Scientific research notes and project management with Obsidian: the slip-box method and beyond

~ Martina

Second interview with Marly about her slip-box method of taking notes for her PhD research and managing writing projects in Obsidian. She is showing us all the advanced tricks that make her work even more efficient and describes how this system boosts her motivation and endurance.

In our first interview 2.5 years ago, Marly introduced the basics of the slip-box method of note taking (also called Zettelkasten method) and showed us how she is implementing it in Obsidian.

Since then she further developed and fine-tuned her note-taking and added new elements for managing her research and writing projects.

Content

    00:00:00 Intro: Marly’s approach to fine-tuning her note-taking system
    00:04:30 Overview of Marly’s note-taking system, different note types: fleeting notes, permanent notes, literature notes
    00:10:09 YAML metadata (e.g. for automatized creation of overview tables)
    00:15:00 Nested tags in Obsidian
    00:15:17 Note templates
    00:21:00 Weekly reviews
    00:21:55 Dataview plugin: for automatized creation of overview tables
    00:26:30 Marly’s workflow for processing literature
    00:29:25 Project management in Obsidian
    00:29:58 Dashboard
    00:30:33 Research journal
    00:32:37 Yearly calendar
    00:34:17 Writing garden (Kanban board)
    00:38:47 Community plugins in Obsidian
    00:41:41 More on Marly’s project management in Obsidian: PhD plan as a Gantt chart, breakdown into projects and goals
    00:47:50 Strategy for implementing an effective system of note-taking and project management
    00:52:56 How does the Obsidian software work
    00:54:53 Benefits of Marly’s system for her writing, planning and scientific thinking
    00:58:09 Canvas: How to use mindmapping in Obsidian to outline a future paper
    01:04:00 Ooutlook: Marly’s next step with Obsidian
    01:06:40 Closing

Useful resources and Obsidian plugins