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 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 subsequent check — 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 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 way in which. My favourite app to make use of is Obsidian. It is nice for holding tabs on all types of subjects, and a free, easy-to-use note-taking app that is grow to be common 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 stunning. Not solely is my handwriting atrocious, however my notes could 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 the way to carry it over

Should you’re utilizing Obsidian, you possibly can 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 ways you utilize them. I like to make use of Obsidian to maintain observe of my week. I often have a be aware with reminders for every day, together with one for freelance subjects I need to analysis for story concepts. I am going to even make a day by day be aware for random ideas or issues I must look into.

Fortunately, there are a number of 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 be aware 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 every thing matches collectively. So, utilizing Markdown hyperlinks is necessary.

Markdown is the key ingredient for simple 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 maintain them in folders in my vault, however relatively than opening one be aware 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 after I use one of many many options that NotebookLM gives to assist folks research and do analysis. After all, 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 an inventory of the notes I had opened at the moment and threw them into NotebookLM’s Thoughts Map. It mapped out all of my notes, exhibiting how they’re related and the way 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. That may look like a small factor, however I achieve this a lot analysis on totally different subjects that it may be powerful to maintain observe of every thing.

Granted, I do not all the time put every thing into Obsidian. However I do continuously 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 software, Studies. I am going to 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 internet. Since NotebookLM makes use of no matter I present as its supply materials, it might pull the solutions I want straight from my analysis.

Typically, I simply use it to summarize and assist me set up

I can ask inquiries to remind me concerning the subject

I do loads in Obsidian to maintain observe of every thing occurring in each my skilled and private life. Since I am at my laptop 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 arrange and customise with totally different options. Now that NotebookLM has a cellular app as effectively, it opens up much more flexibility in how I combine it with Obsidian.

I can return into Obsidian to revise or broaden what I’ve written and benefit from its wide selection of options. Preserving 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.