Using Obsidian for academic writing and creativity

right I've got I've got a very specific

we've got a list all right excellent a

little list because I wanted to

um I wanted to ask you about this first

before we crack into obsidian in in some

depth

I wondered if we could frame the

conversation just a little bit

and so I'm gonna I'm gonna pitch this

idea to you and see what you think

so

I'm coming at this

from a position of well

a bit of background you told me about

obsidian

months ago and you said go and have a

look and I went and had a look and did a

poor job of having a look tester he said

but my immediate impression was

has actually persisted

since I've been doing more work on it so

I come to the conversation today with

quite a specific question

now I I wonder whether it's not

worthwhile if we're going to distribute

this message out to people to say there

are resources to go and look at on

YouTube and maybe we can curate some

links for people if you just want to get

a flavor of what obsidian is and when

you see the screen share that hopefully

you're going to see from you

it'll make a bit more sense but we can

do a bit of background stuff but rather

than getting into the background stuff

because the problem that I've had with

obsidian so far

is everything I've heard about has been

about what I think is probably the first

half of obsidian which is maybe in

simple terms the kind of creative part

of writing notes and making links and

then seeing those links

grow

and this enormous Matrix built

around all of these kind of ideas that

you might have

I listened to Ingo and Jason's podcast

you know on the rig

which is a great podcast series although

the last episode I think is two and a

half hours long

yeah so I mean there's quite a bit of

chat in the first half there about

what's going on in their lives which you

can kind of I think you can skip through

I do yes yes nice but but

in Jason's case he was he's a real

obsidian evangelist it seems he's come

to it and he loves it and the example he

gave was a great example of

doing in Australia what's called a Texa

review which is I think if you work in

higher ed every five or six years your

whole university gets reviewed for its

academic quality so it's everything from

the highest level governance right down

to the delivery of individual courses

and all the minutiae so he's taken on

this project for his university and it's

an enormous piece of work and I've known

people spend three or four years at the

very high level building up rooms full

of documentation to support one of these

reviews

so he's using obsidian

to

find all of the material that he's going

to need for this review but not just do

it in a traditional kind of filing

structure it seems but to create a 3D

Matrix a map

of the links between things so this is

the point where I get to and I think

yeah this is great

although nagging in the back of my mind

is this constant question about

is this going to be worth it

what happens then is where I start to

become interested and where I think my

barrier my obstacle is this is the

threshold concept for me

I love the idea that you can make all

these connections it sounds really

creative that you can make these notes

and you can pull all these things

together it seems to me at that point

then the whole project Falls over

because instead of having something

simple to turn into what's going to have

to be a two-dimensional linear

report for Texa or a PhD thesis or a

book or something like that you've now

got this overwhelming mass of swirling

stuff with multiple networks and nodes

and that seems to me to be exactly

getting in the way of actually doing

something productive with it right so

the conversation I would love to have

with you today

is about what you use it for and how you

actually use this Matrix once you've

built it yeah yeah that's how you filter

through everything to make something

actually useful to it

so

I think that's fine and I think the

to start off with I would say that in

obsidian you have the concept of volts

which is it's like a folder

um but it's a folder that's separated

from other vaults within obsidian and so

what a lot of people

tend to do when I've seen people using

obsidian is they combine all of these

things together so I have three

different vaults for obsidian the one is

called daily notes the one is called

commonplace like a commonplace book

which is the collection of ideas and

then I have a writing Vault and those

three things are separate and those

notes don't talk to each other and

they're not aware of each other so your

question about how do you write and not

have all those things get in the way of

it well I write in a writing Vault

that's completely separate to the idea

generating vault

so

I

just start sharing my screen

are you happy for me to interject the

questions or do you want me to just let

you flow for a while no you stop it what

would you prefer anything you want can

you just okay can you see my screen I

can see me

can you see that now yeah there you go

right okay so straight away I've got a

question which is that the stuff that

goes into your daily notes

if you then want to

write with it you've just said that that

vault is completely separate and doesn't

talk to the writing box so presumably

you have to move it from one into the

other no

no because I'm writing so I'll write and

I'll just write and then if I hit

if I come up against the wall and I

don't know what to write anymore then

I'll go to my idea Vault and I'll query

something from the idea Vault I'll go to

the idea Vault for ideas not to write

so what are you writing about if not

ideas

so

I feel like I need to show you

um yeah

um

all right so okay so what you're looking

at now this is my daily notes fault so

just to give you an example I'll start a

new note and I'll start it here on

Monday the 21st

says the file does not exist you want to

create it so this is my daily note

template so yeah because it's text you

can create your own templates and these

are all the things that I'm going to be

doing for the day and I use this to um

like if I have a meeting then I create

links to meeting notes and and blah blah

blah so this is the kind of just every

day I make notes in this vault

but also have this commonplace vault

and that's obviously just from

commonplace book and this is a place

where I just dump ideas and you'll see

it kind of looks the same here but it's

a little bit different so I've set up

the tabs

um on this side the panels on the right

and the left side a little bit

differently

so if I pick this one then you can see

that the local graph displays here so

immediately I can get a sense of how

many other things this note is connected

to but that's only within the

commonplace Vault this is only within

commonplace so these notes are all very

short they you know tags I connect to

other notes I can see incoming links I

can see outgoing links I can see

unlinked mentions

this is where I capture all of my

literature notes so if I'm reading a

book

um like at the moment I'm reading this

book on embodied Computing as I'm

reading all of this content everything

that I highlight and annotate in that

book gets pulled into these literature

notes so that's all an automated process

same thing happens with articles

podcasts tweets

um

I've got conference notes going back 10

years those are all in here and this is

just a place for me to play around with

ideas I'll go through these notes I'll

link to other notes and and so on so you

feel

fairly good with how that works and then

I have a writing vault

and

if I want to

I don't know there's a little thing on

citizen science this is for a course

that I'm running at the moment so this

is where I'll just write

um and if I need to draw from an idea

well then I'll go to my commonplace

notes and I don't think I have anything

on citizen science

no so I've got no notes

yeah so that might say to me okay well

before I can start writing about citizen

science I should go and do some reading

on citizen science then I might go to my

library which I use zotero for some

people will pull their Library into

obsidian and I feel like you can get to

a point where

obsidian becomes this Hammer that you're

going to use to hit everything with

um and I feel like the the library

um I think it can work

and I think some people have made it

work

I prefer to use zotero for my library

so I'll go to zotero and that's where I

track everything that I want to follow

up on and read and

you haven't got anything on citizen

science but let's say you were going to

do a piece of writing on artificial

intelligence now I know you'll have tons

of stuff so if you opened up a writing

note

um

on artificial intelligence yeah

show me how you'd go about drawing back

on your

um

I suppose your commonplace folder or

your or your what you call your daily

notes folder how would you pull that

material into what you're then going to

be writing about I don't

um so maybe this isn't a good example

because it's uh it's just a simple

definition so let me

look for

robots must adapt to Norms around

interaction so this is a more detailed

note

right

um so

I might look at this and the the concept

here is that we need to have robots

adapt to human Norms around interaction

and in order to do that we are really

going to have people who are building

robots who are familiar with human

psychology and sociology and all of

these ideas about how humans interact

because those are going to be the the

social and cultural norms that influence

the way that robots should behave what

we're seeing is that

um humans are adapting their behavior to

fit around what robots are capable of so

what I'm getting from this note isn't so

much the content but it's this idea so

I'm trying to capture an idea which is

that you know we need to design robots

that adapt to our behavior and our

sociology

um when I'm writing I'm not looking to

copy and paste information from this

note

I'm trying to find ideas within the

commonplace collection of notes that

give me inspiration or motivation or

that help me make connections to

whatever I'm writing about in the

writing vault

right but herein lies the Crux of the

issue because of course you could do

that in any form you could do that in a

Word document you could do that in a

traditional file system you could do

that in Evernote you could do that in

Ulysses you've got many places you could

do that in the point about obsidian is

not that you want to look you're

interested in that note but I look at

the bottom for instance at the green

related text yeah and the tags you've

got that little icon seems to suggest

that there are three four five six seven

eight additional notes that are related

to that theme and each one of those

might have eight additional notes

related to them and each one of those

might have it and it becomes exponential

right so if you're talking about this

just purely from a note by note basis

then I don't see obsidian as being any

different so how do you stop the Mania

of

the exponential increase information

you've got linked all together here and

then actually write something about how

robots must relate to human Norms well

because these ideas at the bottom here

with their link they're related but

if I'm thinking about the way that

um robots should relate to

um to us to groups of human beings some

of this is like yeah educational AI must

adapt to learning science that's a

related idea because it's talking about

how technology needs to adapt to

something that we value so learning

science it's a related idea but it's not

it's not going to be a part of what I'm

writing about with robots so first of

all not all of the links are necessary

for me to follow

um types of robots in clinical practice

you can you know I can without going

into the notes I can just pull it up

here and look at it well you know this

also isn't really relevant this is a

list of types of robot form factors and

um not behaviors but the kinds of tasks

that these kinds of robots might be

called to do this also wouldn't really

be useful for the article that I'm

writing about you know robots and and

human behavior

um this might be interesting social and

cultural norms dictate what information

is appropriate so

the point isn't just that I'm randomly

following all of these links I might

look at this

and say okay social and cultural norms

dictate what information is appropriate

to share with other people okay so how

does this relate to my idea around

robots adapting to our Norms

um so I'm going to pause with with the

note and say

you know really reflect on it does this

help me

take my writing in a different direction

does this spoken idea that I maybe

wouldn't have got to if I was just

writing

um so I think for me the linking of the

notes

um

if I just

come here to edit again

um while I'm reading this

um I don't know I'm just uh

virtual Norm so if I come back here

um

it's suggesting our social network

Theory

is that something that I need to look at

is social network analysis something

that I need to look at do I need to

because now that I've seen this maybe

it's boxed the idea that you know what

the thing that I'm writing about robots

what it lacks at the moment is some kind

of framework that it would you know give

what I'm writing about a little bit more

substance maybe I need to go look at

Social Network Theory maybe that's

something that will help me better

understand the interaction between

robots and people

so the way that I think about the

commonplace notes is not so much that

they're a kind of a source of

information although they definitely are

and and I do use them in that way but

while I'm doing the writing I just dip

into the commonplace and I sometimes

will just write keywords out and see

what

the this Vault gives back to me

sometimes it gives me back things that

I'm expecting but sometimes they're

really unexpected notes that come back

at me and that that kind of serendipity

has been

um really useful in generating some of

the ideas that I've been thinking about

lately

when you're reviewing notes do you ever

go back over some of the related notes

that you've highlighted in there and

think well

I've never really gone in that direction

with this so I'm just going to delete it

I mean when you're writing the note and

you're you're adding the your your

prospectively trying to imagine how

you're going to be using it in the

future so I'll put a tag in here just to

link it to

X Y and Z but you don't know in five

years time or two years time that that's

actually going to be the relevant link

you're going to be making so do you have

to go back and constantly edit the notes

and the links I try not to preemptively

imagine what I'm going to use the note

for so with this note

um I don't know

if I just say yeah sharing the wrong

information with the wrong people at the

wrong time I can decide that that might

be a note worth making at some point

even though it's not a note now so if I

surround it with brackets now this

becomes a note

um you can see it's included now here

um it's a note that doesn't exist that's

what this icon means but now if I start

and now I've got a new tab it's called

Untitled and I just type some random

stuff

and I've got a template that I just used

to add this in and now I start saying

wrong

information ah here's a little note and

so I click that and now these two notes

are connected so I'm trying not to be

too prescriptive about how I build the

notes

um

and you know what I'll probably just

leave this link here

um because who knows maybe in the future

I'll be I'll be trying to think about

what is the wrong information mean

um you know

I don't know does that does that kind of

give you some

suggestion about how I might be thinking

to be honest when I'm writing this

linking the notes I'm not thinking about

it too much I literally come here to the

related part

and I start thinking so I might say this

is about information

uh information Theory so here's

something about noise this is what the

field is how do we think about error

correction in information Theory so I

might just add that as a keyword and

then just scroll through the existing

notes that I have

this will also search this you can see a

literature notes article I've got an

article on Claude Shannon the founder of

information Theory

maybe this is enough for me to now say

you know what I should actually go and

read this note so this is a note now

I've got some highlights so at some

point I've I've read this article

um so I guess that's a very long answer

to your question about yes the notes are

constantly being edited adapted pruned

um

but I don't think about that too much in

the moment when I'm creating the notes

so your preference is to use three volts

but you said that some people will just

throw everything into one volt and then

presumably for some people as well they

will they will literally cut and paste

from one note into another as they're

building a text document yes I actually

I started doing that so I started with a

single Vault that included daily notes

commonplace notes

and I I always found it difficult to

write in obsidian when it was linked in

with the daily notes and the commonplace

notes so I've always written in

something else and for a while I was

using vs code which is just another text

editor

um I've tried loads of different text

editors I used to write a lot in

Evernote when I still use the Evernote

I've used simple notes

um so I have tried to keep the writing

process separated

at some points I realized that combining

the daily notes and the commonplace

notes just wasn't working for me

um

because what I found is that I was using

the daily notes typing up notes and just

creating links to everything you know

it's it's you know just because

something it because it's so easy to

link

I was just linking everything whereas

I'm far more intentional about creating

links between notes

um when I've got them separated out into

this different Vault and then in my

daily notes which is just my you know

what did I do today with you know

meetings and random thoughts

sometimes I'll be in a meeting and I'll

have a thought about something somebody

says something and I think oh that

that's an interesting point I'll make a

note of it in my daily note and then

after the meeting I'll go and recreate

that note in my commonplace I won't link

I won't try and link to it

um

and then I might just you know keep the

quote there and then just leave it and I

might only come back to it in six months

time when it gets surfaced as part of my

kind of serendipitous search for other

ideas you know it may be something I've

completely forgotten about so I leave a

lot of notes in kind of half-formed

um you know just I don't know

it it clearly isn't a real thing

um it's got no connections it's gotten

the links and I do have a lot of notes

that are orphans so they're not

connected to anything else

which also is fine I mean it's text so

who cares you know if if that note never

ever comes up again and it remains in

orphan for the next 20 years who cares

I'm not going to go and try and prune it

so that it looks pretty in the graph

View

and there's definitely some things about

obsidian that I know

probably resonate with you very strongly

you've talked about this before with me

about the fact that I mean I think it's

still free

um the software

I think Inger and Jason mentioned that

that it was free for the time being and

while they would

expect it at some point it's going to be

monetized at the moment it's free it's

completely open source

um

all the information is stored on your

local computer so it's not in a cloud

anywhere

and it's all written in markdown

language and again this might be

something that people

who are not familiar with that stuff

wouldn't maybe not know about but is a

really useful thing to use if you could

just open up a note which has got some

markdown on yeah so here's my

commonplace fault and here's my daily

notes fault so that's stored on your

computer yeah yeah so if I go here to

commonplace like these are all in plain

text yeah

um

categories of distraction costs got no

idea what's in this note but you can see

um

oh well weird this is a very old note

because this template

is not something that I've had for a

long time so I'll just go here and I'll

say hi Dave

and if I save this note and go back to

obsidian and I go open

transaction costs so we go to categories

of transaction costs it says hi Dave

yeah so the fact that you can

yeah just edit you can edit the plain

text

um

so you don't need any fancy there you go

there's the markdown language those use

of

hashtags and brackets it's basically

four or five little keyboard keys that

just allow you to do everything yeah

obsidian isn't actually open source

um oh okay it's uh

just hang on a sec

um

but they've they promised that it will