🧠 Obsidian - An IDE for your Brain
Tags: productivity, discuss, beginners, tutorial
Published: 2022-05-02 08:20:27

Note-taking and personal knowledge management get talked about in academic circles, by both students and teachers. But there’s not much said about its use outside of the academe.

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## What is [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md)

Obsidian is a free application that offers you to back up all your knowledge. Does it sound like something from the future? Yes, kind of. But I spent a few weeks exploring existing Obsidian knowledge bases and even creating my own using my DEV articles and the stuff I read on the Internet and I have to tell you — the future is here.

Obsidian is not your typical note-taking productivity app. You can still add notes on the fly, add keywords, hashtags, categories, link and unlink pages in any way you like. But **how** you do it looks like something straight from the science-fiction movie.

So here The `Graph View`


![Graph View](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pv4rcnrof9f7ets3y1ml.png)

What do you see? 

`This graph is a linkable and searchable knowledge database where each node is made of someone’s notes, tweets, articles, Journal , Daily Notes or whatever you want…` As long as you have your content in a Markdown format, you can add it to your database. You can also add new notes on the fly.

Another thing that I absolutely love about this app is that it uses local storage so you can store all your notes directly on your computer which is unlike any other app you get privacy for your own notes any you don't have to worry about the future If Obsidian get shut down for any reason you have your own notes which you can open in any text editor. It’s also possible to open notes directly in a browser and do millions of other things that I can’t cover here.

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## Why not [Notion](https://notion.so)

Over the last few years, Notion and the idea of a [Second Brain](https://fortelabs.co/blog/basboverview/) has gained popularity.
Notion was designed to be an all in one workspace for your notes ,databases ,tasks ,daily log and much more. On other hand Obsidian is a note-taking and knowledge management app. You can turn a collection of plain text into a network of linked data in short words Obsidian wants to be your Second Brain.

Obsidian uses a note-taking method called [Zettelkasten](https://zettelkasten.de/), also known as the slip-box system is an open-ended process of writing, learning, and thinking invented by Niklas Luhmann, it is basically a slip box or a collection of many individual notes with meta-data (like tags or links) that connect them together.

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## How do I manage my Life With Obsidian

So If you have used Notion in the past you know about dashboards and different views like Gallery View and Board View, Now with the help of `dataview` plugin in obsidian you can create these views and Dashboards right in Obsidian. Here is an example of my Dashboard. 


![Dashboard](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/sb35jgst1zr4biuadl8u.png)

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You can also create daily notes in Obsidian

Daily Notes are single markdown files created each day. In settings, you can configure the file name utilizing the date in some way, specify a location, add a template using the Core Templates plugin, or the [Templater](https://github.com/SilentVoid13/Templater) community plugin, which I use.

Each day, I create a new note to start the day. I click the daily note icon in the left toolbar, and it creates the note. If the file already exists, it opens it. I have a To-do list right in my daily note which helps me to plan my day. Here is an example for my daily note -


![Daily Note](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/h15dz5hwj9adl4s51ya5.png)

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You can do so much more in Obsidian like for example you read an article on a blog and you like it you can clip it by making a note in Obsidian and then exploring what pathways does that note opens up for you.

You can Learn a programming language by making small notes for specific snippets and then linking them together to come up with new ideas, also you can manage your projects in Obsidian.

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At Last Obsidian is very powerful and to make it even more you can use community plugins and themes to increase your productivity to the next level.

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Here are some resources to get you started with Obsidian

- [🎬 Bryan Jenks](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhSB16X9MXhzSFe_H7XbHg)
- [🎬 Santi Younger](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_7j1BHf-xmj3Jr2h3lI6SXlvIaIjcmmo)
- [🎬 Danny Hatcher](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsGUqkzkaMO9NPGEzAtYA1m3gn0MYGMlt)
- [Obsidian Help](https://help.obsidian.md/): a open-source Obsidian's official help vault.
- [Obsidian Roundup](https://obsidianroundup.org/): a weekly roundup of Obsidian.md tips, news & resources via Eleanor Konik.
- [Obsidian Garden](https://obsidian.garden/): a open-source guide to creating your own 🌳 Digital Garden with Obsidian.

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You can also use my vault as a template

{% embed https://github.com/Envoy-VC/My-Obsisian-Vault-Template %}

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If you have come till here have a look on my previous posts

{% embed https://dev.to/envoy_/learn-blockchains-by-building-one-in-python-2kb3 %}

{% embed https://dev.to/envoy_/blockchain-app-developer-roadmap-31p5 %}

{% embed https://dev.to/envoy_/150-badges-for-github-pnk %}