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 via 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 take a look at — besides as an alternative of finding out, I am simply attempting to not overlook 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 strive 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 preserving tabs on all types of matters, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is turn into well-liked 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 really fairly stunning. Not solely is my handwriting atrocious, however my notes will 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 find out how to deliver it over

When 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 have to look into.

Fortunately, there are just a few methods to combine the notes I maintain 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 every little thing suits collectively. So, utilizing Markdown hyperlinks is vital.

Markdown is the key ingredient for straightforward integration

You possibly can copy, paste, and get the hyperlinks

As a result of NotebookLM works with Markdown, I take advantage of 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 maintain 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 due to the Markdown hyperlinks. That is confirmed once I use one of many many options that NotebookLM affords to assist folks examine 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 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 at this time and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, exhibiting how they’re related and find out how to finest navigate via them. It even discovered elements of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t related through Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. That may appear 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 every little thing.

Granted, I do not at all times put every little thing 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 device, Reviews. I am going to 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 will possibly pull the solutions I want straight from my analysis.

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

I can ask inquiries to remind me concerning the matter

I do lots in Obsidian to maintain observe of every little thing happening in each my skilled and private life. Since I am at my pc 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 cell app as nicely, 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 benefit from its wide selection of options. Retaining Obsidian tidy additionally improves how nicely 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 take advantage of these two and combine them, the higher they will be, which is one thing I am genuinely so enthusiastic about.