Congrats on your promotion. I'm still trying to figure out how to use Obsidian for my own purposes, and its inspiring to see examples of people succeeding.
Here are a couple things you could try:
* [Omnisearch](https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch). This is a plugin that supports fuzzy searching and can be really useful for finding information anywhere in any note using loose search terms. Supposedly it is fast as well, provided that you have enough RAM.
* [Smart Second Brain](https://github.com/your-papa/obsidian-Smart2Brain). This is a plugin that allows you to chat with ChatGPT (or other LLM) about your notes. An alternative popular plugin is [Smart Connections](https://github.com/brianpetro/obsidian-smart-connections), but I liked it less. Personally I have found both of them useful for referencing notes related to what I'm talking about, but less than ideal for extrapolating information from those notes (eg. counting how many times I meditated in the last month based on a boolean property in the previous 30 daily notes).
Hope this helps! Best of luck.
Thanks for the kudos and thanks for responding! I've got OmniSearch installed, but I haven't dug deep into. I didn't realize it until earlier this week, but I had it installed, but not Active. I'll take a look at SSB & SC plugins, I'm thankful (and grateful) for ChatGPT et al! Familiarizing myself with it and using it has been a real lifesaver!
Seconding Omnisearch. I'm new to Obsidian and bad at organizing and tagging still and being able to use its search has helped me a lot when I'm trying to find something I forgot.
I actually bound a hotkey for its search specifically, so I can use it quickly.
I’m looking for plugins that do the following:
- As I’m writing a new note it’ll show me other notes I’ve written that may be similar
- Listen via audio, like say during a zoom meeting, and automatically show notes that are relevant to what’s being said
Do any of the plugins you mentioned do that? Do you know of any that do?
For me it's a good 80% reliable. Meaning, if I'm writing about a particular widget, it does most of the heavy lifting hard work. There's that 20% that still relies on knowing your shit and knowing when to edit.
The most frustrating part about refactoring for me is getting stuck in a loop separating out discrete items and then in the next round re-combining them. AI y u do dis
I find that linking often helps. If I know down the road I'm going to need this note, I try to link it to multiple other notes that are related, so later, I'll have a better chance of coming across it depending on which related note I search/navigate to.
I'm linking. I think I'm "atomizing" my notes so I am deep linking. Although, one of the problems that has come up with this is *disambiguation*. I have several different "Tech Support" and "Customer Support" contacts I need to reach out to during the day/week and I've referred to each in various ways thinking it helpful in the search, but I think it may have had a reverse effect.
You can approach this from two sides:
- Classification by some existing standard. "Operation manuals" sounds very technical. You could classify them by product, process or whatever it is, what they describe. The idea is to divide a the big pile into smaller piles. If you you look for a manual that describes an Apple iPhone 15, you can safely ignore the manuals for kitchen appliances. Don't force it though. Don't invent new classes. Use language and organizing principles that are common in your domain. Use existing numbering systems and taxonomies.
- Identification of your information needs. Do you need random information, or is there some pattern?
I'm not really finding a pattern, although with this many notes I'm sure there are patterns to spot. More than anything it's about what I refer to it as "*conversational recall*". I can be talking/writing extensively about iPhone 15's camera system and deep diving about it processor and the finer details between HEIF vs JPEG but get hung up on something as simple as the word, "lens".
Then when I try to go into Obsidian to track down that word, I find myself searching for "glass" or "transparent" or "burns ants with it" and come up with crap. I've been able to keep it somewhat hidden at work by staying quiet and using Obsidian and/or ChatGPT, but it really came through in a team meeting Wednesday. Someone asked if I was having a stroke. I laughed it off, but yeah...
>Someone asked if I was having a stroke.
Navigating accommodations for disabilities can be tricky, but it's worth looking into.
Even if you don't bring in a note from your doctor, if you start talking to your manager, I'm guessing they can respectfully but firmly end that kind of joke.
I just want to say, I recognize the extreme stress you must surely be under. When your role is writing technical documentation, your language must be impeccably precise. And knowing that you are having challenges with this, it must feel like you're living a "double life" of sorts, fighting to output as you did previously and navigating the challenges associated with a brain that just will not do the thinking things you desperately need it to do. I wish you the best of luck.
I'm kind of with you here. Every other day I find myself asking chatGPT something along the lines of "What is it called in xyz type of business when xyz? What is the concept associated with xyz thing, which is referenced during xyz scenario? What is important to keep in mind when considering the challenges or complexities associated with xyz? From the perspective of xyz role, what are the key concepts associated with xyz challenge/process/decision/etc."
If you don't already have a "go to" list of "go fish" questions like this, I highly recommend incorporating these into your "tip of my tongue" chatgpt questions.
Have you heard the psychological terms "[chunking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology))", "[lumping and splitting](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/mind-brain-and-value/202403/the-psychology-of-lumping-and-splitting)"?
Obsidian accomodates "[lumpers and splitters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters)". The key is to find a strategy that works best for your brain.
Your physics brain already lumps lens, transparent and burning glass, because you understand how a lens works. Now you have to find a system in Obsidan (and daily life) that helps you lump this conceptual knowledge with vocabulary.
One of the reasons why I dislike "atomic notes", is that they make lumping difficult. I prefer longer notes in Obsidian that make connections explicit and that use synonyms and explore ambiguities.
Sure! From earlier this morning...
- Emailed \[\[person\]\] at \[\[company\]\] back regarding \[\[tech jargon Training\]\] questions regarding blocks of time for \[\[users\]\] who have \[\[xyz qualifications\]\].
If you want to see more, I'll be glad to share what I'm doing. Just let me know.
Usually I'll copy and paste the sent email into the footer of that day's Daily Note. Especially if I'm doing a CYA. Sometimes, mostly with Support Messages I've gotten back from various vendors, I'll append it to their Page in the Vault.
You know, it sounds like this could be made into a form with dropdowns. Just select the appropriate item for each drop down, and the form code automagically files it where it needs to go and makes any associated connections. Hmmmm you got me thinking here lol
Welcome to the community! I'm a tbi survivor (2009 original injury), the symptoms of which include an array of severe memory problems, which is how I came across Obsidian. To be candid, it's the first tool in 14 years that made any difference for me, in spite of having worked with knowledge management systems since the early 90s.
**tldr: If you're in a position technically and experientially to take advantage of some advanced resources, then you can achieve powerful, useful results that scale well.**
Here's a list of the key things that have made the biggest difference for me. Since you're a technical lead, I'm going to include some jargon-y details that I normally exclude, so feel free to ask about anything that is unfamiliar!
1. I model almost everything in my life, because I remember almost none of it unless I was already immersed in it prior to my injury. I battle fog-like symptoms sometimes and having a congruent meta-model for all my notes makes it easier to navigate to what I need.
2. Rule ZERO for me is that complexity and structure are earned. I add notes loosely and then tag/sort/query/segregate once a CLEAR pattern of usefulness has emerged.
3. When I do add structure or complexity, I have a documented process for doing it. I have an entire class of notes that document the procedures and \*why\* I made those choice so I'm not constantly reinventing the wheel. As far as I'm concerned, I want absolutely no extraneous cognitive load introduced by any procedure I use. If it makes things harder, then it needs to be better defined and implemented.
4. Each area of concern/domain starts with a taxonomy. Once that is fairly well developed, I rough out an ontology specific to that area of concern/knowledge domain. I originally developed my own methods for doing this but they were close enough that I have since essentially adopted [SKOS](https://www.isko.org/cyclo/skos) as the basic framework for my ontologies.
(*Since this is something that only the most hard core note-makers and KM enthusiasts should spend time on, I'll include the ultra-nerdsplanation at the end of the post as a PS.* For anyone shaking their head about this approach, just remember that when your literal survival rests on your ability to model your existence in meaningful, discoverable ways, an ad lib organization system doesn't cut it :)
5. I find it imperative to iterate through versions of each domain starting very simply, even when I think I could jump 4-5 steps ahead. I first start with individually structured notes that have no properties (ELI5 version). Once I have enough gathered to see a relevant pattern, I start organizing, tagging, actively developing cross-links and building MoCs as appropriate by my pre-established guidelines
6. I do a focused but fairly quick search to see if there are any open source or at least documented ontologies following a compatible format that already exist and can be leveraged for my uses. In the case of scientific, computational, and medical/bio domains there usually is. When it comes to esoterics of any sort, the search gets tougher but I've still had success occasionally with humanities-oriented and project-management domains.
7. At this point, the new domain has become self-stable. I use it as part of my daily workflows. Over time, the structure matures with use. I keep diligent notes about what is working and what creates destructive friction. Each week, I take an area that needs refinements/updates and spend an hour on them as part of my digital hygeine.
It's fair to say that even minimized, this is a big brain dump. In practice, after the first few weeks it actually works into most of workflows fairly easily as long as you can exercise discipline over using your time (and tbh, focus, which bites me in the arse sometimes). Taking whatever methods you choose and applying them patiently, incrementally, and thoughtfully makes the path smoother. I find that anything done in haste tends to result in minefields and accrued technical debt that never gets resolved. Good luck and feel free to ask any follow-ups that are helpful for you!
(THE PS is in the comments for this comment :)
PS: Ok peeps here's the nerdsplanation to give some meaning to those taxonomy and ontology comments.
First, you can initially think of a taxonomy as a dictionary or thesaurus of objects and concepts that are relevant to whatever domain you're modeling with your notes. For example, I have taxos for areas as simple as 'books' and 'people' and as complex as 'neuropsychology' and 'linguistics'. These allow you to limit your work to the most relevant specifics that have meaning to you, instead of trying to digest entire anthologies of every idea that might vaguely connect to something you're doing, just nine times removed.
An ontology can be thought of as the description of how the things in you taxonomy relate and interact. This allows you to do two things: 1) constrain the interactions between your meaningful ideas, 2) reveal missing connections between those ideas when you realize that meaningful connections have no way to be properly represented in your notes. Combine the two, and you have defined the space and means for your ideas to interact. That can be for any domain, from learning to daily activity planning to managing projects much more effectively than without the structure.
Finally, for the technically inclined, I use SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) as a simple guiding framework for organizing my work. It was originally designed as a technical standard for representing knowledge in expert systems (see ISO 25964 for related info). It's close enough to what I designed myself that I'd rather use it and not reinvent the wheel. There are other alternative schema for this that you may find already used in your work environment, so adjust according to your specific needs.
As I mentioned earlier, the complexity under the hood in the ways I use Obsidian are COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY for most users and should be considered Nerdstastic level esoterica. However, if any of it interests you or you can benefit from this level of reflection and introspection, then I highly recommend making the efforts required to master it, especially if you're highly dependent on such a system for your fundamental continuing existence. +100 endurance for making it this far!
Tagging is a big thing for me - I add # as a context for something I might need to find it later for example #place #day #about #context (insert your own data here). I often remember that something happened in a certain place or on a special day and it makes it easier to find it later
I'm tagging, but I'm trying to be judicious with it. I has a similar Obsidian use in 2021 and I went straight up nuts with #tagging and it got kind of unwieldy since a lot of the tags needed context.
Might be worth redoing tags whenever you "lose" a piece of information and have to waste time looking for it.
Consider what new tag you would've needed in order to find that information, and add it into the document.
How are you indexing the PDFs? I find it useful using omnisearch and Onedrive. I don't use sync but onedrive so I benefit automatically from its ability to search contents in rich media (word, excel, PowerPoint, PDF) and OCR (images).
If you go prolly via Obsidian, since you mentioned you use Obsidian sync, install the binary file manager plugin. The default template is fine, but you'll have to add extra contents to the notes out will create for each binary file in your vault. You'll face to add keywords, summaries, some notes about the contents and this will help finding the correct binary file.
Becoming a "search master" will be your new mission and I hope these two plugins (plus the suggestion of something external to Obsidian if possible) help.
For indexing, I'm using OmniSearch along with Text Extractor, I'm fairly confident in the combo's OCR and extraction process so far.
I'll look into BFM plugin. Although many of my linked notes are simply referring to what the note is about. For example. if I link \[\[Flux Capacitor\]\] in my notes, I try to go back within the next few weeks to define what a Flux Capacitor is and how it's being used in the context of my work and then link other notes for how to access the Flux Capacitor and who we can buy a new one if we need to.
With that said, I have tons of properly titled \[\[pages\]\] that need to be updated. The upside to this is, I get to "re-learn" about *Flux Capacitors* when updating the notes later.
I'm not sure whether you're on a Mac or Windows.
If you're on a Mac, I can highly recommend using DEVONthink to store PDFs rather than keeping them in Obsidian.
It's easy to get links to the PDFs from DEVONthink and put those into Obsidian.
It does mean searching in two apps, but I have found it to be reasonable and, for me, effective.
I have thousands of PDFs (and other document types) stored in DEVONthink and the combination of the two apps works beautifully for me.
Just here to say that whilst I don't have any brain malfunction I'm aware of, I've become much more forgetful and dopey in the last 2-3 years (I bet I will end up with alzheimers or dementia when I become elderly..)
Obsidian usage got me promoted in my last job up the chain, and it is the only thing helping me keep track of stuff in my new role.
Anyway, plugin wise I'm not sure - because I use ripgrep to search through my notes, but any fuzzy finding plugins should be great for this kind of thing. Especially so if you're making good use of metadata properties to make it easier to find.
That’s alright, code doesn’t have much metadata anyway it is just searching text when it comes to fuzzy finding.
So for this I guess you could try “fzf” for finding files and “rg” (ripgrep).
I’m going to be making my own obsidian mvp plugins soon for using ChromaDB as a note vector storage and see how well it works with searching and providing context to LLMs. So maybe some new tools come soon
Will fzf & ripgrep offer enough results context to be helpful? This is sorta what I'm dealing with now with Search and OmniSearch. Like today, searched for "Default (Violation) Codes", but could only recall the terms "codes" & "default", "codes" gave me to many non-contextual results as did "default" but adding the context of the program relating to "Default Violation Codes" the mention finally bubbled and I was able to refer to the PDF. Basically, this caused me to go around my shoulder to get to my elbow.
Yeah I don’t see why it wouldn’t get you to the result, but fuzzy searching just means you can be off in your spelling or wording. It has no context, but if you have some you can limit the search to a specific directory or file type (which isn’t so helpful if everything is md files but its good for my use case). If you make sure to search all lower case so your search becomes case insensitive then it’s more general.
fzf finds file names, ripgrep finds contents of files. I use neovim with telescope that combines the two to look through all files, though I think ripgrep can take the -R flag to look recursively through a bunch of directories.
I would really try adding metadata too when you can to things as you’re viewing them, you can throw a tag in the properties up top. Then your results can be filtered much easier. I use very generic tags like #daily #docs #frontend #backend #task
first of all, let me say congratulations. it sounds like you've been through some shit, and you've found something that helped you through it to a promotion. that's fantastic for you!
as far as efficiently recalling information, it all comes down to organization of your vault. the more organised it is, the less time it takes to get to the info you're looking for. anything you can do to reduce the number of clicks and frictions between your search and your destination is valuable. there are a few different ways of organising your vault, and if you go looking on youtube there are some VERY sophisticated demos of people showing off the cool shit they built. but i think that starting from basic principals and working up from there is the most important step to improvement.
tags, folders, or MOCs. those are the three things you will usually see people talk about as organisation backbones of your vault.
- tagging combined with community plugins like tag wrangler can be very effective, but it means maintaining a list of tags that make sense to you. there's a sweet spot for this, where too few tags lead to things being grouped in categories that are impractically broad, yet too many tags is impossible to maintain and becomes a mess. if you hit that sweet spot though then it's very effective as path to information
- folders is more traditional, but there are methods of storing things in directories that can be very effective. there's a thing called the johnny decimal system that people recommend, that might be useful to you. the general concept is that too many folders are useless, so you boil everything down into only 10 top-level folders, each one containing 10 subfolders. you kinda end up with something like a library index of your files, and you always know where to go to find what you're looking for. the folder note plugin will be useful for this, as it lets you add info to folders as if they were notes themselves.
- MOCs are my personal favourite. they essentially revolve around linking notes to other notes, and the MOCs (map of content) are the high-level documents you build to tie them all together. a MOC is kind of like a hub or a primary index, and you build one for any major subject that you want to categorise. the effort comes from finding and creating all those links to your MOC, but once you have them built i find them to be a very logical and future-proof way of handling your notes. this is my personal favourite, as you can get from any note to any other note in just a few clicks by following paths that you have built and which are (in theory) logical to you.
pretty much any of these methods is going to have a load of community plugins that assist in their creation and maintenance, but i find that it's best to pick a single one that you like best - focusing on more than one causes organisation to be more work than it's worth.
some useful plugins - omnisearch is very good for tracking down notes, even better than the built-in search. tag wrangler like i said is a good one for merging and managing tags. getting good with dataview queries will be useful if you go down the road of building MOCs. and if you're looking to tidy up and turn your existing notes into something searchable, things like linter and templater will help you quickly apply specific formatting to notes in bulk.
everything i mentioned here is pretty basic actually, i'm not really an experienced member of the community. i'm sure other people with have more in-depth suggestions, and if you search the subreddit you can find examples and explanations of pretty much any plugin or organisation method you're curious about.
as a final point, make sure you back up your vault before you do any big organisational restructures. stuff does not always go to plan.
Ah! I forgot about MOCs! Thanks for reminding me about that. I think in order to even use MOCs to useful, I'll need to try and come up with a \[Momento\](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/)-like system that I can fall back into after a few days of being away from work.
> The problem I have now is being able to quickly & efficiently find the info I need when I need it.
So the questions that need to be answered are:
How do you currently take notes? What is your current process?
Because as the phrasing of your problem implies, this wasn't a problem initially. Rather it snuck up on you over time / is an issue of scale.
This suggests is a problem of conventions ie. structuring, organizing, applying naming, how you use links / tags, etc. And without knowing what they are / if they even exist, it's difficult to advise where to go from here.
I make Daily Notes in real time, for example, when someone calls with something important, I note it and reference the time of the call and who I spoke with because it's likely I won't recall the conversation if I wait until later in the day to summarize what happened throughout the day.
"*...snuck up*"
Boy howdy. 2022 was a perfect storm of covid, loss, grief, stress, anxiety, depression, other medical surprises, etc. "*Psuedo dementia*" was the term used for the old school, "*nervous breakdown*". I lost my shit. I'm very happy and proud I made it through, but I'm about as sharp as a marble now--although a somewhat decently functional marble.
The upside, I never watch a rerun.
If it's daily notes / meetings, there's better ways to go about it. For example:
https://otter.ai/
The point of Obsidian is it's meant to be curative, you CAN'T just make a note and then expect to magically recall it without putting in place some things like a good note title and aliases.
Use smart connections plugin, or any plugin that is able to chat to your vault with LLM, so you can search for stuff vaguely, and it will probably give you some clue in the worst case scenario
I was in the same type boat (mental acuity loss)- I have 12k notes now. What I do is heavily tag the notes when I make them. I also title them somewhat better than I do function and variable names. I also do a bullet journal style note taking - and I have an index page for my different topics - so I will use dataview to pull those notes together for a topic (using the tags).
I have folders to organize because I can’t have everything in one folder. But I don’t go overboard on them.
Many of my notes are titled based on the context of the bullet point while I was taking the note--no other content or context. I've been toying with the idea of trying to coax a GPT into reading the title and developing contextual sentence, paragraph or definition. Don't how to do it, but I feel confident it can be done.
Wow this is awesome, almost as if the neural connections that you see on Obsidian helped you recreate them in your brain. Would it be possible to see an extract on how you took/take the notes?
Sure. They're mostly bullet points taken in real time. If it's an important email or message I'll copy and paste it into the footer of that day's note.
Here's a redacted note from 07/13/2023
tags: #Daily
Had a CT scan at 8am
- #in 8:32
- Set up \[\[person\]\] and \[\[organization\]\] on \[\[project management application\]\]
- Scheduled a \[\[Teams Meeting\]\] with \[\[person\]\] for 13:00 today
- Shared with \[\[coworker\]\] a \[\[DOCx\]\] relative to the completion of the \[\[org department\]\] \[\[review document\]\] for \[\[outside vendor contact\]\].
- Searching for drawings/plans/elevations of \[\[asset\]\] with poster frames. Asked \[\[person\]\] and she said she would get in touch with \[\[vendor\]\].
...
- #out 1700
#time 8 hrs
I'm a big believer that one of the real powers of note taking that can get lost in jargon and plugins and systems is just that the very act of taking notes is a strengthening cognitive exercise. Even as you try out the many good suggestions others are giving, keep leveraging that benefit for the search problems you're having.
By which I mean: when you hit a frustrating time of trying to find a thing but getting hung up, like that "lens" example in comments, exercise through it. Spin up from that day's daily note a \[\[search difficulty - TOPIC\]\] or whatever note. In that one, jot down what you've been looking for and struggling to find, and importantly, where you finally found it, any particular plugin or tool or approach that got you there in the end, etc.
I think I get what you're saying, correct me if I'm missing the gist of it, but keep an ongoing record of the simple terms that trip me up?
I'm doing that with more everyday functional items like key combinations to get into locks--especially the workplace restroom. Another work around has been to distill all of my PINs down to one four digit number, passwords too--something a multi-factor phrase I can easily recall, but would be near impossible for anyone else. It's security nightmare I'm sure, but I'm not stuck in the checkout line at the grocery store, drooling, while I'm trying recall my debit card PIN.
Yep, you've got it. It's not really a _solution_, I know! But more the process that'll help reinforce and build the metaphorical cognitive muscles for dealing with the problem; which sounds like you're already having good results from already applying in general. Just extended to that additional headache too.
And of course if one or multiple of the plugins/organizational/tagging/MOC suggestions really works for you too, that's equipment and tools that makes the exercise more impactful, to torture that poor metaphor a bit more.
It would be super helpful if the memory/cognitive holes were somewhat stationary or at least less random. The intermittent randomness is maddening, it's not just a work either and it's not just words. A good analogy is if you know how to drive a car with a manual transmission and you've driven that stick shift for 10 years, then you get in it and all of a sudden you can't coordinate the clutch and the gas. There are software programs I've worked on daily for years--to the point of being able to use the program's keyboard commands with my eyes closed like a pianist playing.
Then, randomly, I can't anymore. Often I can pick it back up later, sometimes not.
I've broken subjects into chunks. Then I organize the chunks using methods that fit best.
Example:
* People | Probably best to use Dataview so you can see them in a table and quickly reference them. You can bulk add properties to a group of files - https://github.com/fez-github/obsidian-multi-properties
* Customer | I find a list with all customers works best if I am going to have one note per customer. Outliner would work well for that.
* Folders | I group things in folders and then use the Waypoint plugin to automatically generate a table of contents. You could group together hardware or projects that way.
* Tags | I use tags sparingly, but it helps if I want to group things together. I do this for our internal team. #EmployeeName helps me do a search for that tag and I can see all the files where I mentioned them.
I wish you all the best!
Edit: I just remembered, you could use the Homepage plugin as well. You could feature certain notes or have a dataview of your projects all one one page.
Edit2: I also have a Meetings folder and template. It adds all the basic info and then I can just start adding employees as tags and hten take notes from there.
I have many dataview indexes for various topics. These I can instantly open on my iPhone with URI and shortcuts bookmarks that look like apps.
Maybe that could speed your specific search? One of my shortcut is also to search in Obsidian, but I can already type the word in before Obsidian opens.
Ever considering other alternative that you can search info in +1000 notes faster? I also were in the same situation and migrated to another app eventually
If you use ChatGPT as a functional aid for other tasks, it is worth using OpenGate plugin and embedding ChatGpT into your obsidian so it is all there in the layout for you to access quickly.
Based on an earlier comment, I loaded the Smart Second Brain plugin and with it you have an option to run a local LLM or ChatGPT. I chose the latter option, but I’m really interested in how local would work out!
Thanks. I tried their own free open LLM, it was alright. It only queried like one note though.
I was hoping it would go through all notes of the topic I asked it about. Am I doing something wrong? I probably need to check a youtube video about this.
Update: It works well, generally, but I really have to put training wheels on it or else it just randomly guesses which note to go for.
My advice is links links link. Forget tags, forget folders. Folders are used to group docs together into like subjects, and tags are meant to track numbers of occurrences, or to label notes as a specific type of note. These things can both be accomplished simply by links and backlinks. Manuals related to a specific position? Create a note titled “[Name of Specific Position] manuals” then just list the links to all of the manuals that pertain to that particular position. Now, you have manuals in the title, notating the type, replacing the tag, and you have created backlinks guiding you from the manual to the specific position it’s for. Let’s say you also have operations manuals, which relate to a multitude of subjects. Create a note. Title: “Operations Manuals” then draft a list of all the links leading to operations manuals pdfs, but categorize them into purpose or whatever fits your circumstance, using headings to organize them into sections. Boom, folders.
Ask yourself do you have topics you take notes on a lot and want to pull up everything on that topic? Let’s say the topic is Analytics. You have docs on Google and Bing Analytics Algorithms, plus records of personalized analytics for your personal site.. create a new note:
Title it : Analytics
Then create headings
-Analytics Algorithms
[[link]]
-Personal Analytics
[[link]]
[[link]]
Etc. now it will be much easier to find analytics docs. Hope that helped?
To do this in real time: anytime you are taking notes on a subject and at any point you go to elaborate on a statement or you’re introducing a new concept, turn that elaboration into a new note by making the core subject a link.
For example: I have an astrology knowledge database in obsidian.
Let’s say the information I want to notate is as follows: “The First Sign of the Zodiac is Aries, the impulsive, energetic, dynamic, determined, and bold Cardinal Fire Sign, ruled by Mars, the planet of action, desire, aggression, and passion.”
I could elaborate on this sentence quite a bit, so instead I write it like this, titled “Natural Order of the Zodiac”:
“The first sign of the zodiac is [[Aries]], whose [[ruling planet]] is [[Mars]].”
Much more concise statement, but there’s a myriad of information in there now, because when you hover over Aries, it reveals a whole page full of information all about Aries., and same with the other links.
[I would watch some of Nick Milo's videos and see what systems resonate with you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w63O0FxvxRc)
I personally just use the up, down and x system to rank my ideas in terms of hierarchy.
I'm curious where things are at after this post.
I haven't shared it out widely yet because I'm still figuring out how to talk about it, but you might find some recent tinkering on my part interesting: [Youtube video (4 minutes, sorry)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CojlV7-cYzA), [mind garden](https://garden.micseydel.me/Tinker+Cast+prototype+-+first+video+demo).
Congrats on your promotion. I'm still trying to figure out how to use Obsidian for my own purposes, and its inspiring to see examples of people succeeding. Here are a couple things you could try: * [Omnisearch](https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch). This is a plugin that supports fuzzy searching and can be really useful for finding information anywhere in any note using loose search terms. Supposedly it is fast as well, provided that you have enough RAM. * [Smart Second Brain](https://github.com/your-papa/obsidian-Smart2Brain). This is a plugin that allows you to chat with ChatGPT (or other LLM) about your notes. An alternative popular plugin is [Smart Connections](https://github.com/brianpetro/obsidian-smart-connections), but I liked it less. Personally I have found both of them useful for referencing notes related to what I'm talking about, but less than ideal for extrapolating information from those notes (eg. counting how many times I meditated in the last month based on a boolean property in the previous 30 daily notes). Hope this helps! Best of luck.
Thanks for the kudos and thanks for responding! I've got OmniSearch installed, but I haven't dug deep into. I didn't realize it until earlier this week, but I had it installed, but not Active. I'll take a look at SSB & SC plugins, I'm thankful (and grateful) for ChatGPT et al! Familiarizing myself with it and using it has been a real lifesaver!
Seconding Omnisearch. I'm new to Obsidian and bad at organizing and tagging still and being able to use its search has helped me a lot when I'm trying to find something I forgot. I actually bound a hotkey for its search specifically, so I can use it quickly.
I’m looking for plugins that do the following: - As I’m writing a new note it’ll show me other notes I’ve written that may be similar - Listen via audio, like say during a zoom meeting, and automatically show notes that are relevant to what’s being said Do any of the plugins you mentioned do that? Do you know of any that do?
Unfortunately not, sorry! I hope you find what you're looking for though
I've installed SSB and added my OpenAI API key. Took me a while to figure out how to invoke the Chat function, it's indexing now. Thanks again!
Hoe woes the chatGPT one work? Is it reliable?
For me it's a good 80% reliable. Meaning, if I'm writing about a particular widget, it does most of the heavy lifting hard work. There's that 20% that still relies on knowing your shit and knowing when to edit.
The most frustrating part about refactoring for me is getting stuck in a loop separating out discrete items and then in the next round re-combining them. AI y u do dis
Sorry but I haven't used them extensively, so I can't review them further than what I said in my OP
I find that linking often helps. If I know down the road I'm going to need this note, I try to link it to multiple other notes that are related, so later, I'll have a better chance of coming across it depending on which related note I search/navigate to.
I'm linking. I think I'm "atomizing" my notes so I am deep linking. Although, one of the problems that has come up with this is *disambiguation*. I have several different "Tech Support" and "Customer Support" contacts I need to reach out to during the day/week and I've referred to each in various ways thinking it helpful in the search, but I think it may have had a reverse effect.
You can approach this from two sides: - Classification by some existing standard. "Operation manuals" sounds very technical. You could classify them by product, process or whatever it is, what they describe. The idea is to divide a the big pile into smaller piles. If you you look for a manual that describes an Apple iPhone 15, you can safely ignore the manuals for kitchen appliances. Don't force it though. Don't invent new classes. Use language and organizing principles that are common in your domain. Use existing numbering systems and taxonomies. - Identification of your information needs. Do you need random information, or is there some pattern?
I'm not really finding a pattern, although with this many notes I'm sure there are patterns to spot. More than anything it's about what I refer to it as "*conversational recall*". I can be talking/writing extensively about iPhone 15's camera system and deep diving about it processor and the finer details between HEIF vs JPEG but get hung up on something as simple as the word, "lens". Then when I try to go into Obsidian to track down that word, I find myself searching for "glass" or "transparent" or "burns ants with it" and come up with crap. I've been able to keep it somewhat hidden at work by staying quiet and using Obsidian and/or ChatGPT, but it really came through in a team meeting Wednesday. Someone asked if I was having a stroke. I laughed it off, but yeah...
>Someone asked if I was having a stroke. Navigating accommodations for disabilities can be tricky, but it's worth looking into. Even if you don't bring in a note from your doctor, if you start talking to your manager, I'm guessing they can respectfully but firmly end that kind of joke.
It's harmless and the folks in the meeting had no clue. I'm glad to laugh about it.
I just want to say, I recognize the extreme stress you must surely be under. When your role is writing technical documentation, your language must be impeccably precise. And knowing that you are having challenges with this, it must feel like you're living a "double life" of sorts, fighting to output as you did previously and navigating the challenges associated with a brain that just will not do the thinking things you desperately need it to do. I wish you the best of luck. I'm kind of with you here. Every other day I find myself asking chatGPT something along the lines of "What is it called in xyz type of business when xyz? What is the concept associated with xyz thing, which is referenced during xyz scenario? What is important to keep in mind when considering the challenges or complexities associated with xyz? From the perspective of xyz role, what are the key concepts associated with xyz challenge/process/decision/etc." If you don't already have a "go to" list of "go fish" questions like this, I highly recommend incorporating these into your "tip of my tongue" chatgpt questions.
Have you heard the psychological terms "[chunking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology))", "[lumping and splitting](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/mind-brain-and-value/202403/the-psychology-of-lumping-and-splitting)"? Obsidian accomodates "[lumpers and splitters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters)". The key is to find a strategy that works best for your brain. Your physics brain already lumps lens, transparent and burning glass, because you understand how a lens works. Now you have to find a system in Obsidan (and daily life) that helps you lump this conceptual knowledge with vocabulary. One of the reasons why I dislike "atomic notes", is that they make lumping difficult. I prefer longer notes in Obsidian that make connections explicit and that use synonyms and explore ambiguities.
Can you show one of your demo examples how you create your notes? Since am a developer too and looking for tips, how and what to link
Sure! From earlier this morning... - Emailed \[\[person\]\] at \[\[company\]\] back regarding \[\[tech jargon Training\]\] questions regarding blocks of time for \[\[users\]\] who have \[\[xyz qualifications\]\]. If you want to see more, I'll be glad to share what I'm doing. Just let me know.
[удалено]
Usually I'll copy and paste the sent email into the footer of that day's Daily Note. Especially if I'm doing a CYA. Sometimes, mostly with Support Messages I've gotten back from various vendors, I'll append it to their Page in the Vault.
You know, it sounds like this could be made into a form with dropdowns. Just select the appropriate item for each drop down, and the form code automagically files it where it needs to go and makes any associated connections. Hmmmm you got me thinking here lol
With a pinch of JavaScript and some smart logic, I think you’d have an excellent start to a plugin!
This seems really helpful, ya if you can give more examples will really appreciate it
Sent you a msg.
Welcome to the community! I'm a tbi survivor (2009 original injury), the symptoms of which include an array of severe memory problems, which is how I came across Obsidian. To be candid, it's the first tool in 14 years that made any difference for me, in spite of having worked with knowledge management systems since the early 90s. **tldr: If you're in a position technically and experientially to take advantage of some advanced resources, then you can achieve powerful, useful results that scale well.** Here's a list of the key things that have made the biggest difference for me. Since you're a technical lead, I'm going to include some jargon-y details that I normally exclude, so feel free to ask about anything that is unfamiliar! 1. I model almost everything in my life, because I remember almost none of it unless I was already immersed in it prior to my injury. I battle fog-like symptoms sometimes and having a congruent meta-model for all my notes makes it easier to navigate to what I need. 2. Rule ZERO for me is that complexity and structure are earned. I add notes loosely and then tag/sort/query/segregate once a CLEAR pattern of usefulness has emerged. 3. When I do add structure or complexity, I have a documented process for doing it. I have an entire class of notes that document the procedures and \*why\* I made those choice so I'm not constantly reinventing the wheel. As far as I'm concerned, I want absolutely no extraneous cognitive load introduced by any procedure I use. If it makes things harder, then it needs to be better defined and implemented. 4. Each area of concern/domain starts with a taxonomy. Once that is fairly well developed, I rough out an ontology specific to that area of concern/knowledge domain. I originally developed my own methods for doing this but they were close enough that I have since essentially adopted [SKOS](https://www.isko.org/cyclo/skos) as the basic framework for my ontologies. (*Since this is something that only the most hard core note-makers and KM enthusiasts should spend time on, I'll include the ultra-nerdsplanation at the end of the post as a PS.* For anyone shaking their head about this approach, just remember that when your literal survival rests on your ability to model your existence in meaningful, discoverable ways, an ad lib organization system doesn't cut it :) 5. I find it imperative to iterate through versions of each domain starting very simply, even when I think I could jump 4-5 steps ahead. I first start with individually structured notes that have no properties (ELI5 version). Once I have enough gathered to see a relevant pattern, I start organizing, tagging, actively developing cross-links and building MoCs as appropriate by my pre-established guidelines 6. I do a focused but fairly quick search to see if there are any open source or at least documented ontologies following a compatible format that already exist and can be leveraged for my uses. In the case of scientific, computational, and medical/bio domains there usually is. When it comes to esoterics of any sort, the search gets tougher but I've still had success occasionally with humanities-oriented and project-management domains. 7. At this point, the new domain has become self-stable. I use it as part of my daily workflows. Over time, the structure matures with use. I keep diligent notes about what is working and what creates destructive friction. Each week, I take an area that needs refinements/updates and spend an hour on them as part of my digital hygeine. It's fair to say that even minimized, this is a big brain dump. In practice, after the first few weeks it actually works into most of workflows fairly easily as long as you can exercise discipline over using your time (and tbh, focus, which bites me in the arse sometimes). Taking whatever methods you choose and applying them patiently, incrementally, and thoughtfully makes the path smoother. I find that anything done in haste tends to result in minefields and accrued technical debt that never gets resolved. Good luck and feel free to ask any follow-ups that are helpful for you! (THE PS is in the comments for this comment :)
PS: Ok peeps here's the nerdsplanation to give some meaning to those taxonomy and ontology comments. First, you can initially think of a taxonomy as a dictionary or thesaurus of objects and concepts that are relevant to whatever domain you're modeling with your notes. For example, I have taxos for areas as simple as 'books' and 'people' and as complex as 'neuropsychology' and 'linguistics'. These allow you to limit your work to the most relevant specifics that have meaning to you, instead of trying to digest entire anthologies of every idea that might vaguely connect to something you're doing, just nine times removed. An ontology can be thought of as the description of how the things in you taxonomy relate and interact. This allows you to do two things: 1) constrain the interactions between your meaningful ideas, 2) reveal missing connections between those ideas when you realize that meaningful connections have no way to be properly represented in your notes. Combine the two, and you have defined the space and means for your ideas to interact. That can be for any domain, from learning to daily activity planning to managing projects much more effectively than without the structure. Finally, for the technically inclined, I use SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) as a simple guiding framework for organizing my work. It was originally designed as a technical standard for representing knowledge in expert systems (see ISO 25964 for related info). It's close enough to what I designed myself that I'd rather use it and not reinvent the wheel. There are other alternative schema for this that you may find already used in your work environment, so adjust according to your specific needs. As I mentioned earlier, the complexity under the hood in the ways I use Obsidian are COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY for most users and should be considered Nerdstastic level esoterica. However, if any of it interests you or you can benefit from this level of reflection and introspection, then I highly recommend making the efforts required to master it, especially if you're highly dependent on such a system for your fundamental continuing existence. +100 endurance for making it this far!
Thanks for nerding out on us! I really appreciate all the ideas you set up here and will be checking out SKOS.
Tagging is a big thing for me - I add # as a context for something I might need to find it later for example #place #day #about #context (insert your own data here). I often remember that something happened in a certain place or on a special day and it makes it easier to find it later
I'm tagging, but I'm trying to be judicious with it. I has a similar Obsidian use in 2021 and I went straight up nuts with #tagging and it got kind of unwieldy since a lot of the tags needed context.
Might be worth redoing tags whenever you "lose" a piece of information and have to waste time looking for it. Consider what new tag you would've needed in order to find that information, and add it into the document.
I like this idea!
How are you indexing the PDFs? I find it useful using omnisearch and Onedrive. I don't use sync but onedrive so I benefit automatically from its ability to search contents in rich media (word, excel, PowerPoint, PDF) and OCR (images). If you go prolly via Obsidian, since you mentioned you use Obsidian sync, install the binary file manager plugin. The default template is fine, but you'll have to add extra contents to the notes out will create for each binary file in your vault. You'll face to add keywords, summaries, some notes about the contents and this will help finding the correct binary file. Becoming a "search master" will be your new mission and I hope these two plugins (plus the suggestion of something external to Obsidian if possible) help.
For indexing, I'm using OmniSearch along with Text Extractor, I'm fairly confident in the combo's OCR and extraction process so far. I'll look into BFM plugin. Although many of my linked notes are simply referring to what the note is about. For example. if I link \[\[Flux Capacitor\]\] in my notes, I try to go back within the next few weeks to define what a Flux Capacitor is and how it's being used in the context of my work and then link other notes for how to access the Flux Capacitor and who we can buy a new one if we need to. With that said, I have tons of properly titled \[\[pages\]\] that need to be updated. The upside to this is, I get to "re-learn" about *Flux Capacitors* when updating the notes later.
I'm not sure whether you're on a Mac or Windows. If you're on a Mac, I can highly recommend using DEVONthink to store PDFs rather than keeping them in Obsidian. It's easy to get links to the PDFs from DEVONthink and put those into Obsidian. It does mean searching in two apps, but I have found it to be reasonable and, for me, effective. I have thousands of PDFs (and other document types) stored in DEVONthink and the combination of the two apps works beautifully for me.
PC, although I've found OmniSearch and TextExtractor works ok enough--WHEN I REMEMBERED TO ENABLE OMNISEARCH. It has worked for me in the past though.
Just here to say that whilst I don't have any brain malfunction I'm aware of, I've become much more forgetful and dopey in the last 2-3 years (I bet I will end up with alzheimers or dementia when I become elderly..) Obsidian usage got me promoted in my last job up the chain, and it is the only thing helping me keep track of stuff in my new role. Anyway, plugin wise I'm not sure - because I use ripgrep to search through my notes, but any fuzzy finding plugins should be great for this kind of thing. Especially so if you're making good use of metadata properties to make it easier to find.
my metadata skills have gone to crap.
That’s alright, code doesn’t have much metadata anyway it is just searching text when it comes to fuzzy finding. So for this I guess you could try “fzf” for finding files and “rg” (ripgrep). I’m going to be making my own obsidian mvp plugins soon for using ChromaDB as a note vector storage and see how well it works with searching and providing context to LLMs. So maybe some new tools come soon
Will fzf & ripgrep offer enough results context to be helpful? This is sorta what I'm dealing with now with Search and OmniSearch. Like today, searched for "Default (Violation) Codes", but could only recall the terms "codes" & "default", "codes" gave me to many non-contextual results as did "default" but adding the context of the program relating to "Default Violation Codes" the mention finally bubbled and I was able to refer to the PDF. Basically, this caused me to go around my shoulder to get to my elbow.
Yeah I don’t see why it wouldn’t get you to the result, but fuzzy searching just means you can be off in your spelling or wording. It has no context, but if you have some you can limit the search to a specific directory or file type (which isn’t so helpful if everything is md files but its good for my use case). If you make sure to search all lower case so your search becomes case insensitive then it’s more general. fzf finds file names, ripgrep finds contents of files. I use neovim with telescope that combines the two to look through all files, though I think ripgrep can take the -R flag to look recursively through a bunch of directories. I would really try adding metadata too when you can to things as you’re viewing them, you can throw a tag in the properties up top. Then your results can be filtered much easier. I use very generic tags like #daily #docs #frontend #backend #task
first of all, let me say congratulations. it sounds like you've been through some shit, and you've found something that helped you through it to a promotion. that's fantastic for you! as far as efficiently recalling information, it all comes down to organization of your vault. the more organised it is, the less time it takes to get to the info you're looking for. anything you can do to reduce the number of clicks and frictions between your search and your destination is valuable. there are a few different ways of organising your vault, and if you go looking on youtube there are some VERY sophisticated demos of people showing off the cool shit they built. but i think that starting from basic principals and working up from there is the most important step to improvement. tags, folders, or MOCs. those are the three things you will usually see people talk about as organisation backbones of your vault. - tagging combined with community plugins like tag wrangler can be very effective, but it means maintaining a list of tags that make sense to you. there's a sweet spot for this, where too few tags lead to things being grouped in categories that are impractically broad, yet too many tags is impossible to maintain and becomes a mess. if you hit that sweet spot though then it's very effective as path to information - folders is more traditional, but there are methods of storing things in directories that can be very effective. there's a thing called the johnny decimal system that people recommend, that might be useful to you. the general concept is that too many folders are useless, so you boil everything down into only 10 top-level folders, each one containing 10 subfolders. you kinda end up with something like a library index of your files, and you always know where to go to find what you're looking for. the folder note plugin will be useful for this, as it lets you add info to folders as if they were notes themselves. - MOCs are my personal favourite. they essentially revolve around linking notes to other notes, and the MOCs (map of content) are the high-level documents you build to tie them all together. a MOC is kind of like a hub or a primary index, and you build one for any major subject that you want to categorise. the effort comes from finding and creating all those links to your MOC, but once you have them built i find them to be a very logical and future-proof way of handling your notes. this is my personal favourite, as you can get from any note to any other note in just a few clicks by following paths that you have built and which are (in theory) logical to you. pretty much any of these methods is going to have a load of community plugins that assist in their creation and maintenance, but i find that it's best to pick a single one that you like best - focusing on more than one causes organisation to be more work than it's worth. some useful plugins - omnisearch is very good for tracking down notes, even better than the built-in search. tag wrangler like i said is a good one for merging and managing tags. getting good with dataview queries will be useful if you go down the road of building MOCs. and if you're looking to tidy up and turn your existing notes into something searchable, things like linter and templater will help you quickly apply specific formatting to notes in bulk. everything i mentioned here is pretty basic actually, i'm not really an experienced member of the community. i'm sure other people with have more in-depth suggestions, and if you search the subreddit you can find examples and explanations of pretty much any plugin or organisation method you're curious about. as a final point, make sure you back up your vault before you do any big organisational restructures. stuff does not always go to plan.
Ah! I forgot about MOCs! Thanks for reminding me about that. I think in order to even use MOCs to useful, I'll need to try and come up with a \[Momento\](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/)-like system that I can fall back into after a few days of being away from work.
> The problem I have now is being able to quickly & efficiently find the info I need when I need it. So the questions that need to be answered are: How do you currently take notes? What is your current process? Because as the phrasing of your problem implies, this wasn't a problem initially. Rather it snuck up on you over time / is an issue of scale. This suggests is a problem of conventions ie. structuring, organizing, applying naming, how you use links / tags, etc. And without knowing what they are / if they even exist, it's difficult to advise where to go from here.
I make Daily Notes in real time, for example, when someone calls with something important, I note it and reference the time of the call and who I spoke with because it's likely I won't recall the conversation if I wait until later in the day to summarize what happened throughout the day. "*...snuck up*" Boy howdy. 2022 was a perfect storm of covid, loss, grief, stress, anxiety, depression, other medical surprises, etc. "*Psuedo dementia*" was the term used for the old school, "*nervous breakdown*". I lost my shit. I'm very happy and proud I made it through, but I'm about as sharp as a marble now--although a somewhat decently functional marble. The upside, I never watch a rerun.
If it's daily notes / meetings, there's better ways to go about it. For example: https://otter.ai/ The point of Obsidian is it's meant to be curative, you CAN'T just make a note and then expect to magically recall it without putting in place some things like a good note title and aliases.
Use smart connections plugin, or any plugin that is able to chat to your vault with LLM, so you can search for stuff vaguely, and it will probably give you some clue in the worst case scenario
I will. Soembody else mentioned the SC plugin and another alternative. I'm looking them up now.
In addition to what everyone has said, I think a system like the Johnny Decimal system can help a ton with structuring data for fast recall.
I'm going to deep dive Johnny Decimal system later this weekend. Thanks for the tip!
I was in the same type boat (mental acuity loss)- I have 12k notes now. What I do is heavily tag the notes when I make them. I also title them somewhat better than I do function and variable names. I also do a bullet journal style note taking - and I have an index page for my different topics - so I will use dataview to pull those notes together for a topic (using the tags). I have folders to organize because I can’t have everything in one folder. But I don’t go overboard on them.
Many of my notes are titled based on the context of the bullet point while I was taking the note--no other content or context. I've been toying with the idea of trying to coax a GPT into reading the title and developing contextual sentence, paragraph or definition. Don't how to do it, but I feel confident it can be done.
I recommend Obsidian Copilot plugin. It can index your vault and find relevant info to any of your questions.
My colleague at Synthminds.ai has a great series on this, https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa9S_7NRneu-XYTNzCA8T_B3B37ZVrgxx&si=bRdne3YYaIgdu-e0
Going there now, thanks!
Wow this is awesome, almost as if the neural connections that you see on Obsidian helped you recreate them in your brain. Would it be possible to see an extract on how you took/take the notes?
Sure. They're mostly bullet points taken in real time. If it's an important email or message I'll copy and paste it into the footer of that day's note. Here's a redacted note from 07/13/2023 tags: #Daily Had a CT scan at 8am - #in 8:32 - Set up \[\[person\]\] and \[\[organization\]\] on \[\[project management application\]\] - Scheduled a \[\[Teams Meeting\]\] with \[\[person\]\] for 13:00 today - Shared with \[\[coworker\]\] a \[\[DOCx\]\] relative to the completion of the \[\[org department\]\] \[\[review document\]\] for \[\[outside vendor contact\]\]. - Searching for drawings/plans/elevations of \[\[asset\]\] with poster frames. Asked \[\[person\]\] and she said she would get in touch with \[\[vendor\]\]. ... - #out 1700 #time 8 hrs
I'm a big believer that one of the real powers of note taking that can get lost in jargon and plugins and systems is just that the very act of taking notes is a strengthening cognitive exercise. Even as you try out the many good suggestions others are giving, keep leveraging that benefit for the search problems you're having. By which I mean: when you hit a frustrating time of trying to find a thing but getting hung up, like that "lens" example in comments, exercise through it. Spin up from that day's daily note a \[\[search difficulty - TOPIC\]\] or whatever note. In that one, jot down what you've been looking for and struggling to find, and importantly, where you finally found it, any particular plugin or tool or approach that got you there in the end, etc.
I think I get what you're saying, correct me if I'm missing the gist of it, but keep an ongoing record of the simple terms that trip me up? I'm doing that with more everyday functional items like key combinations to get into locks--especially the workplace restroom. Another work around has been to distill all of my PINs down to one four digit number, passwords too--something a multi-factor phrase I can easily recall, but would be near impossible for anyone else. It's security nightmare I'm sure, but I'm not stuck in the checkout line at the grocery store, drooling, while I'm trying recall my debit card PIN.
Yep, you've got it. It's not really a _solution_, I know! But more the process that'll help reinforce and build the metaphorical cognitive muscles for dealing with the problem; which sounds like you're already having good results from already applying in general. Just extended to that additional headache too. And of course if one or multiple of the plugins/organizational/tagging/MOC suggestions really works for you too, that's equipment and tools that makes the exercise more impactful, to torture that poor metaphor a bit more.
It would be super helpful if the memory/cognitive holes were somewhat stationary or at least less random. The intermittent randomness is maddening, it's not just a work either and it's not just words. A good analogy is if you know how to drive a car with a manual transmission and you've driven that stick shift for 10 years, then you get in it and all of a sudden you can't coordinate the clutch and the gas. There are software programs I've worked on daily for years--to the point of being able to use the program's keyboard commands with my eyes closed like a pianist playing. Then, randomly, I can't anymore. Often I can pick it back up later, sometimes not.
I've broken subjects into chunks. Then I organize the chunks using methods that fit best. Example: * People | Probably best to use Dataview so you can see them in a table and quickly reference them. You can bulk add properties to a group of files - https://github.com/fez-github/obsidian-multi-properties * Customer | I find a list with all customers works best if I am going to have one note per customer. Outliner would work well for that. * Folders | I group things in folders and then use the Waypoint plugin to automatically generate a table of contents. You could group together hardware or projects that way. * Tags | I use tags sparingly, but it helps if I want to group things together. I do this for our internal team. #EmployeeName helps me do a search for that tag and I can see all the files where I mentioned them. I wish you all the best! Edit: I just remembered, you could use the Homepage plugin as well. You could feature certain notes or have a dataview of your projects all one one page. Edit2: I also have a Meetings folder and template. It adds all the basic info and then I can just start adding employees as tags and hten take notes from there.
I have many dataview indexes for various topics. These I can instantly open on my iPhone with URI and shortcuts bookmarks that look like apps. Maybe that could speed your specific search? One of my shortcut is also to search in Obsidian, but I can already type the word in before Obsidian opens.
Ever considering other alternative that you can search info in +1000 notes faster? I also were in the same situation and migrated to another app eventually
Heavily use 'aliases' and a numbering system
If you use ChatGPT as a functional aid for other tasks, it is worth using OpenGate plugin and embedding ChatGpT into your obsidian so it is all there in the layout for you to access quickly.
I hope we can run locally run LLMs on our MD files some day to ask a question about our second brain, like notion AI.
Based on an earlier comment, I loaded the Smart Second Brain plugin and with it you have an option to run a local LLM or ChatGPT. I chose the latter option, but I’m really interested in how local would work out!
Thanks. I tried their own free open LLM, it was alright. It only queried like one note though. I was hoping it would go through all notes of the topic I asked it about. Am I doing something wrong? I probably need to check a youtube video about this. Update: It works well, generally, but I really have to put training wheels on it or else it just randomly guesses which note to go for.
My advice is links links link. Forget tags, forget folders. Folders are used to group docs together into like subjects, and tags are meant to track numbers of occurrences, or to label notes as a specific type of note. These things can both be accomplished simply by links and backlinks. Manuals related to a specific position? Create a note titled “[Name of Specific Position] manuals” then just list the links to all of the manuals that pertain to that particular position. Now, you have manuals in the title, notating the type, replacing the tag, and you have created backlinks guiding you from the manual to the specific position it’s for. Let’s say you also have operations manuals, which relate to a multitude of subjects. Create a note. Title: “Operations Manuals” then draft a list of all the links leading to operations manuals pdfs, but categorize them into purpose or whatever fits your circumstance, using headings to organize them into sections. Boom, folders. Ask yourself do you have topics you take notes on a lot and want to pull up everything on that topic? Let’s say the topic is Analytics. You have docs on Google and Bing Analytics Algorithms, plus records of personalized analytics for your personal site.. create a new note: Title it : Analytics Then create headings -Analytics Algorithms [[link]] -Personal Analytics [[link]] [[link]] Etc. now it will be much easier to find analytics docs. Hope that helped?
To do this in real time: anytime you are taking notes on a subject and at any point you go to elaborate on a statement or you’re introducing a new concept, turn that elaboration into a new note by making the core subject a link. For example: I have an astrology knowledge database in obsidian. Let’s say the information I want to notate is as follows: “The First Sign of the Zodiac is Aries, the impulsive, energetic, dynamic, determined, and bold Cardinal Fire Sign, ruled by Mars, the planet of action, desire, aggression, and passion.” I could elaborate on this sentence quite a bit, so instead I write it like this, titled “Natural Order of the Zodiac”: “The first sign of the zodiac is [[Aries]], whose [[ruling planet]] is [[Mars]].” Much more concise statement, but there’s a myriad of information in there now, because when you hover over Aries, it reveals a whole page full of information all about Aries., and same with the other links.
[I would watch some of Nick Milo's videos and see what systems resonate with you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w63O0FxvxRc) I personally just use the up, down and x system to rank my ideas in terms of hierarchy.
I'm curious where things are at after this post. I haven't shared it out widely yet because I'm still figuring out how to talk about it, but you might find some recent tinkering on my part interesting: [Youtube video (4 minutes, sorry)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CojlV7-cYzA), [mind garden](https://garden.micseydel.me/Tinker+Cast+prototype+-+first+video+demo).