Where Jason and Inger go WAY too deep on Obsidian

18 snips

Oct 22, 2022

Jason dives deep into Obsidian, showing Inger how linked notes can turn academic policies, research ideas, and everyday thoughts into a personal, searchable web. Their wonderfully nerdy tour detours through university accreditation, Markdown, and second-brain note-taking before they wind down with books, TV, and shopping.

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INSIGHT

Networked Notes Reveal Hidden Structure

Obsidian's value appears when many short, linked notes form a visible network that mirrors associative thinking.
Jason realized a large dataset (the HESF) unlocked Obsidian's power to reveal interconnections across standards and policies.

ADVICE

Begin With A Big, Structured Project

Start Obsidian with a real, large project rather than a single note to see its relational value quickly.
Use a dataset that already has structure so links and graphs emerge fast and justify the setup time.

ANECDOTE

Sweating Accreditation Led To This System

Jason sweat about the 2025 university re-registration and realized he needed a searchable evidence system.
He planned a rehearsal (mock) submission to collect evidence progressively before the formal deadline.

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Inger and Jason catch up to get their nerd on HARD in this episode - you have been warned.

After the usual catch up - with only a little bit of old person health problems - Inger reads out some nice feedback (17:50). People loved our last episode on 'Building a second brain for writing' where we talked about Tiago Forte's book. Because of this conversation, Jason had an epiphany and started using Obsidian - a database program which Inger describes as 'your own personal Wikipedia'.

Because Jason had such a conversion moment about Obsidian, Inger had to hear all about it. Basically Inger's career success is built on copying everything Jason does so she needs him to talk her through it. Which he does. For over an hour.

Two things for listeners to note about this conversation:

1) It's nerdy. Like, really, really nerdy. Not only about Obsidian, but about TEQSA and accrediting universities and stuff like that. We don't blame you if it's too much. We'll be back to a more audience friendly format next time.

2) It is not necessarily good pod fodder because it relies a bit on seeing what Jason is doing when he talks. So Inger has made a quick, edited video of what Jason is showing her. We highly recommend having a look at this video before, or while, you are listening.

We are so exhausted by this conversation, but all we can talk about in the rest of the episode is shopping and watching TV.

Things we mentioned:
Obsidian - download it here.
The video that Inger made of what Jason was showing her
Karst desk planner

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