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 a number of issues to jog my reminiscence. It is like I am nonetheless at school and note-taking is my saving grace earlier than the following check — besides as a substitute of finding out, I am simply making an attempt to not neglect 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 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 these days, and I jot issues down alongside the best way. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for maintaining tabs on all types of subjects, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is change into widespread with hundreds of thousands 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 truly fairly shocking. Not solely is my handwriting atrocious, however my notes could be actually exhausting to decipher. Fortunately, AI was in a position to assist me spot some patterns.

Obsidian is simple to make use of and easy to combine

I used to be happy with easy methods to carry it over

If you happen to’re utilizing Obsidian, you possibly can open completely 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 utilize them. I like to make use of Obsidian to maintain monitor of my week. I often have a word with reminders for every day, together with one for freelance subjects I wish to analysis for story concepts. I will even make a each day word for random ideas or issues I must look into.

Fortunately, there are a number of methods to combine the notes I hold 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 would possibly 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 simple 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 subjects are a part of the identical analysis thread. I do hold them in folders in my vault, however quite than opening one word after which one other simply to toggle between them, a Markdown hyperlink lets me bounce 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 after I use one of many many options that NotebookLM provides 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 as we speak and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, displaying how they’re related and easy methods to finest navigate via them. It even discovered components of my analysis and notes that I hadn’t related by way of Markdown hyperlinks and grouped them collectively. That may look like a small factor, however I achieve this a lot analysis on completely different subjects that it may be robust to maintain monitor of all the pieces.

Granted, I do not all the time put all the pieces into Obsidian. However I do incessantly hyperlink again to older notes from new ones. Utilizing Thoughts Map helps me make deeper connections to notes I’ll have missed linking. I additionally actually loved the newer NotebookLM device, Studies. I will add in a few of my scribblings (which can learn like they’re from a madman) and Studies 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 want straight from my analysis.

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

I can ask inquiries to remind me concerning the subject

I do a lot 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 completely different options. Now that NotebookLM has a cellular app as nicely, 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 make the most of 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.