Obsidian Starter Course

Who is this for?

• You are just getting started with note-taking or you've recently switched to Obsidian
• You want to discover Obsidian and its key features
• You wonder how to take smart notes
• You want to know how to properly organize your notes and avoid creating an overwhelming mess
• You want a solid system that scales
• You wonder what Zettelkasten, the PARA method, and the Johnny decimal system are
• You have bought the Obsidian Starter Kit and want a full video course to help you get started

Getting started with Obsidian is not the hardest thing in the world, but it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how to structure and organize your knowledge base. You have a busy life, and you don't want to spend weeks or even months figuring out the "right" approach.

What is this?

The Obsidian Starter Course is a video course containing 2h20 of content. It's a hands-on guide into the world of Obsidian, Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), and the Obsidian Starter Kit.

Many of the explanations use the Obsidian Starter Kit's vault/structure/plugins, but the explanations about Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), Markdown, YAML and recommendations can be applied to many other tools. Moreover, if you're using Obsidian but don't yet have a copy of the Obsidian Starter Kit, then this course is still incredibly useful. It will show you how you can organize your knowledge base, how to take smart notes, and much more!

Note that this product is included in the Knowii offer.

What's in the video course?

The Obsidian Starter Course covers the following topics:

• Obsidian: installation, user interface, key features, plugins, automation, tips and tricks, etc
• The Markdown syntax
• YAML metadata
• Personal Knowledge Management techniques and principles: the Johnny Decimal system, the PARA method (e.g., the Zettelkasten method, the LIFT principle, Atomic notes, Maps of Content, knowledge capture & extraction, etc)
• Journaling
• Periodic reviews
• Templates
• Automation
• Task management
• Best practices and recommendations
• Hands-on explanations
• and more!

Course chapters

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:28 Installing Obsidian

00:01:05 Downloading and installing Obsidian Starter Kit

00:02:29 Opening the vault

00:03:40 Obsidian User Interface

00:04:36 Left toolbar

00:04:51 Top left buttons

00:05:09 Editor

00:05:20 Sidebar

00:05:38 Collapsing the sidebar

00:05:58 Editor tabs

00:06:58 Splitting the editor view

00:08:29 View and edit modes

00:09:08 Markdown syntax introduction

00:13:01 Bottom left buttons

00:13:06 Open vault view

00:13:32 Using one or multiple vaults

00:15:04 Multiple vaults vs plugins and configuration

00:15:43 Settings

00:16:35 Community plugins

00:19:11 Keep Things Simple

00:20:59 Obsidian help

00:21:49 The value of Markdown

00:23:13 More about Markdown

00:26:25 Creating links

00:28:20 Local Graph view

00:29:51 Navigating forward and back

00:30:14 Bonus: Zwan

00:30:20 Standard Markdown links

00:33:26 Outgoing links and backlinks

00:36:17 Global Graph view

00:38:23 Configuring the Graph view

00:39:10 Linking to non-existent notes

00:40:07 Creating notes

00:41:36 Hiding/showing ribbon icons

00:41:51 Home note

00:43:30 Finding duplicate notes

00:44:09 Finding orphan notes

00:44:32 Exploring random notes

00:45:37 Quickly opening or creating notes

00:46:28 Command palette

00:49:43 Tagging notes

00:50:00 Searching for tags

00:50:22 Tags panel (Tag Wrangler plugin)

00:50:45 Renaming tags

00:52:01 Search view

00:53:50 Organizing files

00:54:51 Outline view (Outline plugin)

00:56:09 Obsidian Starter Kit folder structure

00:56:15 The Johnny Decimal system

00:58:33 Obsidian Starter Kit root folders

00:59:01 Categories

01:00:06 The PARA method

01:02:40 Benefits of PARA

01:03:00 The LIFT principle

01:03:48 PARA folders in Obsidian Starter Kit

01:04:18 The meta folder

01:05:26 The Resources folder

01:05:41 Obsidian Starter Kit User Guide

01:06:54 The Areas folder

01:07:13 Meeting notes

01:08:32 Creating tasks with Markdown

01:09:09 People and Contacts

01:11:43 The Zettelkasten method

01:14:46 Zettelkasten principles

01:14:56 Fleeting notes

01:16:54 Literature notes

01:20:39 Permanent notes

01:23:30 More on keeping things simple

01:23:56 Avoid breaking the vault

01:24:55 Moving notes automatically (Auto Note Mover plugin)

01:27:49 Templating and template

01:28:12 Using templates (Templater plugin)

01:29:33 YAML Metadata

01:29:33 Notes metadata

01:30:15 Adding tags through metadata

01:30:42 Note aliases

01:31:53 Tags

01:32:28 Additional YAML properties

01:33:39 Benefits of metadata

01:34:44 Templates

01:37:47 Using templates

01:39:26 Periodic notes plugin and daily note template

01:40:41 Book note template

01:41:28 Benefits of automation

01:41:55 Templates overview

01:42:58 Special tags

01:43:17 Dataview plugin

01:44:57 MoCs

01:45:30 Capturing quotes

01:46:46 More on tagging

01:47:42 Nesting tags

01:48:02 Attachments

01:50:18 Atomic notes

01:52:58 Journaling

01:54:08 Planning ahead

01:55:05 Using fewer tools

01:55:45 Daily notes

01:58:55 Changed notes plugin

01:59:33 Notes vs Time

02:01:25 Reflecting on the past using weekly, monthly and yearly notes

02:03:10 Knowledge extraction

02:03:43 Planning ahead

02:04:43 More on Knowledge extraction

02:05:34 Recommendation for tags

02:06:16 Linking discoveries to time

02:07:59 Meta notes

02:08:48 Top of mind note

02:09:32 Markdown: Reordering lists

02:09:41 Outline plugin

02:10:31 Waiting for note

02:10:42 Routines

02:10:57 Task management

02:12:45 Kanban plugin

02:15:03 Canvas

02:17:54 Excalidraw plugin

02:18:55 Conclusion

02:18:59 More recommendations

02:20:43 Obsidian Starter Kit updates

Testimonials