I was a new grad student this last semester and was struggling with how to organize my notes. I've had ADHD my entire life so I was struggling in grad school due to massive amount of documents I needed to keep track of. This video changed my life! I used all your tips and learned how to use Obsidian and despite low midterm grades, I ended up with all 'A's. Thank you so much for making these quality videos!

@sarahbestPhD

5 ай бұрын

That’s wonderful, I’m so glad Obsidian helped you so much! It’s such a fantastic tool, so it’s great to hear it had such a positive impact for you

Focus has got to be the hardest thing for me...I'm often bored due to the presentation of the material. I have tried fidget toys, doodling, music..I typically find myself more focused on that activity vs what I should be learning. My mind will wander, I'll think of this thing I forgot about at the house, or a client issue I am working on, a game I'm playing; all at the same time. This is the struggle folks - it's real, and I'm sure a lot of you know about it all too well. I have such a hard time with notes because of this. I feel like I need to write everything down, and the first time I hear a term or something I'm not familiar with its off we go! "Wait, what does that mean? why don't i know that? Should I know that? Where is that in the materials? Have we discussed it before? Do I need to learn that before I can understand this?...crap!" - by the time I come back to reality I've missed several minutes of the lecture just wandering around in my brain...and it just nose dives from there. I have to learn how to learn before I can learn what I need to learn... gotta love it. Thanks brain....

I know a buncha indie tabletop role playing game designers and DMs/GMs who use Obsidian for their games lmao it's really a useful and versatile program!

@sarahbestPhD

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I’ve seen people online using it for that, it’s definitely got so many uses! My partner is a DM who homebrews everything, so I’ve tried to show him how helpful Obsidian can be haha

Thank you so much for this video. I'll implement a lot of your recommendations on my notes 🥰🥰

I am watching this just three hours away from my first PhD course work class. Thank you; it was very helpful.

@sarahbestPhD

Жыл бұрын

I’m so glad it was helpful-I hope your PhD course work goes well!

Wow!! I already see how I will love obsidian!, thank you!,

I love that you point out that doodling ≠ not paying attention, especially for those of us with ADHD (I draw a lot of cubes, but I also draw a lot of spirals just like the one at 3:11 !). Another possibility for note-taking is to find out if your class is a combination of in-person and remote, which could mean that the lectures are recorded and available somewhere. Do you use Zotero? If so, have you tried integrating Zotero into your Obsidian routine? I've found it extremely useful to have them connected, especially because you can put the annotations directly into Zotero itself. As someone with ADHD going into grad school for the first time, your videos have been 𝘴𝘰 helpful!

@sarahbestPhD

Жыл бұрын

That's a great point--a lot more classes are being done in the hybrid offline/online model now so seeing if there's a recording could definitely be helpful! And I'm glad you can relate with the doodling... I used to get in trouble in middle/high school for doodling in class, since the teachers assumed it meant I wasn't paying attention. Thank you for the Zotero suggestion--I haven't started using it yet, but I'm definitely planning on it, especially since there's a plugin for Obsidian. I've never used a referencing program before so it's a bit intimidating to start, but I'm planning to set aside some time soon to learn how to use it since I think it will be so helpful. I'm really glad my videos have been helpful for you--best of luck starting grad school! What program are you in?

@martenj94

Жыл бұрын

Exactly! I also NEED to doodle or tinker with something in order to pay attention to verbal info.

@argophontes

11 ай бұрын

@@sarahbestPhD I'm working on a History program, focusing on mid-to-late 19th century British labor advocacy groups. While I've not nailed down exactly what my thesis will be, it will likely be something involving the Chartists, Peterloo, and the 1888 Matchgirls' Strike.

Hi I'm also a PhD student with ADHD. This video is so inspiring. I'm struggling on how to organizing my thought on these articles for a long time. Although I have used obsidian before but I just got easily overwhelmed by these properties. The organization skill you presented in the video really helps me a lot. Thank you for sharing. Btw may I ask the theme or plugin you apply? The block type interface at 13:48 is quite clear in viewing stuff.

@sarahbestPhD

Жыл бұрын

I’m glad that the video was helpful! I use the Prism theme for Obsidian, and then the callouts feature for the different coloured blocks of text. Good luck with your PhD!!

So interesting to see Obsidian used this way. I work in tech and lots of my technical colleagues use Obsidian for notes. I tried it very briefly but didn’t really know where to start and it didn’t really fit my context at that time. But now I’m about to start grad school this seems absolutely ideal!

@sarahbestPhD

8 ай бұрын

It’s really interesting to see how people use obsidian for so many different things! It’s definitely been a game changer for keeping my thoughts and research organized as a student though. Good luck with grad school and I hope you find a system that works for you!

Thank you.

As a fellow phd student with ADHD, I can't express how happy I am when I found your channel! Thank you so much for making these videos. One question: how long does it take for you to migrate your notes from Notion to Obsidian. I don't have a lot of notes on Notion, but the thought of reorganizing things is still too overwhelming for me to do anything about it.

@sarahbestPhD

9 ай бұрын

Hi, I’m glad my content is helpful! For migrating the notes, it can take a little while… it’s an ongoing process for me, that I use as a way of procrastinating from other work haha. But if you only have a few notes it shouldn’t take all that long!

These were some awesome tips. I have ADHD and autism and am about to return to school for the first time since high school (2009), and I have felt really anxious about this. Someone did suggest a note-taker, however, my concern would be that the person didn't take in-depth notes or may have missed important information. I may ask to be able to record lectures so that I can take basic notes in class and focus, and then take more detailed notes at home where I can color-code them, etc. I am downloading Obsidian now, and am eager to try it. I will still do hand-written notes, but having an electronic format as a backup may be helpful. We will see! I will never be able to afford law school, but paralegal, here I come! Thank you for this helpful video. I will definitely check out more of your content.

@sarahbestPhD

4 ай бұрын

I'm so glad the video was helpful for you! I hope that you are able to record the lectures, or figure out a good system that works for you. Note taking can definitely add extra stress to school, unfortunately, and I wish more profs were more understanding of diverse learning styles. Best of luck with returning to school, and your academic journey! :)

Hey, appreciate the video. Just wondering what plugins you use for obsidian?

Great video! What is the theme you're using into Obsidian? I love the color-coding possibility of it

@sarahbestPhD

15 күн бұрын

Thank you! Sorry for the late reply, but I use the Prism theme in Obsidian :)

Love your video! How do you keep track of what your own notes/ideas/info is and what a reference to an author in obsidian? I'm still looking for a way to keep this strictly seperated to prevent plagiarism for future papers...

@sarahbestPhD

2 ай бұрын

Thank you so much! Within obsidian, I actually have separate pages for specific texts and my thoughts about them. So on a page for my reading notes, I’ll only write down the author’s points/quotes. Then I’ll have a different page where I’ll explore my own thoughts about the reading, and I’ll just have the pages linked to one another. sometimes if I do include my own notes about a text in that reading’s page, I’ll just put them in square brackets to make that distinction. But generally I find it’s just easier for me to use different linked pages, so I can be careful to avoid unintentional plagiarism

For phd and adhd it is btr for me !!

I really resonate with this video! I don’t own my own PC or Mac. I do have an IPad Pro. Can I use that exclusively for Obsidian? Thx!

@sarahbestPhD

3 ай бұрын

For sure, obsidian can be used on the iPad!

Hi Sarah, it's me, having found your channel only a little while ago! I am also using Obsidian. I see that you keep the "research" folder separately from the "dissertation" folder. May I ask what is in the dissertation folder? Do you write/plan on writing the text of your dissertation in Obsidian as well? I am keeping all my research notes in one vault and I'm also writing my text in several linked documents there, but sometimes I find it a bit confusing and hard to tell how much I have actually written for my own text. But then again I find it nice to have it all in one place, being able to connect everything. Just wondering how you are doing it--hope I didn't miss that piece of information in the video 🙂

@sarahbestPhD

15 күн бұрын

Hi! Sorry for the late reply, but yes I keep my "research" separate from my dissertation notes. The research folder contains my notes on all the readings I've done (whether they're relevant to my dissertation or not). The dissertation folder is where I keep all of my writing, thoughts, and brainstorming related to my dissertation. I do the planning and initial writing for my dissertation there in Obsidian, so I can make connections easily between different ideas and to secondary texts. Right now I'm still in the research phase of my dissertation process, but I think when I start actually writing chapters, I'll do that in Obsidian too.

In LA by any chance?

Onenote help me with these!!!

How did you make it so the folders have icons on them? I can't figure it out. Google is mad failing me.

@sarahbestPhD

9 ай бұрын

I think since one of Obsidian’s latest updates the folder icons are no longer available, unfortunately! At least, I’ve been unable to use them since. But it was a community plugin

@Laslus_

9 ай бұрын

@@sarahbestPhD On the same note, how do you make those little cute boxes that separate the sections in your text?

Is there a good handwriting hack for Obsidian though? The built in handwriting has TERRIBLE function including but not limited to hand to text conversion. And it doesn't allow you to keep things in handwritten form if you want that (serve the fun need). This is the main thing holding me back.. but nothing else seems to fit all the needs either. Bah!

@sarahbestPhD

4 ай бұрын

I don't know actually, I've never tried to use the handwriting function. Maybe ask on the Obsidian subreddit? there's usually lots of helpful support and ideas on there!

An welcher Universität bist du?

@sarahbestPhD

2 ай бұрын

Wilfrid Laurier/University of Waterloo

Do you have to take adhd drugs to stay in your PhD program?

@sarahbestPhD

5 ай бұрын

I don’t have to, I do take medication which I think makes some things easier, but everyone is different and medication isn’t a necessity for everyone, nor does it work for everyone

I don't understand why almost all videos on note-taking advise one to capture key words because you cannot capture everything verbatim, yet the same videos show neatly written notes in trendy notebooks. Most likely, what's depicted are the "oraganized" notes, but I'd like to see examples of the raw notes during a lecture (e.g.,) to get examples of how good note-taker captures information that will eventually be transcribed in those notebooks - and BTW, those translated notes would most likely be on a computer. Just my opinion..

@sarahbestPhD

2 ай бұрын

For the most part, I think all of the notebooks shown in this video are actually my notes from class! I think I showed some from my undergrad classes, and some from grad school. My note-taking style has changed a lot over the years, and depending on the class, will range in terms of messiness. I used to care a lot about having neat/aesthetic notes, but not so much anymore!

The fact that professors are obtuse about having lecture notes and writing/ displaying them is weird. Even teachers have to write down/ explain their notes. Annoying.

@sarahbestPhD

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, different profs have different styles of lecturing, but unfortunately don’t always understand that students have a variety of learning styles and often need slides/visual aids