain you can see here

that I have couple of notes here and

these notes are just simply typed here

so I'm I'm not embedding anything here

in this case I made some notes about the

book some of my research as I was

reading the book and here under notes I

simply added these items and that's all

but for example if I would open another

book I'm going to open for example

emergence

so if I open emergence then here you

will see that I had a bit more content

here and in this case

I included or transcluded content here

and some of them I only translated the

summary in other cases I transcluded the

whole material but in these cases the

files actually live in their proper

location so this file lives here in its

input folder under YouTube so this is

the input YouTube folder that's where

the file is and here it's a block

reference so you can see this as a block

reference so that's the trade-off if I

have lots of files or lots of notes that

I want to include then I start to break

them out into their relevant files and I

make them embeds that have a link if I

don't have that many I typically start

by typing these topics here

and then break them out later if I feel

that that is required so moving on let's

move up to the top here

so file names I have a couple of file

name conventions which I find pretty

helpful All My Mocs start with an

underscore like you can see here so

let's just to show you some of the other

mocs if I come to call it brain and I

think with that we can also cover mlc so

here these are the various map of

contents in My Vault you can see these

right here

and you can see that each of them have

the same file name but similarly I have

naming conventions so for example

book cover

will bring up all the book covers I have

in my Vault or if I type in

logo then this will bring all the logo

images if I type icon

then it will show all the icons in My

Vault I also use this I have some

automations around it I'm going to

include that link here as well so here

if I open the image Library so it's here

I also have a local library so maybe

let's open the local library then this

will

show me all the logos in My Vault so all

of these files will start with the word

logo so there's my you can see my Apple

logo here if I

press Ctrl o and type logo

Apple logo then you can see that indeed

that Apple logo is right there also in

my naming convention you can see that at

the end in this case and in most of the

cases my file name has three parts it

specifies the type of file so is it the

book cover a logo an illustration a

photo an icon a whatever then there's

the actual keywords that Define the file

so in this case it's Apple logo but for

example if I open my image library then

you will see that I have longer file

names in my image Library so these are

all the icons in My Vault and here you

can see that you see the

headache frustration anger are the

keywords and then the final part of the

naming convention you will see here as

well is the source of the file so in

this case it's a flat icon but if the

source is something else then it's going

to be that other source so these are the

various naming so you can see here book

cover illustration thumbnail book on the

page starts with a bob literature note

starts with Ln

Etc and the date format I use is year

year months month and day day because

that consistent naming helps me find

stuff easier

then I use templates and I have lots of

templates so here if I open my template

folder

template or templates so you can see I

have a whole bunch of templates I

actually follow again the naming

convention here as well so I have

templates that create a new line so it

just creates a single line in the

document and I have templates that

create new pages and I have some other

templates as well

for many of the things I do I use these

templates and then some of my templates

actually automate the process of

creating folders and multiple files so

if there's a more complex activity then

I use that so for example the YouTube

workflow video that I explain here will

show you a case study where I have a

template that creates files

and folders and places stuff all the

places and the excalator templates shows

you different ways how you can create

graphical templates

maybe pre-filled templates for various

tasks so templates are an important part

of my setup

they already talked about ontology and

frankly we already looked at the maps of

content as well here's another map of

content just as an example so this is my

map of content about sketchnoting again

you can see here all the different

ontologies and links you can see lots of

material here so this is my map of

content for sketchnoting and I have a

good number of map of contents to

summarize various topics that I'm

working on and some of these so for

example here this map of content also

has some visual summaries as well so for

example this is a summary about some

sketchnoting listing some sketch noters

some YouTube channels some books and

some stuff about visual vocabulary

Etc then moving on

the way I use daily notes is I use daily

notes to create the time hierarchy based