Why Is Obsidian The Right Tool To Supercharge Your School Learning?

Why Obsidian?

Out of all the tons of modern-day knowledge management apps we could choose from, why Obsidian?

I have made my PKM journey from Google Keep, to Notion, to Evernote, to Roam Research, and finally to Obsidian. I have been around the block with notetaking apps. Of course, I'm a little biased but by far the best one I have used is Obsidian.

Obsidian makes me feel free. It makes me feel alive when I open it. Not like I want to die inside.

There are four main reasons:

1. It's incredibly customizable

2. It's link based system allows you to scale knowledge across semesters

3. You own your knowledge

4. The Community is incredible

First the customizability of Obsidian is like no other app I have seen. At its base when you install it, it's incredible simple to use. It's essentially just notes connected to other notes. But through adding core and community plug ins to your vault, as well as creating your own linking, tag, and folder system you can create an entirely personal system for knowledge management.

Secondly, it's linked based nature. The main power of a linked based knowledge management system is you can connect concepts together in a way that expresses your unique perspective. This is the heart of Conceptual Notemaking. As mentioned before, the brain doesn't memorize things by siloing them off into individual folders in your head. It connects things together. Linked based systems allow you to write notes like your brain does.

Third, you own your knowledge. All your files in Obsidian are stored as plain text markdown documents on your computer hard drive. You also have the ability to sync across different devices if you so choose. This makes your notetaking system, Antifragile, it gains from disorder. If Obsidian--or the whole world for that matter--blows up you can take knowledge knowing that your notes are safe.

Fourth and finally, the community is incredible. Almost everyone I have met in the Obsidian community is kind hearted and committed to helping others flesh out their PKM systems. The discord is active. Nick Milo, in my opinion the Godfather of the Obsidian community, hosts regular Linking Your Thinking Workshops where he teaches people the basics of PKM in Obsidian in general. The plug in developers are at work creating and refining plug ins for Obsidian. And of course you can't forget the content creators like John and I.

Plus as a bonus for if you take our course, Obsidian University, you will get exclusive access to a discord community of fellow students learning to break out of the The Cookie Cutter Student Mindset including John and I.

Ultimately these four things, Customizability, link based nature, owning your knowledge, and the community make it mine and John's favorite notetaking app we have used thus far.

If you resonated with this post you should check out my free email course: 3 Days to Lecture Notetaking Mastery In Obsidian.

By the end of this free email course, you will:

• Have a systemized process for notetaking and studying from your lectures
• Understand how to build a knowledgebase that scales across classes and semesters
• Be amazed that you did it all in 3 days