There’s def a learning curve to #ObsidianMD. Especially if you want to do the kinds of things I’m trying to do. It really helps a lot to have a background in tech. It really helps a lot to have prior experience with YAML and Markdown.
Dataview is one of a great many community plugins, but it’s so ridiculously powerful it should almost be considered a core feature. It has a learning curve of its own. It helps a lot if you have some SQL experience. This comes back to my mention of YAML. If you’re mindful and proactive about consistently structuring your notes, I’m finding Dataview to be an extremely powerful way to query your notes like a database. Some of my notes have no content except Dataview queries, effectively acting as dashboards to help me get a summarized view of my notes as seen through different lenses. And I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface with it / haven’t really put in the work yet to get the most out of it.
If you’ve got #Javascript background, there is also DataviewJS which is a whole other level of power. Sadly I don’t have JavaScript background so I haven’t really tapped into this yet.
I’m definitely finding #ObsidianMD to have enormous potential. And there’s a lot of learning to do to get the most out of it. But I’m finding that taking the time to learn, to practice, to figure out and improve my workflow, it’s a really good investment. At some point I expect it’ll be about the same effort as the “brain dump notes” I was taking before, but with all of the benefits that come from a little structure and connective tissue in Obsidian.
There’s so much more I want to do with it in my personal life. I’m still in early iterations of how I will use it for capturing book/podcast/article/#Blinkist notes. And barely scratching the surface of how to use it to augment, accelerate, and connect my various interests.
I’m also now seeing, I think, the #writers potential. Very #ADHD of me, I have these big book ideas in my head, I start writing, but then I distract myself with something else and struggle to find my footing when I come back to the writing project. I think I’m starting to see a way to prepare myself in Obsidian to start writing within a curated & prepared framework, be able to walk away from it, but then return with enough cognitive context to pick it back up again.
I think I’m also seeing a path for helping my squirrel brain to break down bigger writing projects into a linear progression of smaller ones. Particularly for non-fiction content. I’ve had a really unusually successful career as an openly Autistic executive leader, and I often get feedback that there are some things I’m consistently really excellent at that most other executives really struggle with. I think that being Neurodivergent gave me an edge in figuring it out. But I also think my methods are entirely teachable and learnable.
One such area is having a moment in #HR circles right now. The cool kids are calling it #TalentDensity but I figured most of this out for myself when I was trying to be a positive change agent inside of #UnitedHealth and seeing how many around me were so wasteful with the latent potential of their existing staff. I was able to double down on this and prove it works through outcomes at scale. And I’m getting the same positive feedback at Lark.
I feel like I’m doing the world a disservice by only sharing my learnings with my senior staff and the mentees outside of my department. I’d like to leverage Obsidian to help me get this out of my head and into a format that others can add to their professional skillset.
#leadership #pkm #management #talent #selfImprovement #neurodiverseSquad
