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 subsequent check — besides as an alternative of learning, 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 strive 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 best way. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for conserving tabs on every kind of subjects, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is develop into fashionable with hundreds of thousands 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 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 way to convey it over

Should you’re utilizing Obsidian, you’ll be able to 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 fully as much as you the way you utilize them. I like to make use of Obsidian to maintain monitor of my week. I normally have a notice 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 notice 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 notice 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 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 subjects are a part of the identical analysis thread. I do preserve them in folders in my vault, however fairly than opening one notice after which one other simply to toggle between them, a Markdown hyperlink lets me bounce from one to the opposite.

Meaning I can copy and paste textual content from Obsidian into NotebookLM, and it understands how the notes are related… all due to the Markdown hyperlinks. That is confirmed once I use one of many many options that NotebookLM gives to assist individuals examine and do analysis. In fact, I additionally fill out my pocket book with different analysis hyperlinks outdoors 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 immediately and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, displaying how they’re related and the way to finest navigate by means of them. It even discovered elements of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t related through Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. That may look like a small factor, however I achieve this a lot analysis on totally different subjects that it may be robust to maintain monitor of all the pieces.

Granted, I do not at all times put all the pieces into Obsidian. However I do regularly 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 instrument, Stories. I will add in a few of my scribblings (which can learn like they’re from a madman) and Stories 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 may well pull the solutions I would like straight from my analysis.

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

I can ask inquiries to remind me concerning the subject

I do loads in Obsidian to maintain monitor of all the pieces occurring in each my skilled and private life. Since I am at my pc for many of the day, I converted from the iPhone’s Notes app to Obsidian as a result of it is a lot simpler to prepare and customise with totally different options. Now that NotebookLM has a cell app as effectively, it opens up much more flexibility in how I combine it with Obsidian.

I can return into Obsidian to revise or develop what I’ve written and make the most of its wide selection of options. Holding 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.