Official companion to the book "How to Take Smart Notes"
The practical guide to taking smart notes digitally


This course guides you through applying the principles of the zettelkasten using the versatile Obsidian app. It is designed for writers and thinkers of all sorts: authors, researchers, students, and anyone managing extensive information. The course offers a comprehensive approach to enhancing your digital note-taking process. Take a look at the curriculum to get an idea of what you'll learn.


What You’ll Learn:

Setting Up Your Digital Zettelkasten:

  • Install Obsidian and essential add-ons for optimal functionality.
  • Integrate the reference manager Zotero into your workflow (if needed).

Mastering the basics:

  • Explore Obsidian’s core features and customize it into your zettelkasten.
  • Learn how to capture fleeting, permanent, and literature notes.

Connecting Ideas and Boosting Creativity:

  • Understand how to link, tag, and interconnect notes to facilitate insights.
  • Complexify your thinking by forming meaningful connections.

Navigating Challenges and Avoiding Pitfalls:

  • Benefit from tried-and-tested solutions to common problems.
  • Anticipate pitfalls that may arise years down the road and proactively address them.

Creating Meaningful Content:

  • Streamline your information flow towards output
  • Turn consumption habits into creation habits

Course Approach:

  • Video-Based Learning: Work through the course at your own pace.
  • Coaching-Style Explanations: Understand not only the “how” but also the “why” behind each technique.
  • Expert Guidance: Profit from decades of experience and insights from hundreds of coaching sessions.

Included:

  • 90 + topic specific video lectures
  • Preconfigured Obsidian vault
  • Downloadable transcripts
  • Free access to future updates
  • Free access to the community
  • 14-Day Money Back Guarantee



Manage information flow

Being selective is key. When we take "smart notes", we develop a habit of selecting ideas and information that are connectable to what we already have. We seek ideas to challenge, develop, or enhance our long-term understanding of a topic.

Think in writing

Writing improves and deepens our thinking. Writing connected notes improves thinking even further: It enables us to develop more complex thoughts, pay attention to different aspects and details, and develop unique ideas worth publishing.

Create substantial output

The goal is to have something to say. By regularly capturing the best ideas, improving on them in an ongoing dialogue with our digital "zettelkasten", the whole process of publishing will be grounded in writing.

Here’s what learners are saying after completing the course:


"Excellent course with valuable and time-saving advice for setting up and improving my note-taking and idea work."
(Trond Kristiansen, Advisor e-health)

"This is the approach that I have been searching for for years to get my ideas explicit and to really benefit from the books that I read."
(Mahmoud, Chief Audit Executive)

"I learned more about note-taking in the past 2 days than I had in a long time. His [...] course beats even his book" 
(Sebastian Kamilli, Compound Learning Expert)

"As an academic who juggles multiple topics at a time, I really benefit from a workflow integrating Zotero and Obsidian. It helps me to stay on top of my writing projects and helps to foster creativity in my research." (Scientist)

"This course is what I have been looking for for years"
(Shripriya M.)

Course Curriculum


  Introduction
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  1 Setting up the System
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  2 Creating Notes and Networks
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  3 Building and Managing Complexity
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  4 Fostering Output
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  5 Automate What Can Automated With Dataview
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  6 Conclusion
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Smart Notes

Based upon the principles of smart note-taking, inspired by Niklas Luhmann's famous Zettelkasten.

Obsidian

Implemented with the simple yet ingenious app Obsidian.




Zotero

Supported by Zotero, the free open-source reference manager (optional, but highly recommended).

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