There are dozens of note-taking applications, and you are probably using one of them. So, why should you invest the time to migrate to Obsidian? Isn't it "just another note-taking application"? How is it better? How can it help you, and why should you care?

Unlike its peers, Obsidian presents itself as "your second brain". This might sound pretentious and akin to typical advertising, but as we will see in this guide, it's entirely justified. You see, unlike its peers, Obsidian also offers multiple ways to link your notes.

Precisely because of those links, Obsidian can help you see patterns emerge from your notes. In turn, those patterns allow you to see how some of your notes relate to each other in ways you hadn't considered. And before you know it, you've created a "second brain" for yourself. So, let's dive into Obsidian and how it works.

Enter the Vault With Obsidian for Windows

Obsidian doesn't work like Notepad, which allows you to create and save notes anywhere. Instead, it's closer to a Wiki, offering a better way to store, organize, and retrieve information. It will be easier to understand its logic if you know a bit about Wikis—check our guide on internal wikis and how you can set them up to learn more about them.

Obsidian keeps all its notes within a particular folder to which it refers as a "vault". However, you can create multiple vaults and store them wherever you wish.

For example, here's a helpful tip: are you using any cloud storage services, like Dropbox or Google Drive? Store a vault inside their folder, and you will be able to access your notes on all of your devices.

Every vault is treated by Obsidian as a self-contained system, with its own notes, plug-ins, and settings. One restriction with this approach is that you cannot link notes between different vaults.

By using multiple vaults, you can set up individual workflows, each with its own settings and plug-ins, optimally customized for different projects or uses. You could have all your personal notes in one vault, all your work-related drafts in another, and all the research for the book you are working on in a third one.

So, after downloading Obsidian from its official site, installing, and running it, click on Create to set up a new vault inside a folder.

The first step to using Obsidian is creating a Vault.

Obsidian works with markdown, and can directly open markdown files, usually stored with an ".MD" extension. If you're not familiar with these files, make sure to check our beginners guide on markdown.

If you have markdown files in a folder, possibly from another note-taking application you were using, you can click on Open and use that as a vault.

However, for this tutorial, we are going for a new vault from scratch. Give it a name and choose where you want to place it, and then click on the new Create button at the bottom of the window.

Obsidian can work with multiple vaults, but treats them as individual workspaces.

How to Create Connected Notes in Obsidian

After choosing or creating your vault, it's time to start populating it with notes. You can blame Obsidian's versatility for its admittedly convoluted interface. You will eventually get familiar with it. However, for now, it's easier to use the CTRL + N keyboard shortcut to create your first note.

You can click on a button to create a new note, but pressing CTRL+N is easier.

Give it a title (which will also be its filename), and start typing like you would in any other text-editing app.

If you create a second note and type the title of your first note enclosed in double brackets, you will link to it. However, one of Obsidian's superpowers is that you can also create links to non-existing notes. When a phrase in double brackets doesn't match the name of an existing note, Obsidian will automatically create one when you try to open it.

Although Obsidian works like any other note-taking app, it supports linking your notes with the equivalent of wikilinks, by enclosing them in double square brackets.

You can also use aliases to change how links appear when you are previewing a note. For that, add the "|" pipe symbol right after your link, followed by the alternative text.

To "style" your notes, Obsidian fully supports markdown syntax for adding headings, quotes, etc. You can press the default CTRL + E key combination anytime to switch between editing and preview mode. This is extra-helpful for previewing how your note will look when exported to an application like Office, Google Docs, or even WordPress.

By pressing CTRL+E at anytime you can preview how a note looks in markdown "output" mode (or imported in apps like Microsoft Word).

How to Set Tags in Obsidian

You can also use tags to organize your notes. However, unlike most note-taking solutions, Obsidian follows the Twitter approach: you can type your tags anywhere you wish.

Some prefer keeping their tags separate from the "main" text, adding them all on a single line. Others find including them in the text "more organic".

Obsidian supports tags, and you can place them wherever you want in a note.

Thus, both of the following approaches are valid:

        #muo #note #obsidian

This is my first #note in #obsidian, thanks #muo!

You can seek specific tags using several of Obsidian's tools:

  • The search functionality (CTRL + Shift + F).
  • The tag pane (which appears by default on the top-right if enabled).
  • The graph (which we will see later).

As you link more and more notes, you can use the Backlinks pane on the right sidebar to see everything that connects back to the active note.

That's where you will find another of Obsidian's brilliant features: it can detect mentions of a note's name, even if they aren't actual links. Thus, you can use the Backlinks pane to find all links to the active note, but also everything that refers to it.

You can add links to sites and online resources to your notes like you would in any other markdown editor, with the following syntax:

        [Word or phrase for link](URL)

[MUO](https://makeuseof.com)

[...do some basic research](https://wikipedia.com)

You can also embed both local content and online resources into your notes. Drag a PDF, image, or another markdown file into one of your notes, and Obsidian will automatically copy it into your vault and add a link to it.

Drag and drop PDFs, image files, or other markdown notes, and Obsidian will embed them in the active note.

For online content, you will have to use what web developers refer to as "iframes".

Online content can also be embedded in Obsidian using iFrames, but that's more complicated than dragging and dropping a file into a note.

We won't dive into details since it can get complicated, and this isn't an article on web development. The simplest way to do it is using the following syntax:

        <iframe src="URL"></iframe>

<iframe src="https://makeuseof.com"></iframe>

<iframe src="https://wikipedia.com"></iframe>

By adding notes, your vault can soon turn into a maze. Helpfully, Obsidian offers multiple ways to make sense out of potential chaos.

Organising Your Notes Using Folders

You will find a button for creating folders at the top of the navigation pane on the left sidebar. You can freely create folders and subfolders and move notes between them.

However, you can also use your favorite file manager, which is probably better for moving files and folders around. Obsidian uses plain folders and markdown files and doesn't mind if you change their paths. It will re-locate them and update its internal links. At least, as long all your notes and related folders remain within the same vault.

Utilizing the Graph in Obsidian

Press CTRL + G at any time, and you'll see Obsidian's graph replacing your active note. The graph visually presents the links and tags between your notes, helping you uncover relations between notes you hadn't realized existed.

Obsidian's Graph displays visually the relations between notes.

Using the Map of Content (MoC) Concept in Obsidian

Maps of Content offer a manual way of organizing your notes, and they're becoming more popular thanks to Obsidian. Also known as MOCs, they are "core" notes you can draft to make sense of the rest.

A MOC is a typical note that might contain a title, a paragraph describing a topic, and links to all of your other notes, tags, and maybe online resources related to it.

Justifying the “Second Brain” Monicker

What we saw should be enough to help you start using Obsidian as your second brain. With enough notes added and relations between them set up, each graph will even start looking like a visualization of brain neurons!

However, we've only scratched the surface. You can also tweak Obsidian's looks, re-arrange its interface, or tweak its appearance with simple CSS rules. And we haven't even mentioned its hundreds of plug-ins, many of which are complex enough to warrant dedicated articles.

Hopefully, however, you've now got a good grasp on how to use this "second brain" and how it can help you.