Take notes the way our brains work

Notes are a life hack: low stakes, high value for learning. Ditch outdated school-style notes! Take notes like your brain works—interconnected & evolving

Below are my notes from Continuous note taking with Obsidian by Nicole van der Hoeven. I watched the video, picked up transcript via tactiq, fed into local LLM to give me the highlights. Then I cleaned up to make it useful for me.

# Key Takeaways from the video:

  • Notes help with learning, building knowledge, and showing your worth to others!
  • Old "notes for school" style = Useless in real life
  • Take notes the way our brains work - interconnected & evolving
  • Notes should be CI/CD of learning
  • Notes are "low stake, high value" life hack

# Intro

  • Nicole (speaker) → Dev Advocate at Grafana Labs (but not a dev!).
  • Got into tech & testing roles w/ no tech background (econ major!) – succeeded by learning & taking notes.
  • Notes helped her land jobs + show skills that weren’t "official" at first.

# Challenges in Learning Tech

  • Tech = SO MUCH to learn, moves crazy fast; can’t keep up with everything.
  • Old way of taking notes (like in school):
    • Separated by subject → No overlap or links between topics.
    • Static → Write once, never update.
    • Focus: Passing the exam, not real learning.
    • Temporary → Forget it all after exam or when topic’s done.

# The New Way of Taking Notes

  • Take notes the way our brains work – everything's connected & always evolving.
  • New system = 4 big changes:
    • Interconnected: Link notes together (ideas, opposites, examples, whatever!).
    • Evolving: Updates as you learn or grow – keep notes alive.
    • Abstract + Contextual: Notes for your immediate needs, but also find big-picture patterns over time.
    • Future-ready: Use formats/tools that won’t disappear; searchable, shareable, and easy to use later.

# Continuous Note-Taking

  • Taking notes like CICD for software development (iterative process).
    • Idea: Learn something → process it → take notes → share → get feedback → tweak → keep going.
  • Notes = Never "done." They evolve + improve continuously.
  • Helps you stay sharp and build long-term knowledge!

# What’s Obsidian?

  • Obsidian = Note-taking app → "Your brain, but external."
    • Think of it as your own personal Wikipedia, not like Google Docs.
    • All notes = markdown files (plain text → future-proof).
  • Cool features:
    • Local-only: Your notes, fully owned by you. Back ‘em up however you want.
    • Links system: Easy to connect ideas between notes (explicit + implicit links).
    • Graph View: See a map of how your notes/ideas relate. Nerdy, but cool!
    • Plugins: Super customizable → add new features (from the community, too!).

# How to Use Obsidian

  1. Daily Notes to Start:
    • Kick off each day in a daily note → Jot down meetings, tasks, random thoughts.
    • Use [[brackets]] to link keywords to other notes.
  2. Auto-Linking Magic:
    • Whether you make a link or not, Obsidian tracks mentions of your notes! (Linked + unlinked mentions).
  3. Graph View:
    • Fancy visual graph shows connected ideas.

# How Nicole Uses Obsidian

# 1. Logging Stuff (Notes While Working)

  • Logs all her testing/learning experiments (e.g., trying tools, approaches).
  • Adds tables for results, code snippets, links to dashboards/docs. Super casual, yet useful.

# 2. Learning Made Easy

  • Turns those "logs" into clean, polished notes later (e.g., step-by-step guides).
  • Examples: Installing tools, learning git/Python, or testing notes → Her own little reference library!

# 3. Sharing & Learning in Public

  • Uses earlier notes as foundations for blog posts, YouTube vids, or talks like this one.
  • Takes messy notes → Polishes them → Teaches others → Gets feedback → Learns even more!

# 4. Content Creation

  • Even this presentation was written in Obsidian using a plugin (Markdown → Presentation!).

# 5. Collab via GitHub

  • Obsidian is perfect for team docs! Can open GitHub repos as folders → Write docs w/ linking/search built in.

# 6. Publishing Notes

  • Shares polished notes using Obsidian Publish or static site tools like Hugo.
  • Example: Her Python, git, testing notes are all public → Makes her learning process visible to others.

# Why Continuous Notes Are Awesome

  1. Learn Faster: Writing for future you forces deeper understanding.
  2. Small Wins Add Up: Each note might feel "meh," but over time → you build massive knowledge.
  3. Never Start Fresh: Notes = backups for your brain. Always something to riff on!
    • E.g., Needs to write about "performance testing"? Search notes → Tons of starting points already there.
  4. Learning Exhaust: Share iterative drafts/notes → Helps others, builds your rep, invites feedback.

# Nicole’s Personal Note-Taking Wins

  • Her Obsidian vault = 10,000+ notes, all interconnected w/ visual graph view.
  • Employers LOVE it – It shows her knowledge/skills in a tangible way.
    • Before notes? Had a hard time "proving" worth for jobs.
    • Now? Notes = Portable proof of expertise and projects!

# Final Takeaways

  • Notes = Life hack for learning faster + showing your skills to others (current/future you included).
  • Start thinking of note-taking as an evolving, living process (not a "write it and forget it" thing).
  • Tools like Obsidian make it easy to build this system → Super worth it for long-term success.

Resources: Nicole’s slides + blog post available on her site: nicolevanderhoeven.com.

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