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if I had to start over in Obsidian today
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here's what I would do Don't import your
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notes Don't make folders Try this
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approach instead Hey I'm Nick Milo and
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this is Linking Your Thinking where we
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explore ways to stop consuming and start
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connecting the thoughts that matter most
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to us No matter where you are in life
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there is an easy way to regain agency
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over our thoughts and what we're
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experiencing on a daily basis The key is
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really to go from consuming content to
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connecting ideas And now basic note apps
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like Obsidian make it easy and fun for
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us to do exactly that And that's really
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the purpose of this video So let's start
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by opening an empty Obsidian Now
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technically they call this a vault but
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once you start linking notes it becomes
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an idea verse An idea verse is simply a
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well-connected internet of notes Think
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of it this way You already have an
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internet for the outer world It's
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everywhere And Iverse is an internet for
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the inner world So if I had to start
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over with Obsidian today here is what I
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would do to move from a collector to a
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connector It's a wonderful place to be
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Let's dive in What you're looking at
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right now is a piece of my main idea
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verse While it has over 10,000 notes
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it's not about the notes It's about the
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quality of the links That's what we're
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going to do together So if we go down
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and say manage vaults we can open up
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this popup window Together we're going
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to start over and forget all the stuff
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that that used to be there So let's go
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ahead and create a new vault And let's
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give this one a name new idea verse and
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just place it somewhere that makes sense
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to you I'm going to place it in a folder
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I have called vaults All right let's go
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ahead and hit the create button And now
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it's open Cool It's a little small so
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let's go ahead and expand this to fit
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more of the screen And then we'll also
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make it much bigger so it's easier to
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read Now they default to dark mode I
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won't want to change any of the settings
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because we're not focused on settings
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We're not focused on really anything
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other than connecting ideas to one
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another So starting over the first thing
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I want to do is to create a new note But
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what type of note should I create let's
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call it a thing note So that's just some
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thing out there in the world that you
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heard about And you find it one of two
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things You either find it interesting or
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you find it important And if it can be
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both of those things all the better So
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let me ask you what's something recently
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that's been interesting or important to
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you now for me I'm going to go ahead and
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hit create new note And um there's this
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concept that I've just been obsessed
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with the past 4 and 1/2 years So I'm
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going to give it a name And it's it's
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called the nearness principle So this is
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a thing It's an idea that the closer
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things are to each other the more
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apparent their relationships become Just
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by making this note it's bringing me
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calm It's bringing me joy and I'm
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wondering what can this connect to so
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using one of the best note-making
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prompts around I'm going to start to
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type It reminds me of and why I like
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this prompt so much is because it forces
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us to then answer So it reminds me of
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the the dotted art
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paintings
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from
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Sarra And as I do that we can now see
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that the nearness principle in the graph
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connects to Sarra But I haven't created
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this note yet so we don't see it over in
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the sidebar But this is fun though I
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mean when you do this yourself it's fun
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because what you're connecting already
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is inherently meaningful to you and
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you're just finding a way to take it and
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externalize it So you can now visualize
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it and create leaps of insights from it
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So this is what I'd do if I was starting
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over I would start with like a thing
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note but then I would try to find
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something else that resonates So what's
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another thing out there in the world
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that when you hear about it or you read
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it you go "Oh that sparks with me That's
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interesting or important." I don't know
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For me I would say it's a quote Every so
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often I hear this great quote and I want
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to keep it I want to hold on to it I
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want to chew on it later I don't know
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exactly when but I want to be reminded
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of it too So in this case I was recently
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enjoying Dune Part Two the movie I was
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also rereading the Dune books and the
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quote that you can tell the author just
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absolutely loves and because I think
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it's so powerful Fear is the mind killer
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Listen I gave you and along with that is
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a whole quote about fear and I want to
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capture all of that So I'm going to make
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a new note It's another thing note but
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it's it's a quote this time And boom So
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I've just pasted in the quote and I love
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this Fear is the mind killer Now we can
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see it over on the graph view and it's
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all by itself So I'm thinking to myself
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and just naturally what does this
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connect to am I just going to create
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this cool quote and not connect it to
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anything or could I connect it to maybe
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the the source material the book maybe
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the author so how about we do both of
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those things so just at the bottom of
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the quote it doesn't matter how you do
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this but just I'll put from
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Dune by the
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author Frank Herbert Cool Period And now
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we can see that this graph of ours is
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starting to make some really nice and
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interesting connections So if I collapse
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the sidebar for now we can see a little
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bit more of the graph view And there is
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Frank Herbert There's Dune And there's
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fear is the mind killer which is the
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link between the two I mean how cool is
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that so now we have this great note
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Where else can we go though we can go in
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so many different directions Maybe you
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think of fear And if if you're a Taylor
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Swift fan if if you're a Swifty maybe
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you say "This reminds me of Do you know
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where I'm going with this if you're a
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Swifty you know the answer is the song
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Fearless So now we can connect it to the
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song Fearless Let's go ahead and create
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that as a new note So now we have a song
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just dedicated to this note So we can
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say a song by and now we can start
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typing Taylor Swift here And now we have
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another connection to Taylor Swift So
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let's go ahead and make this graph view
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bigger just so we can kind of see what's
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happening So we started with Fear is the
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Mind Killer We'll see a couple
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connections between Frank Herbert and
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Dune And now over here we have a
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connection to Fearless and Taylor Swift
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This is fun Anytime that your thinking
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system your idea verse is no longer a
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joy to be
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in something's gone wrong But there is a
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way to fix it And it's just by making
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notes like this This is what I would do
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if I would start over So let's just do a
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couple more and then we'll round this
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whole thing up All right we're our own
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sponsors for today's video And while
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this video is all about starting over
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sometimes you want just a little bit
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more guidance And that's where I created
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a free done for you system of linked
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notes called Idea Verse Light It's the
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most downloaded set of linked notes on
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the entire planet The link links are
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everything is in the description below
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Download it Check it out See what
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resonates even if it's just learning
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about the tutorials around links and
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maps of content but in the end
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definitely make it your own Now back to
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it Okay so from Fearless we can go to a
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song by Taylor Swift and you can see how
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this graph view is really coming into
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its own Can you see the value of a
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personal internet of your own notes that
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is what you get with an idea verse No
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matter where I am if I were to start
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over it's all about connecting the dots
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That's all it's about In fact oh I love
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that Let's go Let's go for it Let's
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create a new note and just type it's all
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about connecting the dots I love it Okay
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And so now we have this note And by the
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way before Ooh I a couple great things
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are happening We're going to show them
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all But number one what haven't I done
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so far i've created zero folders I've
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added zero plugins And uh there's no
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metadata that I've been adding as well
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All I'm doing is connecting the dots If
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you're starting over what's fun is
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what's going to get done So how can you
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make this fun how can you explore and
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wander in this case it's all about
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connecting the dots And I want to write
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about this So maybe I'll start with this
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sentence
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Because
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when you see
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things next to each
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other sparks can
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fly All right So are you seeing the
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connection are you seeing the connection
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so it's all about this is your big test
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We're doing this We're doing this
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together It's all about connecting the
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dots on the graph view It's not
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connected to anything What would you
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connect it to there's something that's
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screaming out that should be
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connected I could write this better but
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let's use our one of our favorite
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note-making prompts This reminds me of
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the
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power of Here it is
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The nearness principle Is that what you
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were thinking if so you're feeling it
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already Now we have where we started The
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nearness principle is connected to it's
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all about connecting the dots How
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amazing No matter if you're actually
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starting from scratch or if you just
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need a mental reset It's all about
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recapturing the joy again And the way to
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do that is to just start with five notes
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and see how you can connect them Think
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about the notes we're creating too These
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aren't meeting notes These aren't
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project notes These are things that are
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intrinsically internally meaningful And
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so when you create them it's going to be
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fun and it's going to be joyful So here
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what are the five notes that that I
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created we started with the nearness
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principle Fear is the mind killer that
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took us to fearless took us to Taylor
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Swift And then we ended with it's all
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about connecting the dots So no matter
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if they're thing note whatever type of
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thing note they are whether it's a movie
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or a book or a quote a person make these
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notes find the interesting connections
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and if you're looking for that
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connecting prompt we would call it a
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note-making prompt The best one that you
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can use and you saw me use it multiple
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times is this reminds me of And then
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whatever you say next will likely link
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out to a different idea or different
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thing And you might as well make that an
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actual link yourself This is all about
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the connections When it's you making the
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connections not AI not other people on
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the big internet When it's you making
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the connections it means more It rewires
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your brain in a way that empowers you to
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do your own thinking and that's a pretty
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good feeling Hey and final note It turns
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out this is going to be a minieries all
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about how to restart in Obsidian and how
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you might want to go about it because
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it's not just about capturing ideas from
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the outside in But in the next video
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we're going to look at how we can
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capture ideas from the inside out I'll
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see you there
