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 mine with out setting reminders or jotting down just a few 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 overlook one thing I must do.

Whether or not I am in a gathering or researching a brand new subject 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 currently, and I jot issues down alongside the way in which. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for maintaining tabs on every kind of matters, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is develop into widespread with tens of millions of customers.

I am additionally a giant 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 shocking. Not solely is my handwriting atrocious, however my notes might be actually onerous to decipher. Fortunately, AI was in a position to assist me spot some patterns.

Obsidian is straightforward to make use of and easy to combine

I used to be happy with tips on how to carry it over

In the event you’re utilizing Obsidian, you may open totally 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 employ 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 matters I wish to analysis for story concepts. I am going to even make a day by day word for random ideas or issues I must 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 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 might not perceive how all the things matches collectively. So, utilizing Markdown hyperlinks is essential.

Markdown is the key ingredient for straightforward integration

You may 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 matters are a part of the identical analysis thread. I do preserve them in folders in my vault, however relatively than opening one word after which one other simply to toggle between them, a Markdown hyperlink lets me leap 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 related… all because of the Markdown hyperlinks. That is confirmed once I use one of many many options that NotebookLM gives to assist individuals research and do analysis. In fact, I additionally fill out my pocket book with different analysis hyperlinks exterior of Obsidian to color a fuller image of no matter subject 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 right now and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, exhibiting how they’re related and tips on how to greatest navigate by them. It even discovered components of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t related by way of Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. Which may seem to be a small factor, however I achieve this a lot analysis on totally different matters that it may be powerful to maintain observe of all the things.

Granted, I do not all the time put all the things 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 could possibly pull the solutions I want straight from my analysis.

Generally, I simply use it to summarize and assist me manage

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

I do loads in Obsidian to maintain observe of all the things happening 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 totally different options. Now that NotebookLM has a cellular app as properly, it opens up much more flexibility in how I combine it with Obsidian.

I can return into Obsidian to revise or increase what I’ve written and benefit from its big selection of options. Maintaining Obsidian tidy additionally improves how properly 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 exploit these two and combine them, the higher they’re going to be, which is one thing I am genuinely so enthusiastic about.