introduction
obsidian is a powerful and flexible tool. it is uses markdown syntax which is simple, quick to learn and pretty universal - most text editors will open them and read them. backlinks are the powerhouse of obsidian, i try to use them often and intentionally.
graph view is useful to explore notes and their connections but I dont often find myself looking at it beyond the glamour of seeing all my notes visually. you can use it to see how different notes may end up connected by following the jumps in nodes.
plugins I use
most of these are just for personalizing your vault. as a grad student, the most important plugin is zotero integration | setting up zotero integration. The rest I like because they make my life a bit easier and make my vault more enjoyable to work in. Here are the obsidian plugins that i use.
workflow for daily notes
I have a daily note template with date as the title, a to do section, and notes section with different topics divided by subheaders.
I like to use obsidian for my task management as well as taking notes. These feel connected to me. my to do list section lives at top of each daily note. I then have a note called “TODO” which uses the dataview plugin and tasks plugin to search for all my incomplete todo items using this dataview code segment:
> ```tasks
> not done
> hide priority
> hide scheduled date
> hide postpone button
> hide edit button
> sort by filename
> ```
my daily notes build up my foundation of how I keep a digital lab notebook this process will probably morph over time as I find my flow and will not look the same for everyone.
workflow for literature notes
obsidian is used for how I read academic papers and take notes on them. this may also morph and change overtime but for now is working ok.