The most minimal knowledge management system for beginners (+ video walkthrough)

Dear Reader,

I recently introduced a colleague to Obsidian and have pitched it to our lab many times.

They always have the same problem: "It's too technical".

Even one of the most prominent people in the knowledge management space (Tiago Forte) recently said it's too complicated for him 🤷.

I say: Obsidian is like any new shoe.

It hurts the first day or two. Get over that period, and you are going to run over any academic challenge, while others tiptoe and stumble.

A much bigger problem is how to organise your notes once you get started so they're actually useful (i.e. to train for the marathon!).

Since simplicity is the highest form of sophistication, I was trying to come up with the minimal viable system of note-taking and over the last 4 years, whittled it down from 4 note-types (2023) to 3 note types(2024) and in this week's tutorial, to just two!

I know that many readers are Obsidian curious, but haven't decided to make the leap. This week's tutorial is your call to get started with Obsidian in ~15 minutes and change your career forever. Sign up for the free 21-day Obsidian email course as well.

Summary: The tutorial walks you through the simplest possible note-taking system using only two folders and one plugin. It still ensures that your notes form a network, to synthesise and connect large ideas, and also satisfies the requirement that any piece of information is tied to a source (i.e. paper). The post outlines how to reach a collection of 50 notes, suggests 5 rules to follow, provides theoretical examples of why this system makes sense, and links to other Obsidian-related content on my blog. The post is also available as a short video walkthrough.

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How useful was today's topic (Basic Obsidian tutorial):

Thanks for being part of EA!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Ilya Shabanov, The Effortless Academic​

The Effortless Academic is a community, newsletter and learning place for the modern academic, where you can learn to leverage academic tools, digital note-taking strategies and AI for a stress-free, successful career.
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If you're ready to dive in, start with the foundation of Digital Note Taking to remember and synthesise ideas, the AI Lit Review Course to learn about recent (AI) tools for finding, reading and skimming relevant academic papers, or the AI writing and publishing courses to effectively publish your ideas.